#16 · During the Assembly
How to create a situation where everyone can meet on equal footing? How to create physical environments for productive interactions, engagement and collaboration?
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Enabling Spaces are comprehensive infrastructures that support collaborative processes created through interactions and material arrangements. Spatial challenges in CCAs include: material and architectural exclusion (e.g., inaccessible venues, poor acoustics or lighting and hierarchical layouts); institutional settings that signal elitism or expert dominance; and epistemic privileging through the spatial positioning of people with expertise and technical materials. These factors can either reproduce exclusionary dynamics or foster inclusive, enabling, deliberative spaces.
Designing physical spaces for CCAs entails considering trade-offs among factors such as convenience (e.g., public transport access), comfort (e.g., well-lit, spacious, and cared for spaces), or community ownership (e.g., using a public building that can be accessed freely outside of CCA meetings). In addition, measures such as mobility support, childcare, interpretation services, or food choices complement spatial and social design. Overall, enabling spaces can facilitate collaborative knowledge creation and innovation by incorporating architectural, technological, social, cognitive, organisational, cultural and emotional dimensions, thereby providing a framework for creating equal footing in CCAs.
DemocracyNext’s Spaces for Deliberation project investigates how spatial design can address internal exclusions, support the productive embrace of disagreements, or support the co-creation of regenerative, place-based assemblies.Their reflections have produced eight spatial qualities for designing deliberative assemblies
In South Tyrol some facilitators had flowers at the center of a space to serve as a symbolic heart and visual anchor, focusing the group on their shared purpose and goals in the facilitation philosophy of the Art of Hosting. Their central arrangement creates an open, equitable atmosphere, encourages dialogue and collaboration, and, through their calming presence, supports focus, creativity, and an inviting aesthetic.
In Catalunya emotional connection to the land was facilitated through the provision of local food and notes on how and where these were produced. The meetings were held in five different cities, the food diversity was high and gave the participants the opportunity to engage with different areas. In addition, transportation, and accommodation were provided to the 100 participants coming from across the whole territory of Catalonia Climas_Best-Practice-Case
García-Espín, P. (2023). Class Inequalities and Participatory Democracy: Assessing the Impact of Social Inclusion Tools in Citizens’ Assemblies. Political Studies Review, 22(3), 585-607. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299231179081 (Original work published 2024)
Peschl, Markus F. and Fundneider, Thomas (2014): Designing and enabling interfaces for collaborative knowledge creation and innovation. From managing to enabling innovation as socio-epistemological technology. Published in: Computers and Human Behavior No. 37 : pp. 346-359.
Van Maasakkers, M., & Oh, J. (2020). Where Should We Have the Meeting? Venue Creation for Participation and Collaboration in Planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 86(2), 196–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2019.1685904
