DESIGNING TOGETHER: C O L A B
Co-designing an inclusive co-creation space for a public library.
Role: Interaction Designer
Context: University Project
Duration: 10 Weeks
Tools: Illustrator, Lasercutting, Co-Design
This project explored how a public library could create an inclusive co-creation space that supports collaborative learning, shared making, and participation across generations.
THE GOAL
To understand what an inclusive co-creation space in the library could be, and how responsibility for it could be shared.
PROJECT FRAMING
To explore how an inclusive co-creation space could balance tensions between users across age spans, interests, and management.
Understanding the Existing Situation
Before defining a new co-creation space, we, a team of four, wanted to understand how the library already handled similar situations in practice, such as openness, material management, scheduling, and shared responsibility.
This meant observing existing library spaces, talking to staff and stakeholders, and visiting activities that already relied on collaboration, shared resources, and community involvement.
Material management: Who takes out the tools, and who cleans them up?
Spaces: How does current creative spaces look like?
Scheduling: Discovering how community activities are currently organized.
Repair Cafe: Real community collaboration and shared making in action!
Emerging Tensions
As the process continued, it became clear that the challenge was not only to imagine an inclusive co-creation space, but to help the library understand the tensions within its own ambitions.
Many of the things stakeholders wanted were valuable, but difficult to combine in one shared room. The project therefore shifted toward making these tensions visible, discussable, and easier to navigate together.
OPEN TO EVERYONE ↔ SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Making the space open and accessible to everyone could make it harder to create ownership around safety, maintenance, and care of materials.
ALL AGES ↔ AGE RESTRICTION
Designing for all ages sounded inclusive, but also introduce tensions around supervision, safety, and whether different groups would feel comfortable sharing the same space.
To move beyond discussion, we created a small intervention in the library to provoke reflection and invite participation.
A simple board asked visitors what a library is to them and what they would like to do in such a space. With those insights, we could turn them into personas.
Intervention Board
Personas
Turning Insights into a Shared Experience
We turned the personas into a collaborative game to make tensions between users visible. Instead of discussing trade-offs, stakeholders experienced them.
Game Board
Stakeholders Playing the Game
What This Revealed
INCLUSION CREATES TENSION
Bringing different users together revealed some tensions. What works for playful use doesn’t always fit professional needs and expectations.
PREFERENCES BECAME NEGOTIABLE
Stakeholders began discussing what the space should and should not be, negotiating priorities based on different users’ needs.
REAL USER NEEDS EMERGED
The game gave them insight into what people actually wanted to do in the space, grounding the discussion beyond assumptions.
Rather than resolving these tensions into a single fixed solution, we aligned with stakeholders on a different approach.
The space would not be designed as a finished concept, but as something that could evolve over time, a design in use, shaped continuously by its users, stakeholders, and context.
Final Outcome
The final outcome was not a single solution, but a set of materials designed to support this ongoing negotiation:
THE GAME BOARD
A tool for stakeholders to explore different user perspectives and negotiate how the space could be used.
CONCEPT VIDEO
A visualization of how the space could function in practice, showing interactions, scenarios, and use over time.
REPORT
A compilation of insights, tensions, and design recommendations to support future development of the space.
The Co-Lab Game Board
To support ongoing discussions, we designed a physical game board that stakeholders could use to explore decisions together.
Unlike the earlier version, this one translates tensions into clear choices, so participants can work through trade-offs as they go.
We designed and produced the board ourselves, with a custom laser-cut pattern and 3D-printed pieces.
The Board in Action
Here’s a quick look at how the board can work:
1. Ideating Solutions
The team starts by brainstorming core activities like sewing and DIY furniture at the startup meeting.
2. Analyzing Activities
Initial ideas are broken down onto modular cards to visualize the space layout before the Co-Lab opens.
3. Capturing Friction Points
Once open, a patron identifies a problem and submits a suggestion.
4. Gathering Perspectives
Stakeholders review feedback to understand needs and frustrations.
5. Problem Discussion
The team discusses which activity can solve the problem found.
6. Discussing User Needs
The board supports discussion and negotiation of trade-offs.
You can watch the full video here if there is time :)
Report & Documentation
We made a report based on our findings and recommendations. If there is time, feel free to read the report here: View Full Report.