- Who’s Your (Civic) Space?: Spatial audits, behavioural analysis participatory action research (PAR), and spatial activation strategies as methods to understand civic spaces and to form the basis for design interventions and programming strategies   459 kb by    Burcher, Lise | lburcher@uoguelph.ca    Short Outline Spatial audits, behavioural analysis participatory action research (PAR), and spatial activation strategies are designed and assessed as methods to understand civic spaces and to form the basis for design interventions and programming strategies. Abstract A case study for the mid-size city of Guelph, Canada describes the multi-faceted approach designed to conduct spatial audits, behavioural research and active citizen participatory activies to understand civic space utilization, perceptions and desires as the pre-requisite to the collaborative design of specific interventions including physical design, spatial programming and space management. Outcomes from spatial observations, user intercept interviews, participant employed photography (PET) and space activation activities are assessed from the range of exploratory activities undertaken over a six month period in the three primary civic spaces within the core area of the city. Methods designed and utilized are evaluated and documented fully as “lessons learned for potential replication within similar contexts and conditions. Keywords spatial audit, behavioural analysis, spatial audit, citizen angagement Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2012: Fast Forward: Planning in a (hyper) dynamic urban context   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper