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Public facility design for sustainability: Participatory action research on household recycling in Hong Kong

While many researchers have pointed out that public design can increase users’ sustainable practices, how to achieve good public designs is challenging.

To explore the current public design barriers and solutions to household recycling in Hong Kong, our research group, in collaboration with two Caritas Community Centres, adopted participatory action research, including questionnaires, interviews, nonparticipant observations, collaborative workshops and on-site iterative prototyping process, to carry out a research project. In this project, local residents, recyclers, property management officers and cleaners in five public rental housing estates were recruited to voice their views on public design for recycling. Through the results of the spiral design exploration conducted at Sai Wan Estate, this study demonstrates the validity of action research to promote the participatory design for recycling.

The paper concludes with a discussion of some barriers to and experience with applying these methods to improve the practice in the context of high-rise living environments. It also provides experience and insights into action research in public design for designers, researchers and policy makers.

You are invited to learn more about this experience by reading the article HERE. Free 30-day access is available for this article beginning 26 April, 2017.

After you’ve had a chance to read this piece, please share your thoughts, ideas, or experiences with our community in the comments below so we can continue this discussion!

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Abstract summary provided on behalf of the authors: Kin Wai Michael Siu, Jia Xin Xiao