Salon Margarete
Year: 2022
Project Team: Mark Neuner, Marlene Lötsch, Sabine Schertler, Irina Nalis
Participants of Salon Margarete from:
gaupenraub+/-, wohnbund:consult, Lokale Agenda 21 Wien, Dialog Plus, Caritas Stadtteilarbeit, nonconform, STUDIO IN//stabil, Urban Innovation Vienna, Stadt Wien MA21 – Bürger:innenbeteiligung und Kommunikation, einszueins architektur
Funding: BMKOES Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky project grant 2022-2023
Within our Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky grant, we explored different participatory processes, methods, tools and practices in architecture and urban planning.
Following initial research, we started Salon Margarete:
A series of evenings where we invited a variety of local actors to talk about their experiences. With the help of a card game especially designed for the Salon Margarete, we explored successful strategies, failed process designs and innovative ideas. This allowed us to create a diverse picture of the various approaches in the current participatory design and planning practice in Vienna.
Based on our initial research on participation, we defined categories (e.g. process design, methods, actors, quality assurance) to help us examine different dimensions of participatory processes.
To share and enrich our knowledge with experience and expertise from local actors in Vienna, we started Salon Margarete as a platform for exchange.
Deck of cards for Salon Margarete We developed a deck of cards with a variety of questions covering our previously defined categories and most relevant to the further development of our own practice. These questions provided initial food for thought for the participants, helped provoke a lively discussion and revealed exciting and unexpected anecdotes.
Below you can find a selection of statements from participants of the evening talks:
All the discussions and insights we got during Salon Margarete provided a valuable contribution to our knowledge about participatory processes. We were happy to talk about many important aspects that need to be considered when designing a participation process through this platform of exchange.
As a result, we reconsidered our viewpoint about the topic as well as our own practice. While we do not see the resources of Mostlikely in carrying out big survey participations, we rather perceive ourselves in the role of working together with specific stakeholders and multipliers, in order to assure the concerns and potentials of a broad group of users.
For this collaboration, we aim to set up open Co-Creation processes, that involve these stakeholders not only in the planning process, but carries them on to operate and manage a “Common Space” after it has been built.
In the following you can find some concluding statements that we formulated during and after the Salon Margarete discussions.
As another part of our Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky project, we worked on changing the planning processes of our own projects by creating different Common Space Tools. Thereby, we aim at achieving a higher level of participation in our own practice, ideally resulting in Co-Creation processes.
See our Common Space Toolkit to explore more!
