When Isthmus Group was commissioned to design a skate-park for Manukau City, it opted for the internet-based social media Face Book and Twitter along with a blog to help its public consultation process.

Isthmus led the design team for the skate-park planned for Barry Curtis Park in Manukau City and quickly decided if it wanted to get the opinions and input of the park’s end users, it would have to think laterally.

Traditional consultation practices such as public meetings or forums weren’t going to cut it, especially since the consultation would extend outside the Auckland region.

Reasoning that public notices in newspapers or articles in a council newsletter were unlikely to reach the young people who would be the end users − and therefore the most appropriate group to supply design input − the internet was the logical place to go.

Isthmus, a design practice with an international profile in landscape architecture, urban design and landscape planning, decided on what it calls an innovative web-based or crowd-sourced approach to the consultation process.

Wikipedia defines crowd-sourcing as “a neologism for the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a group (crowd) of people or community in the form of an open call.

As an example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology or carry out a design task (also known as community-based design and distributed participatory design). Isthmus believed a number of potential benefits would flow from taking this approach:

• opportunity to engage future users of the skate-park for design direction;

• opportunity to introduce young people into local government dialogue;

• potential to develop a community of park users that may help to maintain the park facilities, contribute to future designs and coordinate events;

• crowd-sourcing would specifically target the potential user group/stakeholders (for example, skaters and other youths);

• it would be implemented at low cost and would use widely-available and familiar web services with minimal programming or design required;

• it would provide the ability to communicate with users over a wide geographic area to meet the regional nature of the park.

Kent Lundberg, GIS specialist with Isthmus Group, says it seemed the best approach to take.

 “We were eager to employ the web-based strategy for this job.

”Everything seemed to fit – the target audience was right and there were considerable design questions that needed to be answered by the public.

”Of course there was some trepidation at first since we were treading into unknown territory, but the client, Manukau City Parks, was very supportive and it felt like we should give it a go and make changes mid-stream if required.

”Ultimately, the process went over better than expected. There was little if any abusive or profane language and the information gained was critical to the design process.”

A technical advisory committee (TAC) was formed from local skating advocates and experts, and Isthmus and Manukau City parks staff.

The committee was tasked with interpreting the content from the web-based media and making final decisions. The first half of the consultation heavily emphasised the web-based participation angle to determine the ‘type’ of skate-park desired by the community. As the process advanced the TAC committee took a more prominent role, actually designing the park based on the results of the web-based consultation.

The next step was to set up a Facebook group to attract interested users. Because of the inherent connectivity of Facebook, the addition of a few select users immediately attracted other like-minded local skaters and interest spread rapidly.

Using Facebook Group also enabled the design team and TAC to specifically contact users via direct Facebook messages, a system similar to conventional emails.

The consultation programme was immediately embraced by users. Within a month there were more than 150 Facebook members and within days of the blog being published, users were commenting regularly about a wide-range of topics, preferences, and concerns. (Note: there are now 190 members, including Manukau City Mayor Len Brown).

The first phase of consultation focused on determining what type of skate-park was to be designed, because different styles of skateboarding require unique designs. The process started by presenting six different broad categories of skate-park design.

Taking user feedback and conversation from the Facebook Group, Picasweb site, and the blog, the choices of park design were reduced to four.

The four final images were then rated on the blog to determine the highest level of interest. The rating process identified two clear preferences and TAC reviewed the two preferred options before creating a vision statement to guide the design of the park.

The second phase of consultation was designed to determine the preferred elements to be built in the park. During the initial web-based consultation many of the users mentioned specific elements that they thought should be included. Also, blog articles requested users to provide comments on their preferences of features and elements. This information was then provided to TAC for use in the design process.

At this point in the design process TAC was now designing the park in earnest, in conjunction with Isthmus landscape architects. Preliminary drawings were issued for review from the new web-based community.

With the results of the web-based consultation in hand TAC experts produced a concept plan which was submitted for peer review among skating experts and was published on the website for public review. The resulting comments were then incorporated into the final design.
Kent Lundberg says it quickly became clear that the consultation had worked well.

 “The final design was well-received by the web-based community. Many of the criticisms of the early concept plans were justified and by seriously valuing the input of the community we were able to produce a superior design.

”Construction for the skate-park will begin in mid-March and we expect it to be completed by June. Without a doubt we’ll have a large group of skaters at opening day that will have a justified pride of ownership of the park.”

Note: On Monday, April 5, Manukau City Council approved the final concept plan for the skatepark in Barry Curtis Park.

P&M Civil Ltd have been awarded the construction contract. They will be assisted by James Blas of Custom Skateparks.