Discover a programme that brings together students, entrepreneurs & community groups to develop creative solutions to local challenges. We help train students to co-design solutions from uncovering local needs with the community to working with them to develop projects that can be taken forward. We evaluate the insights and impact of the needs & solutions to help public services better understand how to support communities to help each other & use technology.

1. How can we help people make the best use of public spaces around them?
Define Discover Develop Design
Select public
spaces according
to specific criteria
Observe & document
behaviours, uses &
perceptions of the
space
Analyse insights
discovered and come
up with ideas to
tackle issue selected
Create
prototype of
solution to
tackle issue
1. Select public spaces according to specific criteria
Transformed by You Team or student groups select public spaces according to
specific criteria, to get a diversity of public spaces represented in the challenge.
Each student group will work on a different public space.
Example of space Location Size Level of use
High street, water front,
Outdoor Large High
popular park, etc.
Community garden,
square, bus stop, etc.
Outdoor Small High
Car boot sale, unpopular
park or street, beach etc.
Outdoor Large Low
Allotment, subway,
skatepark, etc.
Outdoor Small Low
Train station, campus, etc. Indoor Large High
Library, market, etc. Indoor Small High
2. Observe & document behaviours, uses & perceptions of the space
Observe and document:
 What resources in the space are available for people to use (i.e. using grass
to play football, stalls to sell food, road to walk through)
 How the space is being used (i.e. to relax, to meet friends, to take shelter)
 What activities people develop within the space (i.e. boot sales, picnics,
festivals)

2.  How the space is valued by people who use / don’t use the space (select what
you’d like to measure, i.e. how safe people feel, how easy it is to navigate)
With support by Transformed by You, students could also investigate more specific
variables they want to focus on to get a deeper understanding of how people could
make the best use of the space.
Examples could include: How it’s used at different times of the day, how it’s used by
different types of people, how it’s being used in an unusual way, etc.
The students could focus on observation of the space or also interview people as
well – depending on the amount of time you think the students can dedicate to this.
3. Analyse insights discovered and come up with ideas to tackle issue
We could then work with the students at a future session/s on how they can review
the insights they’ve collected to select a problem / opportunity they’ve identified and
develop an idea & prototype to help tackle that pilots the idea, designs and
interprets, re-represents, re-hacks, temporally disrupts e.g. (as a pop up guerrilla
installation /performance) the space.
We could use different methods to help people review the insights and develop ideas
and prototypes to complement those that you are using.
Alternatively, the students could be autonomous in how they go about doing the
above as long as they can come up with ideas and a prototype which can help tackle
an issue they’ve identified that helps people make the best use of their space.
The template below is what everyone taking part in Transformed by You will need to
answer.
Description of idea
What is the name of the idea?
What is your idea?
What problem or opportunity does it help tackle?
How does it help tackle that problem or opportunity?
Which target audience would benefit most from your idea?
How would they benefit?
How would the idea work?
What assets within the public space/s would it make use of?