Plug in Path at Woodvale Park

The “Plug in Path” was a research project to develop participatory strategies and methodologies to realize the citizen lead urban regeneration of underutilized or negatively perceived public space. The project focused on a particular case study Woodvale Park on the upper Shankill Rd. A number of strategies and methodologies were developed to facilitate a process of discussion and negotiation with local residents, including young people, city authorities, local businesses, and other stakeholders. These methodologies included- working with architecture students from the University of Ulster to make site interventions, developing a board game to allow stakeholders to participate in the processes of planning and creative thinking, publishing a newspaper as a design dissemination and feedback tool, and building an interactive mobile exhibition model.The micro-politics of this process was reflected in the eventual proposal and resulted in a space where social, cultural, and economic, spheres overlap. The proposal was a strategy called the “Plug-in-Path “- a programmed surface containing lighting, tiered seating, electricity, and water supply. This temporal strategy also allows trust in the project to develop gradually and for it to adapt and respond to changing social dynamics. The decision to work with the condition of uncertainty rather than resisting it resulted in a strategy of deliberate programmatic indeterminacy, allowing the proposal to respond to temporal change, transformation, and adaptation.