Place-Responsive Participatory Systems Design

The practice

I design and facilitate processes that begin with people and the places in which they live, learn and work. This practice is informed by my Gaia Education Design for Sustainability qualification, introductory PRINCE2 project management training, art and design education, and years of international Design for Change facilitation. It brings creative listening, participatory inquiry, organisational relationships and systems thinking together to make complex contexts more understandable and collective possibilities more actionable.

As founder and CEO of eduSOIL CIC and through my leadership roles with Design for Change, I have worked across education, arts, wellbeing, community partnerships and youth development. The Northern Ireland Partnerships Builder makes this cross-sector approach practical: partners connect their identities and intentions, identify shared actions, and grow relationships, resources and collaborations. My design practice brings artistic observation and systems thinking into the same room. I listen for patterns between people, institutions, place, culture and ecology; facilitate meaningful participation; and build usable structures for collective decision-making and delivery. Partners can commission consultation, participatory research, programme architecture, co-design and cross-sector facilitation. Explore the working partnership platform: https://partnerships.edusoil.com/

I can support the design of partnerships, programmes, facilitated conversations and place-responsive strategies. Engagements may involve a focused consultation, a commissioned co-design process or longer collaboration where stakeholders need to move from separate interests towards shared direction and delivery.