The need for a design research intervention responds to the place-based nature of our research and its fitness with a ‘designer in residence’ (DIR) approach. This follows a tradition of research-in-residence in the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Coastal Communities, advocating for more embedded research facilitating knowledge coproduction and mobilisation.
Here, we don’t see a DIR approach exclusively as a means to gain access to communities and stimulate participation, but more ambitiously as a pathway to impact by directly designing with end users rather than waiting for research results to ‘find their way’ into the community. We expect this approach to additionally impact on interrelated issues such as development of local skills and capacity building, changes in ways of working, and influencing local policy and community housing delivery frameworks.