Co-designing Public Realm Spaces in Hounslow Using Augmented Reality

Arup’s augmented reality (AR) tool, YARD, creates a shared and accessible language for co-designing with communities. In partnership with the London Borough ofHounslow, we used this tool to support the development of their Public RealmDesign Guide (PRDG), which allowed the team to enhance public engagement with under-heard groups and enhance public engagement efforts. This project was funded through the government’s PropTech Innovation Fund.

As part of this project, the borough sought to connect with under-heard groups to ensure the future design of public space reflects the needs of its diverse population. To address this, we integrated AR technology into co-design workshops, allowing young people to share their aspirations and ideas for various public realm typologies.

Watch the video below to see YARD in action:

Process

The need for an augmented reality tool in urban design

YARD was first developed to support a co-design process that helps communities communicate their intentions to designers and planners most effectively.​ Equally, the outputs serve as a strong visual tool, providing a feel for the potential future space for stakeholders and decision makers. The method is easy to use and allows more participatory work in local authorities.

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Digital Tool Development
For this project, the tool went through iterative development to incorporate assets tailored to the context of Hounslow’s Design Guide document and the main objectives of the local authority. The process began with a kick-off workshop to align goals with stakeholders, followed by a scoping workshop with schoolchildren to understand their specific needs for the app. After gathering these requirements, we developed the tool to include assets that would align with the aspirations of the young adults to allow them to design the public space and conducted user testing within the firm and with the local authority. Feedback was also collected from real users to enhance the app’s interactivity and overall user experience. The project’s iterative structure allowed us to identify and address key pain points, resulting in a tool that is both practical and impactful.

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Public Engagement
After testing the app, we conducted three co-design workshops to bring it into action. The AR app empowered young people to understand the role of urban designers, enabling them to step into the role themselves and create imaginative designs and concepts. It also inspired Council officers to explore alternative methods of community engagement.

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Certain features proved especially popular, including assets like trees and plants, which reinforced environmental awareness among the young participants. Reflecting the cultural richness and heritage of the Hounslow area, students also utilised assets featuring cultural patterns.

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There was a strong emphasis on the need for social spaces and diverse leisure facilities in public areas. Feedback from the workshop indicates that incorporating a wider range of assets for designing social spaces and colourful elements will be beneficial for revamping current urban spaces in the next iteration of the app. The creativity and imagination displayed by the children were remarkable insightful and inspiring to the urban design practitioners involved in the project.

Output

Through the app, we significantly increased public engagement in Hounslow:

• Engaged three schools, including children with special educational needs
• Engaged one youth club
• Involved 77 young people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds
• Collected a wealth of qualitative data through the workshops, with at least 54 new ideas generated via the YARD app, including screenshots, visual evidence, and testimonies for the Design Guide Document
• The use of AR at public pop-up events resulted in an additional 580 consultation responses
• Gathered diverse feedback from a wide range of ages and ethnicities
• AR technology kept young participants highly engaged throughout the workshops

Feedback from client and participants

• “Young people are our future but are seldom heard in planning processes. By adapting the way we engage through the use of Augmented Reality technology at these workshops, we were able to hear how our young people would like their public space to be designed and how this would impact they way they use the space. These valuable impacts are shaping the guidance for future public realm design. Learning from the success of this project, we will adapt the way we engage to reach out to more young people to allow them a greater saying the future of our built environment.”
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  Louisa Facchino-Stack (Design and Conservation Team Leader - Spatial Planning in London Borough of Hounslow)
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• “I really liked this workshop as it was really helpful as it showed us, we all (as youth) had our voices heard. I had an amazing time working and designing and improving what would be good for the area.”
  
  Young Participant in this project
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• “I am feeling very motivated to hopefully make a change to my local area in the near future.”
  
  Young Participant in this project