BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

Part Two
CO-ORDINATION OF FACILITIES : SOME MECHANISMS
Getting Citizens into the Planning Process
48. The basic challenge is to get the public officials, the planners and
architects, and the citizens into the same fully enfranchised process together.
This is not always easy. In many industrially developed countries,
citizens have got used to not being consulted. They have learned
to "defer to the specialists", and to assume that public officials are
responsible for the delivery of services such as education, recreation,
and so forth. At the same time, the public officials of various departments
are not used to the idea of working together and interrelating their
programs, let alone working with citizens. Public policies, budgets, regulatory
procedures, and administrations are designed to be autonomous,
and make little provision for joint planning. As a result public officials,
and their planners and architects, are put in the position of being
surrogates for the users of their programmes and buildings; and sometimes
the results are insensitive and inappropriate, and opportunities for something
better are missed, in spite of good intentions. How often one hears
a teacher or a parent remark: "If only I'd been asked!" And how few
the architects are who have systematically talked to their users or in- •
volved them in the design process. For example, schools are really for
children. Yet how many architects have involved children in the design
of schools?
49. There is no one way of getting users and citizens into the planning
process. Issues and contexts vary from country to country, and from community
to community. For every situation there is undoubtedly an appropriate
planning process. Nevertheless, from the various case studies,
some general principles and mechanisms are beginning to emerge.
Forming a Joint Planning Council
50. One of the earlier planning processes in the United States in which'
public officials, planners and architects, and citizens worked together
was at Pontiac. The product of the planning process was the Human Resources
Center. Here is the seating plan of the public planning meetings.
167