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Department of Architecture

 

The Cambridge Room

The Public Map Platform

The Community Design Research Group (CDRG) has successfully secured funding from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) to operate as a lab. It will now be known as the Community Design Research Lab (CDRL).

About the Lab

The Community Design Research Lab (CDRL) is a research system designed to generate positive impact within communities. Our world and society are complex systems and to make a positive change we aim to operate as a research system inside the community to identify key leverage points for positive change.

As a system, the CDRL comprises three components: (1) elements,  (2) interconnections, and (3) a function or purpose. The elements are ordinary citizens, the community, and our multidisciplinary group from various research areas (sub-systems).  CDRL’s main purpose is to empower communities by creating a platform where they can take agency in shaping. Our work is driven by the pursuit of resilient, adaptable, and anti-fragile communities. Our primary function is the application of research knowledge and innovation directly to the community.

In collaboration with CRASSH , the CDRL will use the platform to collectively experiment with methodological practices, that could than inform the Cambridge Room methodology. Our common aim in CDRL and Urban Rooms is to humanise the planning and consultation process, and to introduce care to the process so that it could be more inclusive and plural in a way that cultivates and leverages the political energies of ordinary citizens.


For further details:

https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/research/research-labs/community-design-research-lab/#1-about

https://www.cambridgeroom.org/research

For any queries, please email the convener: Dr Ruchit Purohit at rp765@cam.ac.uk