John Can Gurkan
How might we make kerbsides feel intuitive, calm and safe while giving communities a real voice in change?
Co-design toolkit and role-play mapping game that helps local community and council collaboratively re-shape streets. Using a board overlay, simple tokens, and guided scenarios, communities generate options, discuss trade-offs, and see how movement and place interact, generating consensus on final street design.
Local authorities often model traffic performance but lack structured, use-case methods that integrate everyday kerbside experiences into option generation and appraisal. Initial research highlighted that there are only few ways to create options with residents, with heavy focus on movement KPIs, and no clear tool to compare modelling outputs against consultation insights. The concept offers a practical pathway to option generation through microsimulation of consultation-ready scenarios and collaborative refinement.
Early interviews revealed real-life rhythms and frictions: stressful mornings, crowded school gates, informal socialising, desire for independence for kids, and concerns about crossings and blind spots near parked cars. These human stories set targets for behaviour change: lower stress, clearer flows, safer crossings, and moments of community connection.
A printable 1:200 “Street Snap” base combines an OpenStreetMap extract with aligned satellite imagery and colour-coded boundary lines (pavement/kerb/street). It gives a spatially accurate canvas portable enough for workshops and detailed enough for design discussion. Simple production process allows practitioners to produce new boards easily.
Abstracted from basic drawings (cars, posts, buildings, play items, etc.), “cartoonish” legibility of tokens support multi-participant play and reduces barrier to participation.
Participants take on stakeholder roles (parent, child, cyclist, driver, utility, council, etc.) and work through short scenarios. The workshop sessions follows a standard flow including briefing and warm-up, rules, main play, and debrief. Particularly debrief is where perspectives converge and takeaways are formulated.
Design for local ownership (co-creating in the exact place), create non-consequential rehearsal (a safe space to try ideas before asphalt), and guide people through the kerbside so independence, calm flow, and micro-social spaces can emerge. The aim is to create street layouts that feels intuitive to navigate, safer by design, and more community-minded.
Period
2024 January - 2024 June​
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Expertise
Design research and public-realm co-design, focused on Lambeth school streets; iterative workshops, role-play simulations, and stakeholder interviews.
Brief
Enable intuitive travel and calmer kerbsides around schools by combining human-centred co-design with practical, low-budget tools that plug into existing council processes.
Challenge
Move beyond movement-only metrics, generate options with residents, and compare modelling outputs and consultation insights in a shared language people trust.
Outcome
A tangible mapping game and toolkit that councils and communities can collaborate on, creating participatory designs and more constructive consultations.