In recent years, the term “co-creation,” a buzzword in the business and management sector, has made its way into the architecture and urban planning discourse. The term is used to define a large concept that describes working intentionally with others to create something jointly. But architecture is already the result of a collaboration between multiple actors, architects, clients, investors, developers, and local administration, to name a few. Can the term still apply to this field, can it bring forth new forms of knowledge, and does it differ from the concept of participatory design?
The term appears to have originated in the business sector, with some mentions in the early 1990s and its popularization in the 2000s, with C.K. Prahalad and Venkatram Ramaswamy’s article in the Harvard Business Review. The article describes a paradigm shift as globalization and technology developments challenge the traditional role of the expert. The new marketplace is beginning to understand that consumers have become a new source of competence, a source that can be tapped into to increase the value of the product. Now a similar shift is taking place in the world of design.
