There are two types of collaboration we will examine: collaborating with people of a place and collaborating among team members. Wood and Gray (1991) define collaboration as a process that “...occurs when a group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem domain engage in an interactive process, using shared rules, norms, and structures, to act or decide on issues related to that domain.” The reason why we collaborate with stakeholders is simple - one person cannot know everything about a place.

However, if you have a diverse and capable geodesign team, why might you need people of the place? One reason is out of necessity. Often people of place are the study's stakeholders (your clients or other affected parties). Their thoughts, impressions, and approval matter in identifying the goals, objectives and measuring the success of the study. Also, these are the people from whom you will be asking for feedback during the study (a critical component that we will be discussing later in the course).

Beyond the necessity of relating to the study’s clients, collaborating with local people generates critical information. In order to effectively collaborate with the people of a particular place (country, community, or organization), the members of a geodesign team will need to learn more about the culture(s) of the people who reside there. Culture defines how people see and interpret their world and how they solve the problems they face.

Culture is often described as having 3 levels:

  1. The outermost layer of culture consists of Artifacts. These are all of the things we can see and observe in a place (such as how people behave, building designs, clothing, etc.). These can be easily discerned but are often hard to understand, especially if one is not from a particular culture.
  2. The second layer of culture consists of Espoused Values. The espoused values and shared norms define what is important to a particular culture. These are represented in conscious philosophies, strategies, processes, and goals. People of a place can tell you what their values are; these are also cited to justify various behaviors and actions.
  3. The deepest, core level of culture consists of Basic Underlying Assumptions and Values. These are unconscious, presumed beliefs, values, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings that are typically shared by people of the same culture. These underlying assumptions provide people of a place with mindsets and meaning for interpreting the world around them. Since these are largely unconscious (to the people of the culture), they can be difficult to discern, yet they provide the key to understanding why things happen the way they do.

People are an important part of understanding a place. And that understanding should help shape a design that is best suited to the place. People contribute as much to the culture of a place as the landscape does. More importantly, people are simultaneously the products and cultivators of the landscape.