What is a Charrette?

The word charrette is the name architects give to a collaborative workshop in which a group of designers and others draft a creative response to a design problem. While the organisation of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem posed, and the individuals involved, they most often take place across a limited amount of time, in a shared space and where people are divided into small teams. At the end of the workshop, each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue.

The charrette is a creative method for integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people so as share knowledge and experiences, to learn from each other, to work through a specific design problem creatively and constructively, and to produce concrete examples of design improvements.

Main characteristics

Work collaboratively
All the people in a charrette are involved as active participants, with an equal role and value. Whilst charrettes can involve multiple sessions to help develop collaborative relationships, a simple form is made up of three sessions – an introductory event, where people get to know each other and agree shared goals; the design workshop itself; and a feedback process, to allow time for reflection, to share outcomes and where dialogue can be continued and developed.

Design from different perspectives
Bringing together people with diverse knowledge and experience related to the design problem set, enables a richness of outcomes, not restricted by a partial or un-informed view.

Compress designing period
A charrette speeds up the usual design process, making it intensive and ‘quick-thinking’. It also encourages people to abandon their usual working patterns and “think outside of the box.”

Communicate in short feedback loops
During the charrette, design ideas are created within sub-group based upon a shared vision, and presented within hours for further review, critique, and refinement from other sub-groups. This allows instant creative feedback to a design proposal, which can then be reviewed, changed, and re-presented for further review.

Study the details and the whole
Lasting agreement is based on a fully informed dialogue, which is best done by looking at the details and the big picture concurrently. Studies at these two scales also inform each other and can add to the creativity of the design response.

Agree intended goals
By measuring progress against a agreed set of intended goals, the design process should be transparent and constructive for all the participants

Produce a believable solution
If design solutions are resolved practically and believably (however ‘off-the-wall’) there is a level of seriousness and rigour to the process for everyone involved.

Design-on-site as a valuable collaborative tool
Design is a powerful way of enabling a shared vision. Site investigations through drawing and debate can be used to illustrate, analyse and creatively resolve the complexity of the problem set.

Working on site enables the design team to immediately grapple with both practicalities and bigger ideas; and to imagine proposed solutions easily and concretely in a real space.