Rehearsing and Performing in Design and Living Labs: Situated, relational, and embodied participatory design roles in partnerships.

The paper provides a better understanding of situated, relational and embodied design roles and actions in partnerships during (community-based) Participatory Design projects aimed at sustainable change. With inspiration from Performance Studies, the transformative power of rehearsing and performing by means of looping and tuning is illustrated (in text and Worldmaking Sphere-diagrams) through workshops in a Design Lab and a long-term Living Lab in real-world contexts. We argue that performing in the Living Lab provide valuable new insights that are only able to flourish in the situated real-world context. A central argument is that co-designing should not be about single situations being mocked-up, but about their interrelated connections and how contextualised and relational practices are materialized and co-produced among partners that try out and take on different roles and responsibilities along the way. Lastly sustainable change depends on finding ways to slowly build collective ownership.