Design Thinking Strategies for Community-Driven Crime Prevention in Urban Group Housing

This study proposes a participatory design thinking framework to enhance crime resilience in urban group housing. Recognizing that such environments often face safety vulnerabilities due to disconnected planning paradigms, the research positions residents as co-creators of their built environments. Through cyclical phases, empathy-driven needs assessment, collaborative ideation workshops, and rapid prototyping of spatial interventions communities systematically identify local risks and co-develop context-sensitive solutions. The approach emphasizes place-specific strategies: improving natural surveillance through visibility-oriented design, reinforcing territorial identity via community-led placemaking, and activating shared spaces to foster informal vigilance. By embedding user agency within the design process, the framework promotes social cohesion, adaptive resilience, and long-term ownership of safety interventions. The model offers a scalable, human-centered methodology for transforming group housing into proactive, community-driven safety ecosystems through grassroots engagement and responsive design innovation.