Ten Years of Participatory Design: In Conversation with Judith Muijtjens

Beyond education, Judith Muijtjens boasts expertise in workplace design like those of Moonen Packaging in the southeastern city of Weert and the Place for Bizz coworking space in Eindhoven. Most recently, she led the renovation of the Rockfon office in Roermond in an activity-based design concept that provides areas for different working styles, a product showcase area, and optimised acoustics.

Regardless of project type, extensive participatory research is a cornerstone of Judith Muijtjens' design process and she often involves panels of end users in ideation. She has also been vocal about two different sides of each project: the soft side and the hard side. Here, we discuss the two with her and delve into her design methodologies.

Can you provide an overview of your distinction between the soft and hard sides of interior design? How and why did you come up with it? 

I trained as an architect at the Eindhoven University of Technology. During my work experience, I realised that I was missing interaction with the actual user during the design process. I then started designing more and more interiors, especially for offices and schools. In such projects, you know exactly who you are designing for – the users – which could be employees at a company, students at a school, or residents at a healthcare institution.

The user is always central to my design, but the client also has an important impact. Across my practice, I discovered that there's a hard side that is more focused on facts and another softer side that centralises feelings. The hard side of interior design suits clients more. It taps into technology, the budget, and planning. The soft side, on the other hand, suits the end users more; when approaching the soft side, we discuss feelings, the atmosphere, and creating a sense of home.

Is one more important than the other? 

The hard side (focused on facts) and the soft side (focused on feelings) are equally important. In successful interior design, they're in balance with one another. You cannot build an interior without technology or an appropriate budget. At the same time, atmosphere and a sense of home are very important for an interior space to truly succeed. With my technical training as an architect and my years of experience as an interior architect where I learned to listen to the users, I have become specialised in looking for this balance.

Have you had any experiences where the soft side strongly conflicted with the hard side?

This soft side of the users is indeed sometimes in conflict with the hard side of the client. For example, consider a client request that is very expensive or that isn't technically feasible. A very recognisable and recurring example in the past is plants in the interior of an office or a school. A few years ago, indoor plants were more or less a final item in the budget. This was often cut back at the end, while this is usually a major wish of the users. Fortunately, nowadays, people realize that greenery is very important in interior design and this is now often taken into account earlier in the design process.

Sometimes clients have been given a specific objective, for example, to reduce the surface area. People then think that they can simply cut back on a number of workspaces so that the budget is immediately reduced. This is often in conflict with the wishes of the users. They are afraid that there will be too few spaces to work out of. This must be looked at carefully. While it is usually true that fewer desks can be placed, certain days, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which it is often busier, will have to be carefully considered. Will there still be enough seats for everyone? And what other types of workplaces are needed – for example, focus rooms or consultation areas? By carefully weighing the requirements and wishes and discussing them with one another, these can always be resolved properly in the design.

On which side do acoustics fall?

Acoustics is a subject that falls between the hard and soft sides. A program of requirements often sets out what a room must meet acoustically; think of technical requirements such as reverberation time and absorption values. This is measurable.

In addition, it depends on the available budget and how this can be carried out. But acoustics also certainly have to do with the soft side of an interior design. It is an essential part of feeling comfortable in a space. Good acoustics, for example, contribute to feeling comfortable, being able to concentrate well, or being able to listen well – for example, in education.

Comfortable acoustics can be guaranteed in various ways. This has to do, for example, with the positioning of various functions and activities in an office. Consider functions that cause noise, such as that of a breakout space, but also a door to a meeting room where people can spend long stretches chatting. It is preferable not to position this directly next to areas where concentration is needed. This affects both sides of the design: the hard side with a view to the available space, as well as the soft side with a view to the way of working that the users want (where do chance encounters arise without anyone being inconvenienced?).

The technical requirements for the walls, floors, and ceilings also contribute to better acoustics. But so do the invisible components. For example: does a wall extend to the structural ceiling? Or what is the noise level of the installations? These also contribute to whether good acoustics are present, which mainly has to do with the hard side of an interior design.

Finally, soft shapes and materials can contribute to acoustics. Nowadays, there are many different products on the market that contribute to acoustics, but certainly also to atmosphere and experience. The choices I make here have to do with the softer sides of interior design.

Let’s talk more about the soft side. How important is a participatory research process for the design of a space? And how can the process truly be designed in a way to truly be participatory, whether across workplaces, schools, or healthcare facilities?

In my design process, I always involve users for input about the ways they are used to working and also about their ideal future way of working. I challenge them to think 'out-of-the-box'. The users are the people who know how their company or organisation works. By listening to them, I can create a custom design that fits their identity. Only then will people feel at home.

I process the input I collect into a first design. I then submit that design to the user group. They can then respond, and I will adjust the design based on that.

I organise sessions with a delegation of all users. It's important to have the correct reflection of the organization. Consider age, but also functions.  Employees with an administrative or financial position have different needs than employees who are responsible for marketing or product development, for example. It's also useful to have a mix of critical opinions and progressive ones in the group. In such a way, you generate the best conversations and, by extension, the best results.

Sometimes, we also discuss a change in the way we work in these sessions. Consider the post-pandemic move towards hybrid working; working environments have adapted accordingly. People generally find change exciting, especially when it affects their own workplace. By discussing this intensively with each other during the preliminary phase, the greatest fears can be resolved, and people can slowly become used to the new working environments. HR can often respond well to this.

Before the design is finalised, I present the design to all employees of the company or institution. If any issues come to light that have not been taken into account, the design can be adjusted accordingly.

In educational projects, such a process is organised differently. Students are often only temporarily involved in an educational institution. Here, we have to think carefully about which students contribute to the design process. During a primary school project, I spoke with the student council. This was a group of students in the upper grades who were able to contribute ideas to the process. They are also used to thinking about broader issues that affect the school. When designing a restaurant for a college, we asked several students and the community coordinators to contribute ideas. We also used Instagram polls to collect as much input as possible. The results were incorporated into the design.

When designing the restaurant of a secondary school, the requests of the various stakeholders were very different. The college wanted an emblematic space where they could receive visitors. Teachers also wanted to be able to hold informal teaching moments in the space. Students wanted a place to relax and study together. The janitors especially wanted a practical and cleanable space. By talking to them all, they ultimately became spaces where we could meet all these wishes.

When designing a library for a university, in addition to the employees of this library, I also had discussions with two study associations of the university to find out what wishes the students had.

Have you ever encountered any challenges or shortcomings in a participatory design process? 

I always challenge those involved to think out-of-the-box at the beginning of the process. I always make it clear that we can dream during that phase within the soft side. But ultimately, we'll have to keep our feet on the ground, and the design will also have to be feasible (within the technical and financial conditions), or the hard side. It may sometimes happen that certain wishes cannot be fulfilled. I always make sure that the most important principles can be met so that the identity of the employees and the company is always recognisable. This might mean that there will be small adjustments in the design. I always report this back to the users involved.

What was the process like for the design of the Rockfon office in Roermond?

The office design process for Rockfon is organised in exactly this way. We started co-creation sessions with a group of six employees who represented the entire group of employees. We discussed all expectations, concerns, and desires across several intensive sessions and then translated them into a design concept. Rockfon employees took the process one step further – they were also closely involved in engineering and implementation. That's why the office fits in so well with the principles and goal established at the beginning: a dynamic modern working environment where people can work together in peace.

I evaluated the office with the same group a few weeks ago. We discussed whether there are elements that need to be adjusted. We also discussed whether our objective has been achieved: does this new working environment contribute to the job satisfaction of all employees? The answer was a resounding yes! Absolutely.

Congrats on 10 years of Wonderful Day Design! Is there one learning that particularly stands out to you after a decade? 

What I have mainly learned is to stay close to yourself, your choices, and direction. There have been moments when I doubted this, but by always following my own path with my own choices and associated responsibilities, I ultimately achieve more – also within the soft and hard side of entrepreneurship. You can learn more about this in some of my recent blogs.

Interview translated from the original Dutch.