Abstract
This paper presents a community participatory small-park design. It proposes that environmental planning and design can be understood as a communicative action that aims to achieve consensus among stakeholders through communication with the local residents. By studying the communicative action theory and communicative planning theory, three strategies were set for practicing small-park design as a communicative action: (1) stakeholders should how what data and actions are needed; (2) citizens should have access to the data and participate in the process; (3) the community's concerns should be consulted and their opinions heard. In applying the three strategies to the small-Park design, a council composed of experts, community members, and NGO's was established. All processes were then executed after careful deliberation. From interviews, the town-touring program and surveys, the design of the site was determined among the stakeholders. The site was subsequently designed based on the needs of the community and revised according to their suggestions. Finally, the small park was constructed. Even though the researchers experienced many limitations because the site is very small, the significance of this study can be outlined as follows: (1) the need to construct the park was suggested by the community rather than by the administration; (2) experts, members of the community, and NGO's constituted the council; (3) the design process involved deliberation among the members of council rather than a method previously established by experts; (4) the administration supported rather than led the entire process: (5) citizens discussed and reached a consensus by themselves.