City centre crime: Design thinking for safer city centres

Wootton, A; Marselle, MR; Davey, C

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of research investigating the relationship between the urban environment and the occurrence of crime, with the aim of devising and implementing practical design interventions to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour. The project, entitled City Centre Crime, was conducted by the Design Against Crime Solution Centre at the University of Salford, and initiated by the Manchester Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP).
An area of Manchester’s city centre was identified by the CDRP as containing a significant number of crime ‘hot spots’. A holistic approach was employed by the Solution Centre in order to understand more fully the motivations and behaviour—both legitimate and illegitimate—of users of the built environment. Data was gathered from a range of sources, including police recorded crime data, details of modus operandi, geographical information analyses, qualitative interviews with public and private stakeholders, and observational research. Problem Profile documents based on the structure of the Crime Lifecycle model (Wootton & Davey, 2003) were developed for each crime type, bringing together all statistical, causal and place-based contextual factors. This collation of data meant the Problem Profiles could be used as a form of design brief used to encourage creative thinking and facilitate design innovation and concept generation activities to ‘design against crime’. Design interventions aimed at reducing the occurrence and impact of crime were generated for each crime type. This paper will outline the content of key Problem Profiles and discuss the design intervention concepts that were developed from them.

Citation

Wootton, A., Marselle, M., & Davey, C. City centre crime: Design thinking for safer city centres. Presented at 8th European Academy of Design Conference, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 8th European Academy of Design Conference
• Conference Location: The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 13, 2010
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference