A charrette is an intensive planning session where local people, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the designers. More importantly, it allows everyone who participates to be a mutual author of the plan. The charrette is a relatively new process in the planning consultation, recommended as 'best practice' by the Scottish Goverment where creation of major future development proposals is being considered.

Charrettes are organised to encourage the participation of all. That includes everyone who is interested in the making of a development: the developer, business interests, government officials, interested residents and other stakeholders. Ultimately, the purpose of the charrette is to give all the participants enough information to make good decisions during the planning process.

A charrette for Edinburgh's Garden District was held over ten days in late 2010 in various venues across Edinburgh, including Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh College of Art and Murrayfield Stadium. A range of stakeholders and over 10,000 residents in West Edinburgh were invited to participate.

The main objective of Edinburgh's Garden District charrette was to generate a professional masterplan with public input which could become a submission to the City's emerging 20-30 year growth strategy concept document know as SESplan.

DPZ oversaw and orchestrated a constructive and stimulating series of workshops and presentations. These enjoyed a healthy attendance of around 400 members of public.

Our post charrette paper which can be downloaded from this page provides an insight into the processes used during the charrette, the discussions and the results delivered.