Lighting the community: Design Anthropology and Participatory Design as a Social Approach

This article aims to analyze a social project developed by a multidisciplinary group based on the theories of the emerging field of Design Anthropology (DA). Supported by a co-creation approach, the Parada do Sol project was facilitated by professionals from the Tecnopuc Creativity Laboratory (Tecnopuc Crialab) based on Participatory Design processes. The project aimed to support the community in its desire to initiate a process of social transformation through technology using renewable energy. The main objective of this article is to identify the benefits of using design processes to take advantage of local potential and meet the challenges brought by the real needs of the territory. The main contributions observed were that co-creation proved to be an important approach within the project, leading to the identification of a more relevant intervention for the community; for non-designer participants, this work model allowed the materialization of important solutions for the community, with the idealization of a sustainable bus stop.