Students breaking barriers: workshops as brokers in riverfront collaboration and design

The incorporation of inputs from local communities and a broader range of actors from early on in urban waterfront project development is desirable as it results in engaged stakeholders, invested in seeing the project successfully implemented. Yet, actors and interests are unevenly represented or enfranchised, which requires a diverse set of tools to engage them. In this chapter, we focus on the unique role university students can play in catalyzing and supporting effective urban sustainability transformations in rethinking the urban riverfront. We explore three types of interconnected barriers that lead to a less effective participatory process in urban waterfront interventions: perceptual barriers; social or intergroup barriers; and communication barriers. University students have a set of characteristics that help mitigate these barriers. In the context of waterfront planning and design, student workshops may, at their best, be able to provide design clues, offer additional inputs, and help unravel mutually beneficial solutions. Students are open to engage a wide range of local actors. They are perceived by actors as a neutral group that is willing to listen and offer fresh perspectives on issues, which often leads to more willing cooperation and knowledge-sharing from local actors. As we highlight in a set of case studies, students come into our international student workshops with an eagerness to learn, to listen, and to share knowledge that engages a wide range of actors and promotes mediated dialog. They bring in a fresh perspective to problems which often results in exciting, outside-the-box solutions for urban waterfronts.