Fort Macleod Co-Design Visioning - Executive Summary

Introduction

The Town of Fort Macleod, Alberta is the historic location of the first North West Mounted Police barracks. Here, Colonel Macleod of the NWMP and Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Tribe achieved peaceful relations between natives and settlers. This nationally significant historic site is being rebuilt and restored to its former state with the help of Provincial Government Centennial Funding.

The Town hosted a series of Co-Design Visioning workshops during September and October 2000, funded by the Town of Fort Macleod and The Alberta Main Street Programme. The planning discussions in the town focused also on the surrounding townscape and on preparing a vision for  the future of the whole of Fort Macleod. An architect/artist from The Co-Design Group facilitated the workshops, and drew the graphic visions contributed by townspeople including school students. The features of the drawings were listed and rated by the participants. Each workshop was followed by public displays of the drawings and features.

The response

There was an exceptional number of ideas from participants, together with expressions of visions for the future of the town. There were more ideas expressed during the site walks than could be illustrated at the workshops. The degree of youth involvement was also outstanding. School principals and teachers at G.R.Davis Elementary and F.P.Walshe High School initiated involvement with the visioning project.

At the workshop in the elementary school,  an aboriginal girl, drew a scene of tipis. She was invited to the second adult workshop where she contributed designs and information  to a group study of her idea for a Sundance Centre. A group of youth turned up at the second workshop and stayed to sketch their ideas for a skate board park. They polished their presentation for another workshop held at F.P.Walshe School.

Participants in the three full-day workshops numbered upwards of 30 at the first workshop and 20 at the subsequent workshops. The graphic visions that were produced at the workshops with the assistance of the Co-Design architect/artists, numbered 15 drawings. From these, 3 plans were drawn, one showing the historic district, one the town site and one the larger area including the approaches and the wilderness river valley park.

High consensus

The participants' rated a total 100 features of the visions at the first 2 workshops. These were displayed throughout the town, and the larger community was encouraged to rate the features. 
The ratings in the first column, headed 'I love it. Go for it!' totaled 1,260; the ratings in the second column 'Needs more designing' totaled 112; and the ratings in the third column 'Belongs elsewhere' totaled 60. Translated into percentages this means 86 % of the features were approved as presented on the drawings, 9 % need more designing, and 5 % were rejected.

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