Co-design as play: junk sounds and architecture in urban space

This reflective article discusses a project making a junk music play installation in the heart of urban Portsmouth, UK. The authors discuss the challenges of working on co-design with groups of students from Priory School, a secondary school with students from the University of Portsmouth. A series of creative responses and methods are explored and critically discussed including modular design, junk music play, practical haptic making and the extension of the ‘classroom’ into the site-specific setting of an underpass contained by a roundabout. The project evaluation suggests a success within the context of community and applied practices in architecture and community music. The voice of the participants is captured from written and graffiti’d words and phrases composed by the students. The main aim of the article is to present how we can apply projects in an interdisciplinary way, involving making and doing that is noisy, playful and impactful in an urban setting.