What is it about?
The paper examines how Participatory Design can actually improve smart building renovation in modern city/building renovation scenarios. It uses a corpus of 24 studies (2015 to 2025) and looks on how the residents and other stakeholders can be involved not only in choosing renovation options, but also in decisions about digital technologies, data, digital twins and also the very important post renovation monitoring. The main conclusion is that participation works best when it is continuous across the whole renovation lifecycle, it is truly influencing decisions and is supported by appropriate governance and transparency. Inclusion and accountability mechanisms are also really important. The paper also highlights the persistent barriers like institutional fragmentation, technical complexity, digital exclusion, unequal power and also weak feedback loops.
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Why is it important?
-Smart renovation affects people directly -Technical solutions alone are not enough -It shows that residents should have real influence on decisions -It highlights important risks such as digital exclusion, unequal power, privacy concerns, and weak accountability -It gives practical recommendations for policymakers and professionals for making projects more inclusive, transparent and most importantly effective.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Participatory Design Methods for Smart Building Renovation: Evidence, Governance and Policy Implications, Digital Government Research and Practice, September 2026, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3844733.
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