A comparison of Plurality Voting Sheets and Idea Rating Sheets in judgement-making: a participatory architectural design in the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall

ABSTRACT

The public's engagement in museum projects is widely encouraged. However, public participation may also passively impact the relationship of museum and their publics if any existing conflicts cannot be identified and resolved. This paper organised a group of public participants to use Plurality Voting Sheets (PVSs) and Idea Rating Sheets (IRSs) in a museum design project, in order to find out: (1) Which method can generate more in-depth judgements? and (2) Which method can reveal more potential conflicts? The proposed project was the curation of a dinosaur exhibition at the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall. The results prove that, firstly, IRSs can generate a higher quantity of in-depth judgement than PVSs, and secondly, IRSs can disclose more conflicts than PVSs do. Generally, it is arguable that the performance of IRSs in the judgement-making stage is better than that of PVSs. However, IRSs still require more testing in public participation situations.

KEYWORDS:

• Participation
• museum design
• Idea Rating Sheets
• judgement
• conflict
• consensus
• Plurality Voting Sheets

Acknowledgements

We would like to express the very great appreciation to Dr Adam Smith for his valuable and constructive support of this research project. We would also like to thank the Nottingham Natural History Museum in Wollaton Hall that offered the staff and room for the exhibition. We also want to express our gratitude to the postgraduate students: Ahmed Al Jahdhami, Zeng Maoting, Malathe Gamal Hamid, and Yang Yuan. Thanks for sharing their design schemes in the exhibition. Special thanks should be given to Dr. Jason Diceman who allowed us to cite his creative form ‘IRSs’ and related introduction in this paper. Finally, our special thanks are extended to the participation provided by all the local citizens and students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Licheng Zhang is a PhD student in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Nottingham. He got his Bachelor degree (2005–2010) from Hunan University, and the MArch degree (2010-2011) from The University of Nottingham. His research mainly focuses on the architecture theory, museum theory and practice, and public participation in design. And he is currently working on the Exhibition of Feathered Dinosaurs in Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall.

Dr. Qi Wang is Assistant Professor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Nottingham, where he leads the MArch in Design course. He graduated in Architecture from the Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, and gained his doctorate in General Linguistics of Built Environment in 2008. Hwang Qi’s current research interests are focused on Exhibition Narrative and Design in Natural History Museums and the Spatial Influence on Informal Learning in the Science Centres.

Dr. Laura Hanks is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at The University of Nottingham, where she leads the Masters in Theory and Design, and Year 5 of the Diploma in Architecture programme. She graduated in Architecture from the University of Liverpool in 1995, and gained her doctorate in Architectural History and Theory from the University of Edinburgh in 2002. Laura's research interests include contemporary museum and exhibition design, the architectural expression of identities, and issues of narrative space and place making.

Notes

1. (Strong Agreement Dots * 10 + Agreement Dots * 5 + Disagreement Dots * −5 + Strong Disagreement Dots * −10) / (Strong Agreement Dots + Agreement Dots + Neutral Dots + Disagreement Dots + Strong Disagreement Dots) = AGREEMENT SCORE.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Nottingham under Grant ‘Nottingham Catalyst Partnership Fund’ and Nottingham Natural History Museum in Wollaton Hall.