ABSTRACT
Nineteenth-century thinkers contemplated ideal human environments in response to the industrialisation of the time, and its impact on population growth and creating cramped and unhealthy living conditions in cities. William Morris, Patrick Geddes and Ebenezer Howard were all hugely influential in planning theory, and proposed models for balanced, communitarian living in harmony with nature and to facilitate food growing. The origin of the modern, multiday charrette process has been credited to the Caudill Rowlett Scott ‘Squatters’. Experimentation with new ideas and practices grew and evolved in response to the tumultuous events of the era, and these included a key part of the charrette story, the R/Community Urban Design Assistance Team. When telling the story of collaborative charrette processes, historians often refer back to the Amish tradition of barn raising – events in which community members cooperate to build a barn, or other structure, in a day.
