Charrette
A charrette is an intensive, multi-day collaborative design workshop in which a multidisciplinary team works on site and repeatedly shows its developing proposals to stakeholders and the public. It is used mainly in urban planning and architecture; the word is French for cart and goes back to students at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century working up to the deadline. The best-known formal version is the NCI Charrette System of the National Charrette Institute at Michigan State University, which typically runs four to seven consecutive days with three feedback loops.
Facilitation script
- 1
Day 1: public kick-off meeting. Present the brief and constraints, then collect values, concerns and ideas in small table groups.
180 min - 2
Days 1 to 2: the design team develops first concepts in the open studio.
420 min - 3
Day 2: first feedback loop. Review the concepts with stakeholders and record what should change.
180 min - 4
Days 2 to 3: the team works up a small number of alternatives that respond to the feedback.
420 min - 5
Day 3: second feedback loop. Show the alternatives at a public or stakeholder review and gather preferences and objections.
180 min - 6
Days 3 to 4: refine a preferred plan, check it with the technical specialists and take it through the third feedback loop.
360 min - 7
Day 4: closing public meeting. Present the plan, show how input shaped it and explain the next steps towards adoption.
180 min
Tips
The value lies in compressing months of sequential reviews into days, and that only works if the people who can say no are available during the event: engineers, authorities, landowners, funders.
Schedule the review points before the charrette starts and publish them, so stakeholders know when their input counts.
Keep the studio open to visitors where you can, and show unfinished drawings on purpose.
People give more useful feedback on a sketch than on a rendering that looks decided.
Common pitfalls
Under-preparing: without base data and a clear brief the team spends the first two days finding out what it should already know
Treating the reviews as presentations with no intention of changing the design, which stakeholders notice quickly and which turns support into opposition
Shortening the event to one or two days, leaving no room for a design to be shown, corrected and shown again
Leaving out the people who can block the plan, so feasibility problems surface only after the public has seen a preferred option
No follow-through after the closing meeting, so the plan loses momentum before it reaches formal adoption
Variations
Outside planning, the word is also used loosely for a short, intensive design session of a few hours or a day in which small groups sketch solutions in rounds and present to each other. That use keeps the fast cycles of work and critique but not the multi-day structure or the public reviews, and should not be confused with the NCI system. Within the NCI system the charrette itself is the middle of three phases, between preparation and implementation; simpler projects need about four days, complex ones six or seven or more. Hybrid versions hold the public reviews online and the studio work in person.
Where it fits
When to use it
A plan for a place affects many groups and has to be feasible technically, financially and politically at the same time
A project has been going back and forth between designers, authorities and the public for months without converging
The sponsor is open to the design changing as a result of what stakeholders say
All the disciplines needed for the design can be brought to one place for several consecutive days
There is enough lead time and budget for thorough preparation before the event
When not to use it
The main decisions are already fixed and the event would only present them; hold an information meeting and say so honestly
The question is about a shared vision or direction and not about a physical design: Future Search or Open Space Technology fits better
A product or service team needs a tested prototype within a week: a Design Sprint is built for that
Key decision makers or technical specialists cannot attend, so nothing produced can be checked for feasibility on the spot
There is no time or money for preparation; a charrette run on thin research produces attractive drawings that fail later
Related methods
Frequently asked questions
What is Charrette?▾
A charrette is an intensive collaborative design workshop that runs over several consecutive days. A multidisciplinary design team works on site and shows its developing proposals to stakeholders and the public in repeated feedback loops until a feasible plan emerges. It is used mainly in urban planning, community development and architecture.
Where does the word charrette come from?▾
Charrette is French for cart. At the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century, a cart was wheeled among architecture students to collect their models and drawings at the deadline, and working frantically up to that moment became known as working en charrette. The term later came to mean an intensive period of design work.
How long does a charrette last?▾
In the NCI Charrette System the event typically lasts four to seven consecutive days, and sometimes longer for complex projects. It sits between a preparation phase of roughly six weeks to nine months and a phase of plan adoption and implementation. Shorter sessions that borrow the name are common but work differently.
What are the three feedback loops?▾
The design team shows its work to stakeholders three times during the event: first as early concepts, then as developed alternatives, then as a refined preferred plan. Each round lets stakeholders correct the design while change is still cheap. The need for three rounds is the reason the format takes several days.
How is a charrette different from a design sprint?▾
A design sprint is a five-day process in which a small product team builds and tests a prototype with a handful of users. A charrette deals with places and plans, involves a much wider circle of stakeholders and the public, and aims at a plan that can be formally adopted. Both rely on compressed time and fast feedback.
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Try it freeMethod descriptions on Workshop Weaver are original content written by our team, based on established facilitation practices. This method was inspired by work from Traditional practice from the École des Beaux-Arts; NCI Charrette System by the National Charrette Institute.