Site user participation: the solution to challenging modernist architectural planning and design

Broader participation in land use planning processes by site users is often interpreted as a challenge to existing planning schemes. However, when participation becomes compulsory in planning procedures, guidelines regarding public participation are rarely imposed. The question arises as to whether public participation, in any form, truly introduces challenges to current planning schemes. In the case of an extension project of a French campus, site users were interviewed, either spontaneously or aided, through an experimental protocol, concerning the value of built and non-built elements of the campus, the extent of their value, and whether they should be preserved in future planning. The primary objective of this study was to prove that unguided participation may be counter-productive and lead to reproduction of the existing planning schemes. Individual preferences are too determined by the current situation of the site and site users are not typically visionaries.