Spatial environments are often designed without meaningful input from the people who inhabit them. From our design studios at the university to city streets, design decisions are frequently made by distant authorities, leaving communities with little agency.

‘Co-Design Canvas’ project reimagines this relationship by positioning generative AI as a tool for collaboration rather than control. It enables a wider range of voices to participate in envisioning futures for shared spaces. The project explores how technology can support dialogue between competing interests—residents, designers, policymakers—while recognizing that no algorithm can resolve deep ideological divisions.

This project began with an observation—a table in the studio meant for our department, yet often used by others. It wasn’t a confrontation, just a quiet tension that blurred ownership and disrupted focus. That moment opened up a broader question: Who decides how space is used and for whom? I began to notice how easily spatial norms are assumed rather than discussed. To surface this unspoken friction, I started with a survey, asking students how they experience the studio. The answers were varied, unresolved. But they didn’t need resolution. They became parameters for a new kind of design process

From these tensions, a participatory platform took shape—one that could hold difference rather than erase it. The tool is composed of several parts: ComfyUI runs the AI workflow to visualize ideas; Firebase stores inputs; WebSockets enable multi-user interaction; Google Maps anchors ideas to place; and a custom front end offers sliders and prompts to engage with. Each input shifts the spatial output, layering one perspective over another. No single version is final. Instead of resolving conflict, the tool transforms it into co-authorship.

Spatial conflict is rarely about space alone. It’s about belonging, about whose needs are visible and whose are overlooked. As ideas accumulated, so did the need to hold them—visually, geographically, collectively. The tool reveals patterns, but does not aim to resolve them. It allows a space to record spatial imagination. The platform doesn’t erase disagreement. It holds it long enough to understand what’s at stake. In doing so, it allows us to stay with the complexity of collective design—not to simplify it, but to stay present within it.

In the spirit of Georgeen Theodore’s call to rethink advocacy as an interdisciplinary and speculative practice, this work takes on one such mode of operation—designing not just spatial outcomes, but frameworks through which communities can co-author their environments.