Instrumental: community-engaged design in mid-sized cities and the power of access, educational scaffolds, and models for possible futures

This article considers the role of community engagement and how we might enhance community impact, teaching, learning, and research opportunities by designing with and for under-resourced communities. Instrumental as a semantic concept implies necessity as well as serving as a means to future ends. A method of engagement between diverse communities that shares agency with stakeholders is instrumental to more democratic, pedagogical and just outcomes, among many other benefits. Simultaneously, it is an instrument for achieving these goals. I will explore these issues through three lenses and two projects on which I worked from 2014–22: Exhibit Columbus and CAP Makes Muncie Makes. The focus on the mid-sized cities of Columbus, IN and Muncie, IN creates lessons that should be shared, studied, and further prototyped and replicated. The three lenses explore design’s ability to act as an access point, an educational scaffold, and a model for possible futures.