Designing with, not for

What eleven co-design sessions taught us about a health building — and about our own assumptions.

We entered the Meridian project confident we knew what a calming waiting room looked like. Soft light, muted palette, acoustic separation.

The young people who use the service told us something else. They wanted to see the exit. They wanted to choose whether to be visible. They wanted somewhere to stand, not only somewhere to sit.

The plan changed. Waiting became a sequence of thresholds rather than a single room. It is a better building because we were wrong early and cheaply.