Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The abstract presents a well-organized text which needs improvement through the addition of specific information about what new insights the paper brings to the field. The research requires a statement which describes its unique contributions to co-design and participatory planning studies (the research implements fresh approaches together with wellbeing evaluation to create governance systems for rural-urban regions). The abstract should also briefly signal the key outcome or takeaway of the study rather than focusing mainly on process description.

The introduction provides adequate background information but needs additional guidance to establish a clear direction. The authors need to show the research gap through direct statements which explain what existing studies about co-design and wellbeing and urban/rural sustainability lack. The research needs a single specific study aim which should be followed by one or two specific research questions or objectives that will direct the entire paper. The research will achieve better coherence through this method which allows readers to follow its contributions to existing knowledge.

The research paper contains a complete review section which uses design research and participatory design literature as its reference sources. The authors need to reduce repetitive descriptions in their synthesis because they need to show how the reviewed theories validate their research analytical framework. The review would benefit from explicit engagement with urban planning and land-use literature, aligning more closely with the journal’s scope. A short paragraph positioning the study at the intersection of design research and land/urban studies is recommended.

The methods section presents clear descriptions which are transparent but the research framework requires more development. The authors need to explain why these particular initiatives matter for their analysis through specific reasons which support their importance. The workshop data analysis requires a short section which explains the research method for data interpretation through interpretive or thematic synthesis to enhance the study's  ethodological strength. The researcher needs to introduce their dual position as facilitator and analyst through a short reflective section at the beginning of this section.

The results are rich and well illustrated, but they remain largely descriptive. The authors need to advance their analysis by extracting common analytical themes which appear in both cases while they focus on agency and trust development and spatial thinking abilities. The discussion should more clearly demonstrate how the findings extend or nuance existing theory, rather than mainly reaffirming it. 

The proposed recommendations contain valid concepts but they exist at a general level. The authors need to transform their research results into particular recommendations which municipalities and planning organizations and community groups can apply to their operations. The presented information becomes more practical when short illustrative examples are included.

The research findings appear in the study conclusions but these results need improvement through detailed statements about theoretical and methodological and practical contributions. The authors need to include a short section which explains both the restricted boundaries of this study and its research constraints to stop readers from wrongfully understanding the research findings.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Comments: The manuscript proposes an interactive, participatory community co-design method utilizing Braindrawing and the 5W1H framework. While the study holds practical significance for local community engagement, there are substantial concerns regarding the scope, methodological rigor, and data presentation that need to be addressed.

Specific Comments:

• Scope and Framing: Although the title and introduction emphasize "addressing climate change", the actual content focuses on small-scale community gardening and recycling initiatives. Connecting these micro-level activities directly to "solving climate change" feels like overpromising. It is recommended that the authors narrow the scope to focus on "building micro-level social resilience" or "adaptive capacity" rather than broad climate mitigation.
• Theoretical Framework: The applicability of the "Wicked Problem" framework to the specific case of community gardening is debatable. Wicked problems are characterized by conflicting values and stakeholder complexity. Given the small, homogeneous group involved, did the process truly encounter the "wickedness" of urban planning? The authors should justify this classification.
• Sample Size and Demographics: The sample size is extremely limited ($N=9$ total) and lacks diversity, consisting exclusively of 4 women in the first workshop and 5 women in the second. This gender bias and small sample size make it difficult to claim any representativeness regarding "social sustainability" for a whole community. The authors must explicitly discuss this as a major limitation and frame the study as a "pilot" or "exploratory" study.
• Contextual Description: Please provide a more detailed description of the socio-economic context of the area in northern Sweden. Understanding the local demographics (e.g., depopulation, industrial transition) is crucial for international readers to assess the transferability of the findings.
• Analytical Process: While the methodology defines SWOT and 5W1H, the manuscript lacks detail on the process of facilitation. How were the analyses actually conducted on-site? How were differences of opinion or contradictions among participants negotiated and resolved during the drafting process?
• Data Presentation: The manuscript relies heavily on photographs of post-it notes (Figures 1-4), which are largely illegible to readers. This is insufficient for academic analysis. It is strongly recommended to transcribe and tabulate the key data points from these photos. A rigorous thematic analysis or typological classification of the participants' ideas is needed to replace the raw photographs.
• Outcomes vs. Outputs: Have the ideas generated during the workshops (the outputs) been translated into actual projects or policy changes (the outcomes)? The current results section stops at the "ideation" phase. Providing evidence of implementation or follow-up interviews would significantly enhance the practical contribution of this research.
• Literature Dialogue: The discussion section would benefit from a stronger dialogue with existing literature. How do your findings regarding the "WWWWWH" method compare with other participatory design studies? Specifically, how do the results empirically support the Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness) mentioned in the theory section?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors demonstrate how design tools such as braindrawing and the 5W1H method can promote community interaction, wellbeing, and resilience building through co-design approaches. This qualitative study presents some innovative elements, primarily examining two community initiative cases in northern Sweden where residents were engaged in early-stage urban spatial planning to address the "wicked problems" of climate change and social sustainability. However, several significant shortcomings are evident, with specific comments as follows:

1. Lines 44-46: The authors state that "resilience has become a defining goal" in the introduction, yet fail to critically examine the tensions between different schools of thought, such as engineering resilience, ecological resilience, and social resilience. The authors need to elaborate further on this point, and are advised to consult the following references to enhance the depth of their analysis: Does collaborative governance of natural disasters in urban agglomerations enhance urban resilience? Evidence from China; Variationin community heat vulnerability for Shenyang City under local climate zone perspective; Reframing urban governance for resilience implementation: The role of network closure and other insights from a network approach; Framework for analytical quantification of disaster resilience;
2. Lines 65-68: The authors' citation of Björgvinsson et al. remains at a descriptive level, without exploring the potential contradiction between the "agonism" in "agonistic participatory design" and the "harmonious collaboration" presented in the case studies. I believe a more thorough analysis of key conceptual controversies is required.
3. Terms such as "wellbeing" (lines 32, 40, 91) appear multiple times throughout lines 29-100 without clear definition—whether this refers to subjective wellbeing, mental health, or social welfare remains ambiguous.
4. Lines 141-191: The text abruptly shifts to epistemic plurality and lateral thinking, creating a disconnect with the preceding content. The authors should identify a core theoretical perspective (such as infrastructuring) as an anchor, treating other theories as supplementary rather than parallel elements.
5. There appears to be a disconnect between the theoretical framework and the subsequent case descriptions. The detailed discussions of lateral thinking (lines 173-191) and epistemic plurality (lines 163-172) completely disappear in the case descriptions that follow.
6. Lines 295-296 and 356-358: The article merely states that "written consent was collected." The authors should clarify whether institutional ethics committee (IRB/REC) approval was obtained, and whether participants were informed about data retention periods and withdrawal rights.
7. Lines 433-434: The authors cite "Good to get follow-up questions" as a "quote," but this is essentially a single-sentence evaluation lacking context. The authors need to specify who said this and regarding which specific stage.
8. Lines 612-615: The article introduces new terms such as "design-enabled resilience" and "relational infrastructure" without delineating their boundaries from existing concepts. For instance, the relationship to Adger's social capital and Meerow's socio-ecological resilience requires clarification.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abstract

• The abstract lacks the standard components: the objective of the study, the scope of the research, the methodology, and selected results.

Introduction

• The manuscript does not present a clearly defined research objective.

Literature Review

• In my opinion, the theoretical review lacks an overview of the existing literature on previous studies in the area under discussion.

• The authors describe selected activation tools (e.g., SWOT, DESTEP). Are these all the methods available for co-design? In my view, a broader review should be conducted in this area. For example, the PEST method, which also considers political factors; mind mapping; the objectives tree; the problem tree; TOWS as an extension of the SWOT method. There is also the creative matrix, a tool derived from positive psychology, which is used at the stage of developing local development strategies.

Subchapter 2.2

• At this point, it would be worth adding examples of the practical application of the SWOT method, particularly its use in the development of local development strategies. In European Union countries, for example in Poland, this is an integral tool used in the preparation of municipal local development strategies.

Chapter 3

• The methodology should include information on the scope of the conducted research, including its temporal and spatial range. The research is qualitative in nature; therefore, its individual elements should be described in detail. It would be advisable to distinguish the stages of the research procedure. Above all, the nature of the conducted research should be explained more clearly. Was the selection of participants purposive or random? Why did only four individuals participate in the study?

Chapter 4.1

• It may be worth presenting the SWOT analysis in a tabular form with four quadrants. I also believe that this subsection, as well as other subsections presenting results, should be concluded with findings related to the applied method.

Discussion

• In this section, the authors should refer to other studies in which the tools used in this manuscript have been applied.

• A section devoted to conclusions is missing.

• I have one main concern after reading the manuscript: what was the objective of the conducted research? Was it the use of participatory tools, or the solution of a specific problem using these tools? As a result, I have difficulty interpreting this manuscript.

• Line 625: “The findings reinforce the idea that the future of sustainable urban development is not only designed but co-designed” – where was this thesis introduced earlier?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript focused on participatory approaches, specifically on co-design methodologies in Sweden. While the study addressed a potential interesting topic, pitfalls have been identified that require the authors’ attention. Please see the detailed report below.

 

Detailed report

Section Introduction

Line 77: Please define the concept of resilience.

Line 78: What form of sustainability are the authors referring to? Environmental, social, or economic? Please clarify.

The manuscript would benefit from a better description of the research gap, which is currently unclear.

 

Section Method

Section 3.1.

The authors could provide further clarification on the composition of the workshop participants. In particular, it would be useful to figure out the rationale behind the small sample size (n=4) and the exclusive inclusion of female participants. I would like to ask the authors to describe in detail the recruitment process and the specific selection criteria used to select the four women. Providing further demographic and professional information (e.g., age, cultural background, and whether participants share a professional relationship or pre-existing workplace) would significantly increase the transparency of the study.

Finally, it should be clarified whether male participants were intentionally excluded or whether no one was available to participate. While this limitation is briefly addressed in Section 5 (Discussion), it deserves a more complete and explicit justification within the methodology or as a more important part of the limitation analysis.

 

Section 3.2.

The authors could provide further clarification on the composition of the workshop participants. In particular, it would be useful to figure out the rationale behind the small sample size (n=5) and the exclusive inclusion of female participants. I would like to ask the authors to describe in detail the recruitment process and the specific selection criteria used to select the five women. Providing further demographic and professional information (e.g., age, cultural background, and whether participants share a professional relationship or pre-existing workplace) would significantly increase the transparency of the study.

Finally, it should be clarified whether male participants were intentionally excluded or whether no one was available to participate. While this limitation is briefly addressed in Section 5 (Discussion), it deserves a more complete and explicit justification within the methodology or as a more important part of the limitation analysis.

 

Section Results

The authors are encouraged to tabulate the results and provide corresponding analysis to improve the clarity and presentation of their findings.

 

Section Discussion

What is the main innovation of this study compared to previous research? Further details on how this research contributes to or deepens what is already known would be of great value. In particular, the authors are encouraged to better define the study’s original contribution to international scientific panorama.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No further comments. 

Author Response

No comments to respond to.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript has shown certain improvements after revision, but it is still recommended that the author consider the following issues:

1) The practical case is a rural or semi-rural area in northern Sweden. The keyword 'urban infrastructure' used by the author is inconsistent with the case object.

2) The manuscript extensively discusses "agonistic participatory design" in the literature review section, but how is this agonistic nature reflected in the case studies? The participants in the workshop are highly homogeneous, so how can rich agonistic characteristics such as conflicts and games be manifested?

3) The author pointed out that the Thematic analysis method was adopted, but the corresponding analytical results were not observed. Simple statistical data is not thematic analysis.

4) The core argument of the paper posits that participatory design methods foster relational infrastructure and participation capabilities; however, the research cases involve groups that were already self-organized, which contradicts the study's argument. The research focus should instead examine how this co-design model facilitates the formation of organizations.

5) The sample size is too small, and I still express concern about this. The authors use very grandiose vocabulary in their argumentation; it is difficult to reach such universally applicable conclusions based on such a small sample.

6) Qualitative research involving human subjects also requires ethical approval. Please provide proof in accordance with the journal's requirements or the research and academic requirements of the country where the study is conducted.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accept

Author Response

No comments to respond to.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I do not have any comments.

Author Response

No comments to respond to.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The integration provided by the Authors did not clearly address and solve this reviewer's concerns. As an example, below this reviewer provides the Authors with the previous comments that appear to be unsolved.

Section Introduction

Please define the concept of resilience.

The manuscript would benefit from a better description of the research gap, which is currently unclear.

Section Method

Section 3.1.

The authors could provide further clarification on the composition of the workshop participants. In particular, it would be useful to figure out the rationale behind the small sample size (n=4) and the exclusive inclusion of female participants. I would like to ask the authors to describe in detail the recruitment process and the specific selection criteria used to select the four women. Providing further demographic and professional information (e.g., age, cultural background, and whether participants share a professional relationship or pre-existing workplace) would significantly increase the transparency of the study.

Finally, it should be clarified whether male participants were intentionally excluded or whether no one was available to participate. While this limitation is briefly addressed in Section 5 (Discussion), it deserves a more complete and explicit justification within the methodology or as a more important part of the limitation analysis.

Section 3.2.

The authors could provide further clarification on the composition of the workshop participants. In particular, it would be useful to figure out the rationale behind the small sample size (n=5) and the exclusive inclusion of female participants. I would like to ask the authors to describe in detail the recruitment process and the specific selection criteria used to select the five women. Providing further demographic and professional information (e.g., age, cultural background, and whether participants share a professional relationship or pre-existing workplace) would significantly increase the transparency of the study.

Finally, it should be clarified whether male participants were intentionally excluded or whether no one was available to participate. While this limitation is briefly addressed in Section 5 (Discussion), it deserves a more complete and explicit justification within the methodology or as a more important part of the limitation analysis.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf