The Mayerthorpe Design Lab

The MDL is a community driven initiative hosted by Mayerthorpe Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) and supported by The Social Impact Lab Alberta (SIL AB). Launched in October 2024, the project aims to explore belonging, inclusion, and community well-being using a collaborative, action-oriented process.

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The Foundational Challenge

While residents are struggling with external structural barriers including aging infrastructure, unreliable services, limited business diversity, and lack of affordable housing, the core social challenge is a deep sense of disconnection and division across generations and between long time residents and newcomers. The MDL recognized that the community's strength lies in its rich social capital and volunteer spirit, but it lacks coordinated mechanisms to channel that energy toward shared goals. The Lab's official focus became: "How might we create small, low-barrier opportunities for connection and information sharing in Mayerthorpe?"

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The Old Way vs. The New Way

With the challenge of addressing deep disconnection and division despite the community's rich social capital, the MDL deliberately chose a participatory model over a traditional needs assessment, with support from the Town Council and new municipal leadership. They saw the value in engaging residents not just as participants, but as co-researchers and designers.

The Old Way (Traditional Needs Assessment)

Research would document the problems (aging infrastructure, high costs, social disconnection), conclude that a lack of community spaces exists, and recommend a long-term capital project

The New Way (Design Lab Model)

The project engaged 12 community members as co-researchers and designers (including long-term residents, newcomers, and municipal staff). This participatory model ensures that insights are translated directly into testable solutions, rather than waiting for external validation.

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Process Highlights

The MDL conducted 14 interviews and 119 surveys, finding that structural barriers were compounded by social disconnection. The research didn't just generate data, it created a core, actionable insight: a sense of belonging is created through small, everyday micro-interactions, such as a pharmacist remembering a newcomer's name.

This insight was than immediately tested:

• Action as Assessment: The team hosted a prototype "community lunch." This was not a data-gathering focus group, it was a real-world experiment to test the hypothesis that shared meals could bridge social gaps.
• Results-Oriented Assessment: The success of the lunch provided immediate, tangible proof of community desire. Participants didn't just confirm the need for more connection, they provided detailed input on the preferred solution: a Community Kitchen focused on cultural exchange and food security.

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Key Outcomes

• By testing solutions on a small scale, the MDL has shifted the community's approach to problem solving, moving the focus from simply asking "what do people need?" to actively determining "what can we try together?"
• The MDL process yielded a ready-to-implement solution and a clear roadmap, backed by strong partnerships (FCSS, Town Council, RCMP, Legion, etc.) and a $10,000 commitment from SIL AB.
• The next phase of the project is the validation of the new model which moves directly from research to piloting a high-value intervention. The functional Community Kitchen pilot is scheduled to run from January through March 2026.

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Key Takeaway

By trusting residents to lead the inquiry and test the solutions, the Mayerthorpe Design Lab has demonstrated that an integrated, action-oriented needs assessment can rapidly generate creative, practical ideas rooted in local strengths, strengthening the social fabric of the community while laying the groundwork for sustainable long-term change.

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