3 Ingredients to Creating a Successful Public Place

When we are involved in public place projects we bring a somewhat unique perspective to the process, often challenging the typical approaches and introducing different ways of going about things. This is because we believe that it’s never too late to do something different so as to encourage better outcomes. Here are three of those ingredients that we know make a big difference to what comes out at the other end of the process:

1. Community Buy-In

Go deeper than in-person community engagement and surveys, find out demographics, psychographics and population forecasts. Answer the question - who are we REALLY designing for now and tomorrow?

We pinched this approach from advertising and marketing and mashed it up with urban design. Advertising does a huge amount of work in getting to know the audience before they design things that are intended to appeal to it so why not take that same approach for designing public places?

We do it because we believe we need to understand not just what people want/don’t want but also about their psychology and preferences now and into the future. How else can we create something that locals will love and will stand the test of time? If we don’t know who we are designing for then we are either designing for budget or for ourselves and in both cases that’s not going to deliver the best outcome.

2. Place-Sensitive Design

How much time do we spend understanding the history, culture and identity of a place before starting to develop designs? Deep context analysis produces personalised outcomes.

We find that looking at the culture and history of a place unearths a huge amount of insight on the right direction for a redesign. A real place analysis report sets the foundation for design thinking that is grounded in the culture and history of a place. We do it because it creates outcomes that fit, complement and enhance places and communities.

3.Creativity

Creativity isn’t about leaving space for public art to be plonked in later. Integrating creative thinking and artistic input from the outset is a key to making places that are unique, memorable and visited over and over.

Working in knowledge silos reflects how we are educated - as specialists but not as people that absorb different perspectives and viewpoints. This is why we have so much public realm that serves the needs of asset owners (low maintenance, cost effective to build) but is just plain horrible to actually be in.

We bring creativity to projects from inception and often bring select artists into the process early on. Creative, cross disciplinary thinking rarely fails to elevate the outcomes and challenges traditional thinking. It allows us to reframe questions so we get different answers and unique outcomes.