Placemaking principles

Placemaking began as an idea in the 1970’s, but the term ‘placemaking’ only began to appear during the 1990’s. Now days in Australia we see councils with placemaking teams and specialist businesses forming to support the collection of data, design, processes and procedures to undertake good placemaking.  

In the USA the Project for Public Spaces has been leading the development of defining the key principles of placemaking that offer guidelines to help communities, integrate diverse opinions into a cohesive vision. This is followed by translating that vision into a plan and program of uses ensuring sustainable implementation.

They have written a great booklet on placemaking that you can download free from here.  Or if you are interested in learning about placemaking visit the Australian site Placemaking Education. They have further free info and offer online courses.

The NSW government has introduced their Public Spaces Charter with 10 guidelines to make a space great that also links in closely to their Everyone can Play best practises.

One of the areas that we synergise with is their thoughts on what makes a great place.

• They are accessible and well connected to other important places in the area
• They are comfortable and project a good image
• They attract people to participate in activities there
• They are sociable environments in which people want to gather and visit again and again.

Our team has backgrounds in major events, design, landscaping, horticulture, architecture and engineering.  With our multi skilled understanding of the placemaking requirements we can recommend what data and public consultation our clients need to undertake. We have a number of partner organisations that support us in areas of placemaking that we don’t cover.

We specialise is in the translation of this placemaking data into the design and build of the shared space.  This can be for permanent, long term temporary, or short term fast activations.  For examples of these designs visit Our Work section.