Placemaking and urban development
Addressing public spaces is fundamental to create sustainable, fair, and livable cities. It entails designing an attractive urban environment – where people meet, stay, linger – addressing issues of accessibility, and creating the best living conditions for people. Thus, the method not only focuses on a deep understanding of peoples’ (future) needs, habits, and uses of the space but also creates the condition for them to participate in making public spaces.
Developing good public spaces is an endeavour that will never be finished, so placemaking should be understood as a process, not only concerned by the physical environment but also its management.
Principles for action
- Co-creation: We believe that great places cannot be made without collective intelligence, a citizen-driven approach, and stakeholder engagement.
- Holistic: Our analysis breaks silos, and integrates a multi-scalar perspective
- Change: We support you from idea-phases to implementation, to create change both on-site and within your organisations.
- Sustainable: We provide tools and resources to sustain the place and relationships in the long term.
Services
We work across the whole placemaking model:
- Placemaking strategies: Training, inspiring, and strategic advice on how to work towards attractive and safe places
- Facilitating collaborative processes all the way from mobilizing local actors to testing and implementing multi-stakeholder governance structures – helping you get started, drive change, and sustain the placemaking effort in the longer term
- Analysis of places focusing on local actors and citizens, as well as on the social, economic, and policy context
- Co-creation of place visions, including strategy and action plans to activate, transform, and sustain places
- Marketing campaigns, and how to work with placemaking and place branding
Dive into placemaking
Placemaking Sprint!
A one day on-site bootcamp to assess your place, engage stakeholders, and co-design a roadmap.
Placemaking Jump!
Placemaking Jump includes a presentation of the Nordic Placemaking handbook with handpicked tools and cases. It is followed by an open discussion with participants of your choice.