Placemaking insights

What are they? Why do they matter? Why are they under threat? In his 2018 book “Palaces for the People,” Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist, recounts a humorous interaction about a design competition in which the designers envisioned a new resilience centre where everyone was welcome and would be enthusiastically greeted by staff upon arrival. There would be hundreds of resources anyone could use for free, and a place where people could connect with others or simply be. "Are you

It was a pleasure to attend the Living Cities Forum on Tuesday. The line-up of speakers was considered and inspiring in equal measure. This year's theme was ‘Cities made with Care’. It might just as well have been called ‘Homes Made with Care,’ as housing dominated nearly every session, a timely focus given where the housing conversation is right now. However, this phrase gave us pause. Because shouldn't care be the baseline? Dan Hill (Melbourne School of Design) and Shannon

Can one person really change a city? Meet our hero, Jane Jacobs, a passionate writer and resident of Greenwich Village during the vibrant 1950s and 60s in New York City. A champion of place, she stood tall against the formidable Robert Moses, known as the master builder of New York. Moses reshaped the city to fit his vision, carving expressways through neighbourhoods, displacing families, and creating a city designed for cars rather than the people who lived there. Their publ

We’ve spent the last two decades building “smart” cities under the pretence that if we could just measure everything, we could fix everything. And so we’ve gone about installing sensors, data dashboards, and digitising our public services. It’s a seductive idea, because who doesn’t want a more efficient city? And yet therein lies the problem – efficiency isn’t the same as health. In city after city, the reality of a smart city has fallen short of its promises, testing the

The Ecology Pillar