Oxford Street – Placemaking Strategy and Place Branding 

Sydney, NSW – Woollahra Municipal Council (2013-14)

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Categories and services:

• Mainstreets

• Placemaking Strategy; Place Branding

• Community and Stakeholder Engagement

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Activate Oxford Street

Bringing Oxford Street to life.

Oxford Street has undergone significant change in the first decade of the 2000s, from being touted as Australia’s leading fashion destination, to a street experiencing high vacancy rates, poor local and tourist visitation and a place Sydneysiders were no longer proud of. In the face of this, the Paddington Business Partnership approached Woollahra Municipal Council, seeking help to revitalise the mainstreet, and this kickstarted the ‘Activate Oxford Street’ project.

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Woollahra Municipal Council engaged Village Well to work with the Business Partnership, local traders, property owners and the local community, as well as key strategic stakeholders including the City of Sydney, State Government representatives, Paddington Historic Society, and representatives from Sydney Buses, SCG and Centennial Parklands.  

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Branded as ‘Activate Oxford Street’, Village Well facilitated a series of workshops to develop a new vision and series of short and longer term place activation ideas to help revitalise the street. Simplified on-street trading policies, a new art market, street parties and an active online community noticeboard are a handful of the small, yet noticeable steps to help bring life back to the strip, and re-launch Oxford Street into a new and exciting stage of evolution.

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In the early stages of work, Village Well also developed a project brand which was then used throughout all aspects of the project. The brand was developed to be flexible and fun and was about transformation, growth, movement and change.

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The bright hexagonal logo was branded in six different colours which were used to represent different areas of the project and street, and the logo was used on all project and promotional collateral.