The future of placemaking
Pattern Festival 2024: The shape of place and culture
To achieve positive transformation coupled with sustainable development in ways that resonate with local communities, progressive placemakers must get their voices heard, loudly and clearly.
Patn Platform offers a mouthpiece for progressive placemakers. As a term, a methodology, an attitude and even a set of beliefs, placemaking is making inroads in the built environment. But what it represents and what it can achieve are far from settled. There's everything to play for.
To achieve positive transformation coupled with sustainable development in ways that resonate with local communities, progressive placemakers must get their voices heard, loudly and clearly.
Patn Platform offers a mouthpiece for progressive placemakers. As a term, a methodology, an attitude and even a set of beliefs, placemaking is making inroads in the built environment. But what it represents and what it can achieve are far from settled. There's everything to play for.
16 April 2025
In a factsheet, Homes England explains how placemaking fits into good design. It describes placemaking as:
The process of involving communities in establishing what good design means to them through consultation and engagement.
But placemaking is more than a process. It's a philosophy of sorts, representing a holistic approach to planning, designing and delivering buildings and spaces where people and communities can live and work.
However, placemaking is also a work in progress. Whether you consider it a process or a philosophy, its precepts aren't set in stone. As we've highlighted, it means different things to different people.
This lack of a fixed set of rules or principles presents challenges to placemakers. It also offers opportunities to determine what placemaking should entail and, crucially, shape its potential for transforming the built environment.
We've built this platform to help progressive placemakers explore and realise this potential.
In a factsheet, Homes England explains how placemaking fits into good design. It describes placemaking as:
The process of involving communities in establishing what good design means to them through consultation and engagement.
But placemaking is more than a process. It's a philosophy of sorts, representing a holistic approach to planning, designing and delivering buildings and spaces where people and communities can live and work.
However, placemaking is also a work in progress. Whether you consider it a process or a philosophy, its precepts aren't set in stone. As we've highlighted, it means different things to different people.
This lack of a fixed set of rules or principles presents challenges to placemakers. It also offers opportunities to determine what placemaking should entail and, crucially, shape its potential for transforming the built environment.
We've built this platform to help progressive placemakers explore and realise this potential.
Patn Fest 2023
Patn Fest 2023
Who are the placemakers?
Who are the placemakers?
We know who placemaking is for — essentially, end-users, individuals and the communities of which they're a part.
Who are the people responsible for the placemaking policies and ideas impacting these end-users?
The obvious answer is they're built environment professionals, such as architects, urban designers, planners, engineers and consultants who translate ideas into workable concepts.
But placemaking isn’t restricted to these professions, because the drive to improve things at a grassroots level may also come from non-professional sources such as community groups or simply people who've come together informally with a shared desire to attempt to bring about positive change in their local areas.
And placemaking isn’t restricted to physical spaces. It encompasses elements such as food distribution and access to health, education and wellbeing. Essentially, it’s concerned with quality of life.
What about developers? Are they placemakers? Yes, if they approach their schemes from a people-first perspective. Of course, realistically, they'll always need to balance commercial and financial considerations against community needs. Regardless of placemaking's differences, viability is a common, core condition.
Development is frequently an area of contention where different interest groups are pitted against each other. The typical narrative pits uncaring commercial developers or local authorities against beleaguered communities, who feel no one acknowledges their needs.
Placemaking should encompass a broad range of interests, so long as these interests are genuine in their desire to achieve positive change for people and the environment.
We know who placemaking is for — essentially, end-users, individuals and the communities of which they're a part.
Who are the people responsible for the placemaking policies and ideas impacting these end-users?
The obvious answer is they're built environment professionals, such as architects, urban designers, planners, engineers and consultants who translate ideas into workable concepts.
But placemaking isn’t restricted to these professions, because the drive to improve things at a grassroots level may also come from non-professional sources such as community groups or simply people who've come together informally with a shared desire to attempt to bring about positive change in their local areas.
And placemaking isn’t restricted to physical spaces. It encompasses elements such as food distribution and access to health, education and wellbeing. Essentially, it’s concerned with quality of life.
What about developers? Are they placemakers? Yes, if they approach their schemes from a people-first perspective. Of course, realistically, they'll always need to balance commercial and financial considerations against community needs. Regardless of placemaking's differences, viability is a common, core condition.
Development is frequently an area of contention where different interest groups are pitted against each other. The typical narrative pits uncaring commercial developers or local authorities against beleaguered communities, who feel no one acknowledges their needs.
Placemaking should encompass a broad range of interests, so long as these interests are genuine in their desire to achieve positive change for people and the environment.
Patn Fest 2024
Patn Fest 2024
Should placemaking become more mainstream?
Should placemaking become more mainstream?
Placemaking, as an industry term, is in more widespread use, but without a fixed definition. Effectively, it's up for grabs. We think it matters greatly who owns it and how they interpret it.
For instance, the over-application of placemaking as a generic verb in the built environment can only lead to its dilution. Whereas anyone, in principle, could be a placemaker, it doesn’t follow that all schemes or projects will automatically succeed at placemaking.
Alternatively, progressive placemakers now have an opportunity to transform placemaking into a clearly recognisable cause — even a movement — by championing their version of it.
However, in promoting placemaking, we’d also advise a certain degree of caution. Consider this quote from David Bowie:
“Once something is categorised and accepted, it becomes part of the tyranny of the mainstream, and it loses its potency.”
Progressive placemaking can benefit from broader exposure but not at the expense of its integrity. And it may be, as in Bowie's words, that evading easy categorisation may be to placemaking's long-term advantage.
Many transformative ideas and movements start and first flourish in the margins. Progressive placemakers should look to how their thinking can infiltrate the mainstream, rather than have the mainstream dilute their ideas.
Placemaking, as an industry term, is in more widespread use, but without a fixed definition. Effectively, it's up for grabs. We think it matters greatly who owns it and how they interpret it.
For instance, the over-application of placemaking as a generic verb in the built environment can only lead to its dilution. Whereas anyone, in principle, could be a placemaker, it doesn’t follow that all schemes or projects will automatically succeed at placemaking.
Alternatively, progressive placemakers now have an opportunity to transform placemaking into a clearly recognisable cause — even a movement — by championing their version of it.
However, in promoting placemaking, we’d also advise a certain degree of caution. Consider this quote from David Bowie:
“Once something is categorised and accepted, it becomes part of the tyranny of the mainstream, and it loses its potency.”
Progressive placemaking can benefit from broader exposure but not at the expense of its integrity. And it may be, as in Bowie's words, that evading easy categorisation may be to placemaking's long-term advantage.
Many transformative ideas and movements start and first flourish in the margins. Progressive placemakers should look to how their thinking can infiltrate the mainstream, rather than have the mainstream dilute their ideas.
Patn Fest 2023
Patn Fest 2023
How can placemakers increase their influence?
How can placemakers increase their influence?
Placemaking isn't just one concept. It represents a set of ideas and philosophies about how people live and how we can improve their lives through carefully considered planning and collaboration.
If progressive placemaking is to bring positive change, the ideas driving it need to gain traction and influence. They need to imbue it with meaning and offer practical ways of applying its principles in the real world.
To sway is to cause something to move or change. You can sway an audience or someone’s opinion. As a verb, to sway also means to persuade. As a noun, it means control or influence — holding sway, for example.
Placemaking needs sway to become a significant driving force in the built environment. Placemakers must make their voices heard, individually and collectively.
At Patn — in our studio and the placemaking community we’ve been growing — we believe in the power of sway to support our clients’ brands and business strategies and increase our community members’ reach.
This platform represents the next stage in enabling placemakers to unlock and harness sway to help them achieve their goals.
What does the Patn Platform offer?
What does the Patn Platform offer?
Platform is an online publication, updated regularly with fresh content about placemaking and the built environment.
The site will highlight the ideas and work of Patn members and discuss placemaking issues in detail via articles, interviews and profiles in the Perspectives section. It'll also feature write-ups of Patn Sprint meetups and explore, at length, various ideas and opinions raised in the sprints.
We've also incorporated a news-in-brief section, Bulletin, to promote and publicise events and activities connected with the built environment, especially those involving our members.
We want this content to reach a broad audience. Our members' concerns and interests extend beyond the immediate built environment and its connected industries. They ask probing questions about how people live today, how they want to live in the future, and what sort of world we should be building, given our escalating environmental impact.
Explore progressive placemaking with us. We're sure it's going to be interesting, inspiring and, hopefully, transformative.
Platform is an online publication, updated regularly with fresh content about placemaking and the built environment.
The site will highlight the ideas and work of Patn members and discuss placemaking issues in detail via articles, interviews and profiles in the Perspectives section. It'll also feature write-ups of Patn Sprint meetups and explore, at length, various ideas and opinions raised in the sprints.
We've also incorporated a news-in-brief section, Bulletin, to promote and publicise events and activities connected with the built environment, especially those involving our members.
We want this content to reach a broad audience. Our members' concerns and interests extend beyond the immediate built environment and its connected industries. They ask probing questions about how people live today, how they want to live in the future, and what sort of world we should be building, given our escalating environmental impact.
Explore progressive placemaking with us. We're sure it's going to be interesting, inspiring and, hopefully, transformative.
William Seabrook
Founder
Thomas Ridge
Editor
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Salford M3 7FB
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Salford M3 7FB
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Salford M3 7FB
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Embankment East Tower Cathedral Approach
Salford M3 7FB
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