Investment strategies that aim to generate positive societal, environmental and cultural change should be the perfect match for placemaking. Our latest discussion was about the gap in perception and action between investment and community needs.
Every fortnight we host Pattern, a roundtable discussion centred on placemaking and the built environment. Our latest discussion was about the gap in perception and action between investment and community needs.
Impact Investment and Placemaking
Investment strategies that aim to generate positive societal, environmental and cultural change should be the perfect match for placemaking.
Impact investment can only be successful if there’s a clear correlation between the ambitions of investors and the aspirations of the communities on the receiving end.
The challenge is to establish this mutual relationship and nurture it. Placemaking should be perfectly positioned to do this. But this depends on designers, developers, stakeholders and investors all understanding what placemaking means to them.
What Placemaking Means
Ultimately, the aim of placemaking is to create quality places. But here’s where the potential problem lies. Who defines this quality?
If, for example, investors see the project they’re putting money into as primarily an asset, how does this view sit with end-users?
As Professor Henry Overman of the LSE points out, the two main goals of urban generation are usually to increase economic activity and Improve the built environment.
The issue with some regeneration projects is that while they do transform the built environment and act as attractive investments for commercial development, they may not have such a positive impact on local communities.
Professor Overman highlights this discrepancy in outcome when looking at the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) which ran from 1994 to 2002.
Quality for an investor may not be the same thing as quality of life for a local resident.
To judge urban regeneration as a success, it must improve the outcomes for people living in the areas it improves. How, then, can placemaking close this gap between investment and community needs?
Designing for People
Placemaking should connect people to a place. This connection should have the capacity to strengthen over time.
As a process, placemaking has similarities to UX design. UX, or user experience, is about meeting the customer’s precise needs. This is a multi-disciplinary approach, that involves the user’s total interaction with the product or service.
This goes beyond the immediate user interface to consider all the possible things someone could possibly want to know in connection with the specific product or service.
Like UX design, placemaking is multi-disciplinary and concerned with user needs and preferences.
Its users are communities. The object is to create places that are designed for people primarily. They must be places that people truly want to live and work in.
How Investment Should Have an Impact
Investors in regeneration projects want to see an ROI. But the long-term ROI isn't only financial.
It’s about inclusive growth – helping communities share in innovation and investment by getting something tangible out of it.
This comes back to outcomes. Altering the urban skyline is meaningless if it doesn’t alter the lives of the people in the urban environment.
There must be an increase in community wealth as a key outcome.
Aligning Impact Investors with Opportunities
Successful placemaking requires a clear alignment of objectives with outcomes. But it also requires an alignment of potential investors with social impact opportunities.
The task of regeneration schemes is to source investors who are willing to see beyond their own financial gain.
The bigger picture is to do with enriching and improving people’s lives by increasing their long-term economic prospects.
This requires profound change. The demonstrable impact of levelling up isn’t on a balance sheet, but on how communities thrive and feel connected to places.
This Week’s Panel of Guests:
Alexandra Gardiner, Director, Metro Dynamics
David Hourd, Senior Director, Temple Group
John Chesworth, Executive Chairman, Harrison Drury & Co
John McHugh, Senior Director, Head of Place & Community, CBRE
Neil Eccles, Head of Innovation, Rochdale Development Agency
Nick Moss, Founder Director, Nick Moss Architects
Nicola Jacob, Partner, Randall Thorp
Pattern is a platform for discussing progressive placemaking ideas.
For more details, please contact: william@partisan.studio
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