Communities key to the future of placemaking

At the inaugural Future of Place forum, hosted by real estate group Mirvac in Sydney last week, designers, thought leaders, urbanists and social innovation specialists shared how to unlock the ‘place potential’ in communities across Australia.

Paul Edwards, group general manager sustainability at Mirvac, said the company feels “a responsibility to our customers and future generations to understand what people want from the spaces and places we are delivering”. Mirvac therefore set out to bring together a diverse range of leaders in order to “encourage the type of collaborative and integrated thinking which is essential in the creation and enhancement of our cities, towns, villages and communities”, Edwards said.

“The Future of Place initiative is part of Mirvac’s ‘This Changes Everything Strategy’ sustainability roadmap and aims to better understand what its staff feel, customers value and global experts believe is the future of place,” Edwards explained. “The Future of Place forum is the first step in distilling and curating the insights gathered to date.”

Keynote speakers included Marcus Westbury, founder of Renew Australia; Phil Kim, co-CEO and MD of Jerde Partnership in Hong Kong; and Robert Hammond, executive director and co-founder of Friends of the High Line in New York. Over three sessions - planning, design and activation - the forum found that the key to great placemaking is through community collaboration, ownership, unique experiences and flexible, adaptive space.

“The next stage is to create a framework that will shape and guide the design and development of great places that meet the wants and needs of Australians,” said Edwards.