What's the future of placemaking?

A conversation with Place Bureau

When was the last time you engaged in ‘futuring’?

It’s a word that isn’t in most urbanist’s vocabulary, which is strange given we are always making plans for the future. And reacting to trends we think will shape the future - climate change, digitisation, new technologies.

Futuring is the practice of envisioning and planning for potential futures, often through a systematic process that includes analysis, exploration, and forecasting. (Source)

Rosanna Vitiello from Place Bureau introduced the term futuring on this week’s episode of the Green Urbanist podcast and how they are applying it in urban regeneration and strategy work.

Given the pace of change in the world, it’s an essential practice for ‘helping us step 20 or 30 years forward, but then bringing it back and applying it to today and rooting it in your place’. Rather than assuming doom and gloom, futuring allows us to ‘understand there are opportunities and solutions and we can take the best of this place and adapt it.’

On the pod, we were also joined by Domenica Landin, Associate Design Researcher at Place Bureau. Place Bureau is a research, strategy and design studio that defines new frontiers for places around the world.

In the episode we talk about:

• How to meaningfully engage communities with the future of their places and climate adaptation.

• The Collaborative Place Futures Toolkit, a practical tool for engaging communities in the future.

• How coastal communities can create positive plans for the future in response to rising sea levels.

• Their book Natural Futures, which explores the future of human-nature interactions in an era of change.

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Episode #111: Engaging Communities with the Future of Place and Nature, with the Place Bureau

Listen to the episode on the links below:

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Place Bureau also have an excellent Substack newsletter. Read and subscribe here:

p.s. don’t miss my upcoming webinar: Nature-led Masterplanning and Placemaking