Projects

..and the kind of community inclusive placemaking opportunities that help create real assets and prosperity in urban neighbourhoods, both social and economic, from pocket parks, community gardens, food growing, local high streets, rejuvenating ‘lost’ spaces, to neighbourhood plans and projects.

We actively support projects and take up opportunities that collectively re-imagine and recreate places and spaces. 

 Shared places and spaces

We work with the public and private sector, charities, communities, developers, architects, planners, academia, and grantmaking foundations to offer innovative and inclusive placemaking.

The Living Space Project provides support for shared space projects - to draw up urban place and space briefs, facilitate strategic plans, test bed ideas, curate stakeholder discussions, and carry out rigorous research - for developments, communities, planning and environment projects, funding and social investment programmes.

Parks & green spaces

People’s Parks Initiative is one of our green spaces projects. We are investigating how to combine park and green space making with a spectrum of income generating activities and innovations, under the auspices of community ownership or governance. Read our report ‘New Model Thinking for Park Futures’.

Living Space Project brings together stakeholders from across government, NGOs, business, the community and media in order to work on practical placemaking, research and policy.

The aim? Exploring opportunities for parks and green spaces to retain and reinvest the income they generate, to support their local economy and create a place based hub for communities and the local economy.

As part of this programme of work, we regularly contribute to workshops, roundtables and conversations on green spaces and placemaking. People’s Parks Initiative is one of our green space focus areas.

communities & safe places and place

Living Space Project set up the Environment, Space and Place project for Local Trust’s Big Local programme. Big Local is an exciting opportunity for residents in 150 areas around England to use at least £1million each to make a massive and lasting positive difference to their communities.

The Environment, Space and Place project is about bringing together all the local talent, ambitions, skills and energy from individuals, groups and organisations who want to make their area an even better place to live. We have provided advice and tool kits to Local Trust, and set up pilot projects designed to provide areas with support and advice on placemaking and green spaces.  

We helped the pilots turn their local area around, one step at a time. Targeted support to each of the pilot projects and our workshops to the wider Big Local areas community, have helped communities transform local places and green spaces

funding & philanthropy

Working with major grant making organisations, funders and partners, Living Space Project’s director has led on developing place led strategies and programmes for philanthropists, foundations and funders. The focus is on supporting grant making clients and the investment in spaces where people can learn, validate, and share common interest as they develop economic, social, and environmental assets.

Philanthropists or organisations funding placemaking are having to confront and turn around significant social and economic issues locally, nationally and globally. We offer new strategies, models and programmes that tackle these issues by creating funding models that build resilience in the communities they support as well as within their organisations or portfolios.

research & action learning

The Citizens Science for Sustainability (SuScit) Project, spanning three years, was set up to work with socially and economically excluded communities to allow them a greater say in neighbourhood space design, environment and sustainability, innovation and research.

Supported by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and with our partners Policy Studies Institute, the University of Westminster and Brunel University London, we tested a range of placemaking engagement tools and techniques including film making, walking tours and inter-generational workshops with local communities and people who work in urban design, science and engineering.

The SuScit engagement tools have been used in a number of other research and community projects.

SuScit is just one example within our research portfolio. Living Space Project carries out research across all of its different services and projects.

prosperity & employment

Living Space Project set up the hub ‘Academy for Greener Jobs and Skills’, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, as a collaboration to explore how to move communities to a greener framework. The mission centres around placemaking and its potential to use community-level processes to facilitate a greener and fairer local economy that benefits everyone.

‘Placemaking, Prosperity & the Local Green Economy’ is Living Space Project’s report, supporting local and global projects which aim to grow prosperity in neighbourhoods. Launched at the Growing Prosperity Conference, the report looks at how greener jobs can be fair and accessible to people living in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world. The findings suggest that green jobs and community-led placemaking are crucial to creating more prosperous local economies.

children & Young people

The Smart Cities agenda, how cities can develop more effectively, is one of our focus areas – specifically its impact on young people. Living Space Project carried out research for the British Council on the importance of Smart Cities for young people and entrepreneurship with co-partners from England and Kazakstan. 

Better Cities works with children and young people to get involved in urban regeneration in creating well-designed places for people, and promoting social inclusion and environmental equality. Better Cities is about tackling the sources of urban unrest, by providing opportunities for young people to get involved in decision making and the design of places and green spaces in cities.

The project has developed strong pan Europe connections, with young people in Berlin, Amsterdam and London, and with support from the Greens/European Free Alliance and Jean Lambert MEP.