Development Victoria
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We worked with Development Victoria to create the Place Vision and Principles for a large brownfield site in Melbourne’s inner north.
The project involved workshops and interviews with the local community to understand their needs, desires and aspirations. This was augmented with an audit of existing research reports, planning and government directives to inform a place analysis – a deep quantitative and qualitative understanding of the surrounding area and its people.
Importantly, we recommended that Indigenous perspectives as well as those of people within the Victorian community with disabilities. These were agreed to by DV, and individuals representing these groups were engaged with and incorporated into a broader reference group, which we utilised for engagement purposes.
We conducted in-depth research into the neighbourhood and its people, engaged with stakeholders and the local community, and delivered a placemaking strategy, including a place vision and guiding principles and a place activation strategy.
Our Process
Stage 1–Discovery
Local Peoples researched and analysed the characteristics of the neighbourhood and its people by auditing the demographic and its retail and commercial landscape. We then delivered a quantitative and qualitative report of the area that would inform our placemaking strategy.Stage 2–Define
We conducted workshops and interviews with stakeholders and the local community to co-create a place vision and guiding principles.Stage 3–Design
Using our expertise in placemaking and human-centered design, we engaged with the community to inform the design and activation of a major new mixed-use precinct in inner Melbourne. The upcoming precinct will be vibrant, resilient and put the community’s needs and wants first.Stage 4–Development
We delivered a community activation strategy that will help bring the place principles to life and build community throughout the construction and life of the precinct. The place activations will engage with the community to further inform the design and community programming at the precinct.
We undertook extensive research into local and international benchmarks, placemaking and design trends to begin to inform the possible directions of the site and to establish what ‘good’ looks like.
We drew together the broad research and various strategic objectives of the key stakeholders in the site to determine themes and trends that would inform the place vision and principles.
Place analysis included vox pops with local Fitzroy North residents to understand the demographics present and suburb mentality. This was supplemented with extensive data collection and analysis considering local demographics, business and amenity, and local area values and opinions.
The result was an extensive place analysis report that formed a solid foundation on which to build the place vision and principles.
To begin to co-design the Place Vision and Principles for the site, we held extensive engagement workshops with key stakeholders and the Development Victoria team.
We ran a series of workshops with internal stakeholders, VSBA, SRV and the community reference group. Activities in these workshops were designed to be fully interactive and get participants ideating on the future of the site.
Activities were designed to answer questions such as; what does success look like for the different people who might live there? What is story we are beginning to write about this place? How can we communicate this story out into the community?
The result of these workshops was high level place vision and principles that Local Peoples could then refine to present back to the team.
Results
3
Community engagement workshops150
People engaged9
Place vision & principles co-created with the CRG and Development Victoria
