Placemaking 101: Concept Design
Bringing Strategy to Life Through Space
At The Place Bureau, we’ve always believed in the power of bold ideas rooted in cultural intelligence and community insight. But vision alone isn’t enough – we need to bring those ideas to life in space. That’s where concept design comes in.
WHAT is Concept Design at The Place Bureau?
Spatial concept design is our way of bridging the gap between strategic thinking and the physical-built environment. It's how we begin to define how a place vision and strategy might evolve physically and experientially, using tools like:
Mapping
Sketching
Concept diagrams
Illustrations
Drawings
Design visualisations
Video production
This is the bridge between creative strategy and real-world design – where the seeds of programming, placemaking, and cultural strategy start to take shape. It helps clients, communities, investors and partners to really visualise how change could look and feel like in their destination.
WHAT is Experience Design and Why Does it Matter?
We don’t just create spaces – we design experiences. Whether through light, sound, texture, or movement, experience design considers how people feel, move, and connect in a space. It's about creating places that are emotionally resonant, intuitive, and human.
We’re designing not just for footfall, but for feeling.
WHY Does This Add Value to Our Placemaking Work?
Incorporating spatial concept design supercharges our ability to deliver projects that are not only visionary – but also deliverable, impactful, and immersive.
What it brings:
Expanded Services: We go beyond strategies and activations to offer long-term, tangible design interventions.
Deeper Impact: From research and programming to real-world design, we help guide the full transformation of place, shaping visionary ideas into buildable, spatial realities.
Stronger Storytelling: We translate narratives into physical form – spaces people can walk through, gather in, and remember.
Holistic Thinking: We connect short-term placemaking to long-term urban strategies. This builds a bridge between our strategic work, and the work that architects and designers will embark on once the project enters later stages.
Visual Firepower: From diagrams to full animations, from concept sketches to story-rich images we give stakeholders everything they need to see the future. Visual material is a great way to provoke dialogue and get people really engaged with an idea.
Making it real — Meet Christos
While we’ve worked with some of the best architects in the world, we longed to have architecture baked into our thinking from the very start. That’s why we’re thrilled to have Christos on our team.
Since joining us in January, Christos has already redefined the way we bring strategy to life in space. Having honed his craft with architectural legends like Zaha Hadid Architects and Fuksas. From Greece to China, Italy, and the UK, he’s been reimagining spaces and pushing creative boundaries at every scale.
HOW Have we been turning strategy into space at The Place Bureau?
Davidson Prize: Forever Island
Set in Sandown on the Isle of Wight, FOREVER ISLAND is a placemaking concept and masterplan for a community campus designed to counter the island’s demographic crisis. While the Isle of Wight – designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve – has long attracted retirees, it increasingly struggles to retain its younger generations, who face limited job opportunities, low wages, and unstable housing.
Drawing inspiration from the informal character of British caravan parks, our design reimagines this familiar typology into something regenerative, modular, and future-facing. The masterplan includes clusters of adaptable micro-apartments, co-living homes, and flexible community structures – everything from tech shacks and workshops to taco huts and performance spaces. The layout is responsive to both seasonal patterns and long-term resilience, encouraging shared resources and neighbourly interaction.
Led by our in-house architect Christos, the concept design was developed through an iterative process of sketching, modelling, and storytelling. Christos collaborated closely with illustrator Harry Tennant, whose vibrant, characterful visuals helped translate the architectural intent into an emotive and accessible vision – populated with real people, real joy, and a sense of place that feels lived-in and loved.
Developed with support from Artecology and the Isle of Wight Youth Trust, FOREVER ISLAND proposes not just housing – but a whole new way of integrating living and working for young islanders.
Are you looking for a spatially led vision or searching for a way to bring early placemaking concepts to life?