Place Planning &
Identity Frameworks
“You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.”
– Harry S. Truman
A Place Plan is more than just a document - it’s a roadmap for shaping the future of a place. It combines the outcomes of many different built environment disciplines, aligning economic strategies, heritage studies, tourism plans, and urban design principles into a cohesive vision.
At The Design Partnership, we specialise in bringing together a diverse range of strategies into a single actionable plan. We take the wealth of research and reports already produced and weave them into a place-based approach that is practical, achievable, and tailored to the community.
Good place planning ensures that the investment put into studies and strategies by state and local government doesn’t go to waste. Instead, it connects the dots between different areas of expertise, providing clear direction for councils and communities to reimagine, revitalise, and create vibrant, resilient, cost-effective and meaningful places.
Picton Place Plan - depicting Argyle Street after its transformation.
Why do I need a Place Plan?
Places evolve, shaped by economic shifts, planning policies, cultural heritage, and unique community needs. Over many years, councils and governments engage consultants to produce countless studies, each providing valuable insights. But without a clear framework, these pieces often remain disconnected. This can result in missed opportunities, inefficiencies, dupications or unnecessary costs.
A Place Plan combines all this information into a single, strategic approach. The plan identifies the overlaps, the conflicts, and the opportunities within existing strategies and provides a roadmap for delivering those projects and opportunities.
A Place Plan sets clear priorities and direction, ensuring that urban planning investments lead to tangible results. It translates vision into action through a coordinated series of projects.
Without a Place Plan, decisions can be reactive, and projects risk being delivered in isolation. This means that councils and communities can take a proactive and integrated approach to evolving places that are functional, vibrant, and built on a shared vision for the future.
The Design Partnership's Place Planning Approach
At The Design Partnership, we take a strategic and collaborative approach to place planning - so that each project is built on a shared vision.
We begin by drawing together existing research prepared by various consultants and departments. This may include economic strategies, transport plans, heritage studies, and more. We identify where they align, where they conflict, and where opportunities lie. Rather than treating each study as a separate piece of the puzzle, we combine them to form a cohesive strategy, allowing projects to run concurrently and in alignment rather than in isolation. Each study is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle; you need each to make the picture whole.
Stakeholder and community engagement is at the core of our process. We work closely with the authors of different strategies, key decision-makers, business owners, infrastructure providers, event organisers, and custodians of public spaces. This process ensures that we’re not just creating plans - we are developing actionable solutions that reflect the aspirations of the community and the practical realities of those responsible for delivering them. This process also respects the engagement already undertaken with the community and stakeholders, showing that their past contributions did not go to waste, which is a common misconception in the community.
By weaving together insights from research, expert analysis, and local knowledge, we can shape places that are not only functional and well-planned but are connected to the people who live, work, and invest in them.
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