Placemaker

What if users were empowered to design their own working, learning and living environments? Placemaker is a unique 'placemaking' tool does just that. It establishes a shared language to translate users’ intangible needs and ideals into concrete, practical criteria for designing optimal spatial solutions.

Participants first map out their optimal desired experience, describing key contexts in terms of metaphors. These are then translated to separate learning functions and user criteria. Using this shared vocabulary of functions and criteria, participants then negotiate the layout and design criteria that a designer or architect can use as a clear and structured briefing. The game constraints make sure that this always stays within the vision and technical and budgetary constraints of the client.

Placemaker is very scalable and has been applied to a range of projects, ranging from single departments to entire buildings (up to 8400 square meters) and from a single park to a cluster of city streets.