Placemaking Consulting is a multidisciplinary approach to real estate planning and development that integrates culture, business and market dynamics, art, physical space, innovative technology, services and community curation—all with the aim of creating outstanding human experiences which become associated with the ‘place’.
When done right, placemaking can increase the building’s value within the community, with its investors, and for its tenants.
Placemaking is critical to activating and appreciating the value of real estate assets. People are drawn to places with a meaningful identity: those which aim to entertain, inspire, connect and care for the local community. The best places are vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive, and aim to have a broader social and economic purpose.
Placemaking consultants specialise in creating magnetic, destination real estate with identities rooted in innovation, regeneration, skill development, entrepreneurship, and collaboration between businesses. We help you to transform buildings into places which have meaning beyond basic infrastructure—they are environments where creativity, connection, and collaboration happen.
At Cockerton + Co, our placemaking consultants have designed, built and/or operated places that are icons on the technology ecosystem map. In London, Leeds, Toronto and beyond, our projects have become places where entrepreneurs and innovators come together to form, grow, and deliver impact to the world.
As placemaking consultants, we take a unique approach to creating outstanding places for innovation and entrepreneurship. All our projects are bespoke, building on the values and resources of local communities with the ambition of achieving recognition on the global stage.
To ensure we consider these factors and create a strategy that is well-received locally, we consult with a vast and diverse range of stakeholders. They range from local residents to government ministers; from small startups to established industry experts. We believe the best new places take lessons from the past, and are designed and built with diversity, inclusion and local sensitivity at heart.
Placemaking consulting starts with a deep dive into:
Local assets and culture
Historical significance of the location
Active creative and entrepreneurial communities
Future developments and planning applications
Industrial strengths and existing business community
So how does Cockerton + Co put places on the map? We integrate innovative space and service design, engaging events and relevant programming, new wave retail experiences, and art interventions. Past projects include:
- Level39, a high-tech incubator in London which helped transform a rather sterile financial service area into an innovation cluster
- Plexal, a venue on the Olympic Park in need of a repurposing strategy, which supported entrepreneurship and innovation in the fields of sport tech, artificial intelligence and cyber security.
A critical strategy for placemaking on commercial sites is selecting industry thematics and running start-up accelerators or new business incubators. These business incubators—often also at the heart of innovation districts—draw in entrepreneurs and startups, and create relationships between investors, graduate talent pools, and large corporate clients.
These innovation districts create an attachment to the location which goes beyond physical space. Tenants appreciate (and will pay premiums for) the network opportunities, the business value the community generates, and the talent, investment, and client base these specialised clusters attract.
Beyond the physical space, people are drawn back to other people and ideas. Compelling content—in the form of talks, seminars, networking and other community programming—is the music that keeps the party going.
Do you have a difficult asset in need of repositioning? Do you want to build a new destination innovation centre? Do you want your place to represent the future of work, play, living, and shopping in the post-covid world?
Reach out to Cockerton and Co to tell us about your ambitions. We’d love to help.