.svg)
This initiative explores pathways to a better public realm, this requires us to move beyond conventional approaches; embracing systemic shifts in governance, reimagining the financing, procuring, designing, permissioning, and managing of urban public spaces to forge sustainable, resilient, socially-valuable environments.
Pathways To An Outcomes-Based Public Realm will be of more immediate interest to build-to-rent, estate-based, or asset-holding developers focused on long-term value, but we’re optimistic that our focus on both regulation and the economic - as well as social and environmental - outcomes of investing in public space, will ultimately also influence traditional, build-to-sell developers, who more commonly seek quick return, prioritising high sales value over high-quality public space.
This report is a product of Connected Places Catapult’s Future Urban Spaces Programme and has been co-authored by Chloe Treger and Sofia Valentini, and has been compiled thanks to insights from various experts. Special thanks goes to Carla Smyth - Peabody, Carolina López Blanco - CLB studios, Daisy Narayanan - The Crown Estate, Dan Hill - DML, Danielle Sinnett - University of the West of England - UWE, Felicity and Rachel - Portsmouth, Frederick Lewis - CAPCO, Gabriel Monteiro - University of Leeds, Graham Marshall - Prosocial Place, Ilana Altman - Bentway, Je Ahn - Studio Weave, Lisa Brinkman - City of Nanaimo, Lloyd Preston-Allen - LandsecU+I, Miso Dem - Bayonne Green, Martyna Surma - University of the West of England - UWE, Neal Shasore - London School of Architecture, Ollie Hayes - London Borough of Hackney, Peter Runacres - Earls Court Development Corporation, Philip Askew - Peabody, Rob Harris and Stephanie Mcmahon - Ramidus, Robert van Dongen - Eindhoven University of Technology, Sophia Gibson - CBRE, Tasmim Anwar - Ramboll Denmark, Tommy Clark - Studio Egret West.
The public realm is crucial for fostering social cohesion, community well-being, economic growth, and climate resilience in our cities. However, these spaces are often overlooked in commercial real estate developments. To address this, the Connected Places Catapult (CPC) commissioned Dark Matter Labs (DML) to explore challenges and opportunities for innovation in the planning, design, financing, and management of public spaces across the UK. This report is an invitation for us to move beyond conventional approaches; embracing systemic shifts in governance, reimagining the financing, procuring, designing, permissioning, and managing of urban public spaces to forge sustainable, resilient, socially-valuable environments.
This report, a product of Connected Places Catapult’s Future Urban Spaces Programme, presents an outcome-focused vision for commercial real estate processes in public space. Through stakeholder interviews, case study assessments, and prototype design, the TreesAI team at Dark Matter Labs explores how we can better design, develop, and manage the public realm.
Targeted at forward-thinking commercial real estate stakeholders, in particular developers, policymakers, and local authority planning teams, this report serves as a catalyst for innovative approaches for development. It aims to spark thinking in advance of a series of tailored events we will organise to ‘hack’ at these innovations.
This document is divided into chapters that address key stages of the development process – finance, procurement, design, permissioning, and management – advocating for outcome-driven practices within each. Each chapter provides an overview of the current situation and challenges, possible pathways for change, which are evidenced by real-world examples (case studies and emerging approaches). The purple boxes relate to case study examples from the built environment that could be directly applied, whereas the green boxes relate to emerging approaches rom elsewhere that we believe could be translated. To drive wider adoption, each chapter proposes a prototype idea designed for scalability across the built environment and includes a use case to demonstrate its real-world potential.
Building on the findings of the report, the next step is to put these insights into action. A series of hackathons will bring together forward-thinking stakeholders—including developers, policymakers, planners, designers, technologists, and community members—to collaboratively "hack" innovative approaches to public space challenges in urban commercial real estate (CRE). The aim is to validate these prototype solutions and prepare for investment and implementation.
