Clear planning and design guidance from informed communities.
A unique approach to educate and involve stakeholders, as they explore choices, helping to create meaningful, democratic and enduring outcomes.
Community values accurately translated into spatial planning and design guidance.
When the community is given the right tools and a little guidance they give back an abundance of insights for planners, regulators and design professionals. Our method for stakeholder engagement has been developed and refined over a decade and tested on four continents with over 2,500 participants.
Using our proprietary block systems and interactive dynamics we create site-specific models and use a game-like approach to rapidly explore multiple iterations and prompt lively discussion. Participants are actively engaged and ideas can be explored in a supportive and consequence-free environment.
As the community and stakeholders learn the trade-offs required for balanced planning choices, ‘single-issue groups’ typically moderate their positions - making large scale change easier, faster and smoother. The community become custodians of their new policy.
Welcome to Fairplace
Feedback from respected peers and participants.
“The model really helped us to engage in a meaningful way on complex planning policy.”
— Paul Garbett, Director of Strategic Planning and Projects, City of Fremantle.
“Your dedication and patience in arranging and hosting the recent design workshops and supporting the Bassendean community is to be commended.”
— Peta Mabbs, CEO, Town of Bassendean.
“The ‘Grow my Suburb’ co-design workshop was the highlight of the conference.”
— Professor Carolyn Whitzman, University of Ottowa.
“An extraordinarily useful piece of work.”
— David Doy, Manager Place Planning, Town of Victoria Park.
Informing changes at any scale.
Homes
Neighbourhoods
Streets
Precincts
Cities
The work feels like play.
Yes, it looks like a game and this has an intentionally disarming effect: putting people at ease and dissolving tensions in a room. Our unique process puts all stakeholders on an equal footing when expressing views and exploring options. This results in people feeling empowered, building trust and easing tensions.
Unique
Interactive, tactile and highly engaging methods based on learn-from-play theories and participatory design.
Powerful
Participants gain a sense of agency, with high levels of involvement, understanding and experiential learning.
Rigorous
Years of research, application and refinement by academics, educators and built environment professionals.
Unique
Interactive, tactile and highly engaging methods based on learn-from-play theories and participatory design.
Powerful
Participants gain a sense of agency, with high levels of involvement, understanding and experiential learning.
Rigorous
Over a decade of research, development and refinement by academics, educators and built environment professionals.
Proven
A product of rigorous academic development over a decade, Fairplace has been trialed with 2500+ participants.
Collaborative
A workshop environment where knowledge and expertise is openly shared to drive optimal outcomes.
Inclusive
Create a level playing field for stakeholders to allow valuable insights to be expressed and captured.
Generate Understanding.
Build Trust.
Align stakeholders.
Gain local insight.
Communicate trade-offs.
Foster custodianship.
Amazing clients have allowed us to produce work we are proud of.
Fairplace’s collaborative place design method has been in development since 2010.
Australian Urban Design Research Centre (AUDRC). University of Western Australia.
Fairplace
Level 2,
444 Beaufort Street
Highgate, WA 6003