We’ve all had our lives turned upside down by COVID-19. And while we still have a ways to go until we’re completely out of the woods, we’re all trying our best to move forward. Plenty of us have already – or soon will be – returning to work. As a result, we’re having to find our footing gradually and adapt to the new normal. For many of us, this next
As the weeks pass, we’re seeing a shift from ‘daily survival’ to ‘planning what a new normal might be’. As we look towards the gradual end of the lockdown, we can start to speculate what the future might look like and identify the lessons we’ll take away from the past few months. Here at Placemarque, this involves hypothesizing what behavioural changes we might see, how we’ll approach locations differently, and
At Placemarque, site visits are a massive part of what we do. We immerse ourselves in these locations as part of a process to understand how they work as places, we examine how people arrive, explore, experience, and navigate through an area. We talk to people and we watch how they interact with their environment. So, as you can imagine, given the current lockdown regulations, our working days have become
Image Source: Kera Till It’s been a couple of weeks now since everyone who could work remotely packed up their desks and made space in their homes. Whilst the work continues, it’s at a different pace, interspersed with home-schooling for some, video calls, DIY haircuts and purposeful exercise. In the calm and quiet of social distancing, here’s what we’ve noticed about how people are engaging with place. With only an
Most of us can remember the good old days where addresses were simple. Every street looked more or less the same. We had the comforting certainty of odd numbers on one side, even on the other. And our navigation instincts were only required when faced with the unfamiliarity of a cul-de-sac. But now, as roads expand vertically as opposed to horizontally, addresses aren’t so straightforward. We’ve been plunged into the
Placemarque recently conducted a wayfinding analysis for Royal Victoria Place, an indoor shopping centre in Tunbridge Wells. It’s a medium-sized mall of about 100 outlets plus a food court and its revamp is part of British Land’s refurbishment aiming to encourage more retailers as well as shoppers to the centre. Good wayfinding can be the difference between shoppers viewing a mall as an efficient, opportunistic and dry place to shop
Connectivity means different things to different people. In July 2019, Placemarque director Sophie Campbell delivered a presentation about connectivity to a room of proptech professionals in Manchester. Whilst other presenters talked about bandwidth, BIM, subscription models and financing, we look at connectivity in terms of people and place. And only sometimes do we use tech. Disconnected communities cost the UK economy money because people spend money in their community. They
That lift in your spirits when you turn into your street, the wave to a neighbour, that quick check round that everything is as it should be. Home. Whether you’re in a block, a terrace or a detached Georgian villa, most of us feel the same way about it. But not everyone is so lucky. The housing crisis means even more people without a home, people remaining in unsafe accommodation,
Placemarque chose to sponsor Built Environment Networking’s Airport Cities Development Conference because it combines our key markets. We create wayfinding for large estates and for communities. An airport city involves (possibly) the most complex of all estates. And community-wise, an airport city is the same as every other city, isn’t it? People have to eat, sleep, rest and recharge, and they need to connect with their surroundings and with other people. Perhaps
With Dementia Awareness Week taking place at the end of May, the Placemarque team reflected on how we consider differences in neurodiversity in our wayfinding. CIPD research indicates that at least 10% of the UK population is neurodivergent.[1] This means they have a different thinking style such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and dementia. And this means we need to think carefully about how we present information in our wayfinding. For
