Including Culture in Development

Service

Strategy

Themes

Culture, Development, Arts

Collaborators

Urban Land Institute

Year

2019

Including Culture in Development is a step-by-step guide on how to embed art and culture in developments that people truly connect with. We believe cultural value is the foundation of successful, meaningful development. Drawing on lessons from diverse case studies, the Urban Land Institute, in partnership with PLP Labs, presents a clear six-step framework for embedding culture from vision to delivery. From defining success and setting benchmarks to engaging creative professionals, each step ensures culture aligns with shared goals and resources. Projects that integrate culture from the outset achieve stronger community impact and long-term relevance.

1. Introduction

How do we measure cultural value in a development?

Developments embedded with strong cultural value from the offset create meaningful and long-lasting relationships with residents.

The Including Culture in Development booklet developed by the Urban Land Institute and their partners, including PLP Labs

Including Culture in Development presents a simple six-step guide to create culturally rich developments, backed up by case studies gathered from a large network of arts and culture organisations, developers, and architects.

The guide was a collaborative effort published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI). PLP Architecture and PLP Labs took lead parts in the steering community, MC'd the launch, and created all diagrams and maps in the report.

2. Guideline Book

‘Think about the story you want to tell about your development – art can tell that story vividly.'

Rosie Glenn, British Land

The guide outlines the importance of site-specific cultural engagement that is rooted in the project from the start, as well as ten top tips and diverse case studies.

Objective: Identifying everyone’s priorities for the impacts and characteristics of the development will help create a clear vision of success.

Question: What do you want to achieve?

Objective: Introducing a way to evaluate success early on will build the business case, help meet policy requirements and optimise the development’s impact.

Question: How will you measure success?

Objective: As well as knowing what success will look like, agree what type of engagement experience the development should create.

Question: What is the right type of cultural experience?

Objective: Having established when and how often, understanding the financial budget and human resources available will help clarify the right cultural opportunity and attract the right match of creatives.

Question: What resources do you have?

Objective: Confirming the strategic opportunity for the development will help identify the right creative professional.

Question: Based on the strategic brief who is the right creative professional?

Objective: Working with the cultural professional to complete the cultural brief is the last step before identifying the right match of cultural opportunity and artist.

Question: Is this the right cultural brief?

To create high-quality cultural value, we recommend following these 6 steps:

3. Launch

Including Culture in Development was launched by the ULI's UK Urban Art Forum in October 2019. The event took place in the London Living Room at London City Hall.

The launch was MC'd by Hala El Akl, Chair of the ULI UK Urban Art Forum and Director at PLP Architecture and lead of PLP Labs, featured keynote speaker Fatoş Üstek, director of the Liverpool Biennial, and hosted a panel disucssion with Hala El Akl, Fatoş Üstek, and Simon Silver from Derwent London Plc.