Sense of Place

Sense of Place is one of our eight design features at Healthy Active by Design. It forms a key component to walkable, liveable, local neighbourhoods. Local environments that have a 'sense of place' provide opportunities for people to meet and interact, places to linger and rest, and places to form social connections.

Sense of Place can also reflect how a person feels about a place. It helps create the social fabric of a community, encouraging physical activity in the local neighbourhood and provides a sense of belonging.

It can be a challenging feature for built environment practitioners to design and deliver because of its very nature as social, sentimental and intangible.

There are many ways that the fabric of the built environment influences the way a person feels about a place. These include safety (real and perceived), aesthetics and amenity, cleanliness and maintenance, the availability of local destinations, the presence of other people, greenery and other factors.

Our Healthy Active by Design Checklist for Sense of Place provides a list of principles and considerations to ensure that local neighbourhoods support positive feelings, a local sense of connection and places where people want to be outdoors walking, cycling, interacting and socialising.

The unique character of a place, particularly when drawn from the local culture and context, is important. This can be achieved in many ways, from using local materials, sharing local stories through interpretive materials and information, providing opportunities for local entrepreneurs and business, facilitating community events and activities, and more.

Elements of other design features also contribute to a sense of place, including:

• Healthy food can include opportunities to access and join community gardens and local farmers’ markets
• Destinations within walking distance, together with supportive movement networks, provide opportunities to interact with neighbours
• Public open spaces provide opportunities to meet and socialise

You can read more about this on the Sense of Place design feature at https://www.healthyactivebydesign.com.au/design-features/sense-of-place.

In addition to the Checklist, other resources to support your work in creating a sense of place for your local community includes the evidence base, health impacts, inspiring case studies and international examples.

https://www.healthyactivebydesign.com.au/design-features/sense-of-place

image courtesy Kate Trysh, www.unsplash.com