We know things can get a bit “word-salad-y” from time to time. So the following are some of the words, phrases or abbreviations sometimes used in association with placemaking, cultural placemaking and planning. This is by no means exhaustive list, but we will endeavour to add or update from time to time. Please do get in touch if you would like to add or suggest any updates or are unsure of any words or terms you may have come across.
Adaptive Re-Use
A use for a structure or landscape other than its originally intended use, normally entailing some modification of the structure or landscape.
Affordable Space
Affordable dwelling or working units available at below market rates. In general, affordable space typically refers to rental housing that is within the financial means of people in the lower income ranges of a geographical area. The existence of affordable space can be the product of government regulation or the creation of a public good by the private sector. The need for affordable space is typically attributed to high demand for space, which drives up the cost of renting and/or owning, particularly when coupled with non-traditional employment and income patterns.
Art-washing
The use of art and the presence of artists and creative workers to add value to commercial development and make redevelopment more palatable to residents.
Art in Public Places
It is useful to distinguish art in public places – art simply placed in a public setting – from “public art,” a practice that thoughtfully and effectively considers the context for art in public.
Artist Studio
A studio for artist activities, such as painting, sculpture, photography, or video art.
Authentic
A word that is frequently used (sometimes misused) to emphasise a point. In the best sense, ‘authentic’ means exactly what its dictionary definition is: worthy of trust, reliable, genuine. In cultural placemaking authentic indicates activity, interventions, or designs that reflect the locality, heritage, and peoples stories.
Beautification
Efforts made to improve the appearance of the built environment through policy, grant programs (e.g. storefront improvement programs), design, infrastructure upgrades (e.g. sidewalk improvements, street tree planting), public art, etc. Related terms: revitalization, tactical urbanism, art-washing.
Brownfield Land
The UK Government defines brownfield land as developed land, that is, or was previously, occupied by a permanent structure. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) prioritises brownfield development to better utilise existing land in built-up areas and to preserve undeveloped land.
Built Environment
This is a broad term to describe the world created by humans, as opposed to nature. It most often pertains to the constructed or altered natural features of our daily lives, such as buildings, plazas, roadways, bridges, groomed parkland, rain gardens and other altered or pre-designed areas for everyday activity.
Business Improvement District (BID)
A defined area within which businesses pay an additional tax or fee in order to fund improvements within the district’s boundaries. BIDs provide services(i.e. streets, providing security, making capital improvements, marketing the area, etc.) which are supplemental to those already provided by the municipality.
Capital
In the context of cultural placemaking, capital can take several forms:
- Creative/Cultural: Skills, knowledge, and human intellectual achievement.
- Economic: Money or other investments and assets that can be converted into cash (e.g. real estate value or rent).
- Political: The power and resources created through activities that build relationships (e.g. persuasion).
- Social: The resources created by human interaction and connection, including trust, mutual understanding, and shared values.
CDF
Cultural Development Fund. Piloted by DCMS in 2018 with funding awarded to five places following a competitive application process. The CDF scheme was relaunched in 2021 as one of three programmes under the DCMS Cultural Investment Fund. Awards for CDF2 areas were announced in 2022; CDF3 areas in 2023; and CDF4 areas in 2024/25. The aims have been modified, but all focus on transformational culture-led projects. The emphasis from CDF2 onwards was to support capital projects which help deliver regeneration and devolution through culture.
Co-Creation
Co-creation has been described as the “intentional collaboration of something meaningful to the collaborators”. It involves putting the community at the heart of the research and development of the project, it involves a diverse group of collaborators or partners working towards a shared and mutually agreed goal or output.
Commission
A commissioned work of art usually refers to any artwork created at the request of an entity?a public agency, corporation or individual?in which the funds to design and produce the art are provided by that entity (or an affiliated agency).
Community Art
A wide variety of activities are covered by this term, including neighborhood-generated murals, artists-in-residence, arts in the schools, and process-oriented art engaging the community at large. Artists working in and with the community dates back to the 1960s.
Community builders or community connectors
People who work in neighbourhoods to support their local community. These may be paid or volunteer roles, sometimes project funded. Community builders or similarly named roles exist in local authority areas across the country. They work with local businesses, service providers, voluntary groups, and councils to organise events and activities.
Community Engagement
The process of using multiple strategies to provide opportunities for all to be informed and to participate in public decision-making. Related terms: Inform, Engage, Empower.
Conservation (for heritage policy)
The process of maintaining and managing change to a heritage asset in a way that sustains and, where appropriate, enhances its significance.
Culture
The customs, arts, social institutions, and other manifestations of human intellectual achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. Culture can also refer to attitudes, behaviors, and norms characteristic of a place as influences by the people who, live, work, play, and pass through a place. (Adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary).
Cultural Assessment
Cultural assessment helps communities understand the local cultural ecology, identify what is needed to strengthen the management of culture resources and how they can be leveraged to address community priorities, inform planning and decision-making, and target investment.
Cultural Enterprises
Arts, culture and heritage-centric businesses or non-profits.
Cultural Facility
A facility open to the public that provides cultural services and facilities including, but not limited to, museums, cultural centers, galleries, historical societies, libraries, theatres etc operated by a public, private, or nonprofit organisation.
Cultural Mapping
A systematic approach to identifying, recording and classifying a community’s cultural resources. It involves a process of collecting, analysing and synthesising information in order to describe and visualise the cultural resources in terms of issues such as links to other civic resources (e.g. transportation, green infrastructure, public gathering spaces), patterns of usage, and unique character and identity of a given community.
Cultural Planning
A process – usually government or local government-led – for identifying and leveraging a community’s cultural resources, strengthening the management of those resources, and integrating cultural resources across all facets of local government planning and decision making. Cultural planning is part of an integrated, place-based approach to planning and development that takes into account four pillars of sustainability: economic prosperity, social equity, environmental responsibility and cultural vitality. Cultural Plans vary in scope depending on the size and circumstances of the community.
Cultural Tourism
An industry subsector that caters to people interested in learning more about the arts and culture of a region, country, or people. Tourists can be local or from more distant locations, depending upon the type of demand for the destination. Heritage tourism is a related term.
DCMS – the government’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport. For a time DCMS also included digital, this is now within the remit of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Design code
A set of illustrated design requirements that provide specific, detailed parameters for the physical development of a site or area. The graphic and written components of the code should build upon a design vision, such as a masterplan or other design and development framework for a site or area.
Design guide
A document providing guidance on how development can be carried out in accordance with good design practice, often produced by a local authority.
Designated heritage asset
A World Heritage Site, Scheduled Monument, Listed Building, Protected Wreck Site, Registered Park and Garden, Registered Battlefield or Conservation Area designated under the relevant legislation.
Design Team
A trend emerged in the 1970s for artists and architects to collaborate on public improvement projects in which public art was an integral component. More artists today are recognized as valuable design team members, rather than decorators brought in late in the process.
Displacement
A change in neighborhood demographics in which long-time residents are compelled to leave due to rising housing costs (e.g. prices, rents, and property taxes) and a decline in availability of affordable goods and services due to redevelopment and/or an influx of new residents with advantages that may include age, income, education, or access to family resources. This is often an unintended consequence of Cultural Placemaking. The possibility of displacement should be an integral part of planning for community engagement, implementation, and oversight.
Dwell-time
The duration of time spent in a given location. Museums, visitor attractions, and heritage settings, as well as funding bodies, often talk of increasing ‘dwell-time’. The longer people spend in a place, the more likely it is that they are engaging what is on offer, suggesting a positive experience. Discretionary spend often increases if dwell-time is extended.
Gentrification
Refers to a particular type of neighborhood change defined by an increase in housing costs and an influx of new, higher-income residents; often coincides with lower-income residents moving out of a neighborhood due to rising housing costs. This is often an unintended consequence of Cultural Placemaking. The possibility of gentrification should be an integral part of planning for community engagement, implementation, and oversight.
Heritage
A legacy, inheritance, tradition, or birthright passed on from previous generations. In the context of cultural placemaking, the UK’s National Lottery Heritage Fund is most useful in defining heritage as “anything from the past that you value and want to pass on to future generations …. From historic buildings, our industrial legacy and the natural environment to collections, traditions, stories and more”.
Heritage asset
A building, monument, site, place, area or landscape identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions, because of its heritage interest. It includes designated heritage assets and assets identified by the local planning authority (including local listing).
Historic environment
All aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction between people and places through time, including all surviving physical remains of past human activity, whether visible, buried or submerged, and landscaped and planted or managed flora.
Historic Preservation
The practice of safeguarding significant old buildings and neighborhoods from destruction or encroaching contemporary development in order to preserve community identity, stability and orientation.
LBC – listed building consent. A key requirement when planning to develop, adapt, or restore a building that is on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE). Applications for LBC need to be submitted to the local planning authority which will also liaise with Historic England. The first steps are to contact the local authority planning team and its conservation officer or the equivalent person responsible for this such as a historic environment officer. Early stage liaison is important in ensuring the application for LBC is as complete and accurate as possible.
LGA
Local Government Association. A membership organisation representing the national voice of local government in England and Wales, working with councils to support, promote and improve local government.
LIF – the Libraries Improvement Fund, one of the DCMS Cultural Investment Fund programmes managed by Arts Council England. LIF is focused on improving existing library buildings and technology. LIF has run through several rounds at the time of writing.
Local plan
A plan for the future development of a local area, drawn up by the local planning authority in consultation with the community, under the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012. A local plan can consist of either strategic or non-strategic policies, or a combination of the two.
Meanwhile use
The temporary use of a currently unused setting, for example an empty retail unit or patch of land; or the temporary use of a place such as a street or car park. ‘Meanwhile use’ can be a way of trialing a concept and then consulting or evaluating public interest. For example pop-up craft shops, or exhibition spaces.
MEND – the Museum Estate and Development fund, one of the DCMS Cultural Investment Fund programmes managed by Arts Council England. MEND is focused on supporting repair and conservation of the museum estate around the country, and like LIF has run through several iterations, currently round 4 at the time of writing.
Mixed-Use
The practice of having more than one type of use in a structure or area. In urban planning terms, this means a combination of residential, commercial, office, institutional, industrial and/or other uses. In artist space development terms, this means a combination of any or all of the following uses: living, working, presentation, commerce, etc.
Neighbourhood plan
A plan prepared by a parish council or neighbourhood forum for a designated neighbourhood area. In law this is described as a neighbourhood development plan in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
Open Competition
A process in which a public art opportunity is promoted broadly within a region or nationally. A selection process is used to determine an artist to commission. This method can employ a Request For Proposals (RFP), Request For Qualification (RFQ) or tendering process.
Open space
All open space of public value, including not just land, but also areas of water (such as rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs) which offer important opportunities for sport and recreation and can act as a visual amenity.
Planning
Planning enables civic leaders, businesses, and citizens to play a meaningful role in creating communities that enrich people’s lives. Good planning helps create communities that offer better choices for where and how people live. Planning helps communities to envision their future. It helps them find the right balance of new development and essential services, environmental protection, and innovative change.
Pop-Up
A temporary artistic endeavor developed to enliven a space and generate interest in an area.
Priority Places
As part of Arts Council England’s Delivery Plan for 2021-24, it identified 54 places across England in which its investment and engagement was too low, and the opportunity for it to effectively increase investment and engagement was high. Arts Council England therefore prioritised working with these places. In its updated Delivery Plan for 2024-27 Arts Council England reaffirmed its commitment to work with these Priority Places, making a commitment to work with local stakeholders to set bespoke objectives, hold themselves accountable for increasing staff time and investment across a range of funds, and track the impact of its investments.
Public Art
Encompasses a wide variety of creative expressions in the public realm. It encompasses works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art can be temporary or permanent. For some communities public art is seen as a means of enhancing or personalising otherwise impersonal spaces. For others, it’s a way to activate civic dialogue, or provide a vehicle for communities to express their unique identity. Public Art can be:
- Site specific: works of art or projects that take into account, interface with, or are otherwise informed by the surrounding environment. This includes the physical limitations of a site, weather conditions, history, audience demographics and usage, lighting and many other aspects. (6)
- Site responsive: works of art or projects that engage directly with the surrounding environment. The relationship between artistic expression and place evolves over time with regards to factors including social climate, cultural context, natural elements, time of day, season, and surrounding activities.
- Place-based: art that is designed for a specific context, generally responding to physical place.
Pride in place
How people identify with their local area, the sense of satisfaction that people have with their town, and residents connections and engagement with the local community and culture. The difficulty with ‘pride in place’ as a descriptor is that measurement and evaluation of this is still inconsistent. It is also a phrase which can be interpreted in different ways by the public.
Regeneration
Usually used in respect of urban developments, construction (buildings, transport links, highways, etc) though more generally applied in the context of town centre improvements as a whole.
Renewal
Interchangeable with regeneration; sometimes preferred as it is more nuanced and more widely understood by the public.
Revitalisation
Efforts to transform urban areas to reverse deterioration of the physical environment and increase access to services and amenities such as reliable transit, usable open space and high quality food, education and employment.
RIBA – Royal Institute of British Architects serves its members and society in order to deliver better buildings and places.
RIBA Plan of Work
Organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing and operating building projects into eight stages and explains the stage outcomes, core tasks and information exchanges required at each stage.
Setting (of a heritage asset)
The surroundings in which a heritage asset is experienced. Its extent is not fixed and may change as the asset and its surroundings evolve. Elements of a setting may make a positive or negative contribution to the significance of an asset, may affect the ability to appreciate that significance or may be neutral.
Sociability
The quality of liking and wanting to meet people is how this is literally defined. In the context of cultural placemaking, ‘sociability’ is frequently used in reference to how comfortable people are using a given place to meet, return to, and spend time in for events.
Stakeholder
An entity or individual in the public or private sectors who may stand to benefit or be impacted by an activity or policy, which may or may not be directly involved in the decision-making process pertaining to that activity or policy.
Urbanist
Someone who studies the urban environment and how people interact within towns and cities. Used to refer to different professional specialisms relating to architectural design and planning of urban areas.
Vox pops
Used as part of community consultation and audience engagement exercises. Short filmed interviews with the public, usually to gauge interest and responses to an idea, event, or design.
Walkability
The extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area. Factors influencing walkability include the presence or absence and quality of footpaths, or other pedestrian right-of-ways, traffic and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety.
White paper
In the UK this term is usually applied to government published policy documents, usually developed after a period of research and consultation (which may have been described as ‘green’ papers in earlier iterations).
