The Place Framework
The heart of this project is the development of a comprehensive framework for understanding place that encompasses the key dimensions that determine character, experience, and impact of a place.
The active and coordinated involvement of a broad range of voices - changemakers, community members, designers, economists, educators, policy-makers, thought leaders - is indispensable to creating a multi-purpose framework that effectively underpins the project’s aim to create systemic change in the ways we think about, talk about, and understand our built environment.
The Place Framework is imagined as a core document that defines common terms of engagement around place to enable coordination, conversation, and negotiation of meaning and purpose across diverse agendas and stakeholders. Promoting awareness and understanding of these terms and issues will expand place literacy, which in turn will facilitate meaningful conversations about the built environment between professionals, officials, and the general public.
Where are we starting?
STEP ONE. Convene a diverse group of stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of place literacy and its goals. This group will include experts from academia, practice, and the community from both inside and outside the built environment sector.
STEP TWO. Identify the core concepts and dimensions of place. This will be done through collaborative processes and include literature review, major stakeholder convenings, focus groups, and interviews.
STEP THREE. Develop measurable learning objectives that describe the knowledge and skills that learners of all ages should develop through place literacy education. These objectives will be aligned with the identified concepts and principles.
STEP FOUR. Identify and develop assessment tools that can be used to measure learners' progress towards the learning objectives. These assessment tools must be valid, reliable, and accessible to a wide range of learners of all ages.
STEP FIVE. Develop a toolkit with modifiable implementation strategies for delivering place literacy education in different settings and to different audiences. The toolkit will reflect and promote our action values, including equity and empowerment.
STEP SIX. Feedback and review. Once the framework is finalised, it will be disseminated to a wide range of audiences, including educators, practitioners, policymakers, and community members for review, testing, and feedback.