Throughout 2022 the KingstonArts Precinct Place Brief was developed, supported by community and stakeholder consultation.

What is a Place Brief?

The Place Brief is a document that brings together the aspirations of our diverse Canberra community for this place.

The Place Brief is also use as a decision-making tool that integrates the ideas and ambitions of arts organisations and the community - the people who live, work and play in the precinct - in a way that brings the precinct to life. In simple terms, the place brief approach means people first and design second.

Consultation with the community

Consultants Place Design Group were appointed to collaborate in the engagement process and create a Place Brief for the Arts Precinct.

The aim of this stage of engagement was to gather meaningful input from the community, arts organisations and key stakeholders to inform the development of the draft Place Brief. This included re-establishing contact and consultation with the existing Community Panel along with delivering broader engagement activities for the general community and other key project stakeholders. It also sought to acknowledge previous engagements and build upon these insights and inputs to contribute to the draft Place Brief.

This engagement phase comprised of two community workshops, stakeholder walkshops, two Community Panel meetings, a creative panel discussion, a public pop-up, employee surveys and the YourSay collaboration page. A detailed engagement report has been produced outlining what we heard during these conversations.

Developing a people-first plan

During the Place Brief engagement, you told us what is important to you and what inspires and attracts you to live, work and visit the Kingston Arts Precinct, and explored objectives and opportunities for the site. Your views helped us to create the final Place Brief which is now being used to inform the design of the precinct.

The development of the Place Brief considered previous input by the community and stakeholders, as well as gathering further input through a range of additional engagement and feedback activities.

Informing precinct design

The Place Brief includes a vision, site context and place opportunities as well as what is important for this place’s identity. It provides interesting national and international case studies that have been considered to inform this project.

It captures six themes as place pillars, identified through community input, on what is fundamental for this place, and the ways we can achieve these in the precinct:

• Integrated offering
• Creatively led
• Inclusive and accessible
• Culture – past, present and future
• Connected
• Dynamic and sustainable

The purpose is for the Kingston Arts Precinct to be: “a leading arts destination, celebrating a rich living history and vibrant community life, through discovery, connection and collaboration”