Breakout Session | Mapping what we love: how local people read and shape place

Join us to explore how Create Streets’ Create Communities uses geolocated comments and visual preference surveys to gather thousands of inputs in neighbourhood design and ‘change the politics’ of development. Drawing on recent online engagement and visual preference surveys to support our work in Lichfield, Chesham and Chatham we will demonstrate how the platform has helped shape design codes, give residents a stronger voice, and create places that are loved, not just tolerated. You will also get to try the platform yourself and see how digital tools can make engagement wider, faster and more fun. We will round off with a short discussion on how participants have used or experienced public engagement, and how these methods could work in their own contexts.

Session led by Create Streets, chaired by Founder Nicholas Boys Smith, with contributions from Urban Designer Ed Leahy and Senior Urban Designer George Payiatis.

About Create Streets

Create Streets is a United Kingdom based design practice, town-builder and think tank. We lead research, master-planning, design coding and community co-design. Our primary mission is to create beautiful, sustainable, and popular places of gentle density that prioritise well-being, social cohesion, and economic vitality. Our work combines practical urban design, community engagement, and policy influence, helping councils, developers, and communities to deliver places that people love. While we are not formally affiliated with INTBAU, we are one of the host institutions for INTBAU’s 2025 World Congress. Learn more.