Vee Design and Fourfold Studio combined forces to investigate the potential of placemaking and landscape architecture to bring life into the small forgotten spaces pockmarking Brisbane’s urban fabric. For 18 months we found, explored, and mapped these overlooked places by scouring the landscape matrix of the inner suburbs. Being some of the oldest developed areas in the city, these neighbourhoods reflect planning policies which have come and gone with the electoral cycle, leaving in their wake a network of forgotten voids. These places are ripe with the potential to be transformed from leftover spaces to community assets.

We know from placemaking theory that engaging people in the design and governance of the places they live, work and play can lead to richer and more diverse cityscape, resulting in social and economic dividends for the community. Taking this approach to urban development has the potential to disrupt the developer-led model and the growing trend towards privatised place governance. However, it also has the potential to relieve Councils and developers from some of the burdens of city-making by allowing the community to take on a central role in the design of their public spaces.

Our research and development project was an experiment in exploring ways to disrupt the development paradigm by working in collaboration with landowners, stakeholders, and the community to transform an urban void into a community space. The result of our efforts is our book: Negotioscapes. In this publication, we share our journey, processes, successes, and failures and offer you the challenge of taking on a negotioscaping project of your own.