Place vision strategy
Lucy Bullivant & Associates (LB&A) are globally influential place vision strategists, advocates and champions.
Our mission is to consistently evolve promising opportunities by creating, leading and delivering the most bespoke solutions of maximum social value for and with our clients. We actively support the achievement of higher standards in architecture, urban design, planning and culture-led placemaking through all our projects, high level strategic and almost always event-based, and via related publications and the media.
Our clients are local authorities, cultural organisations/exhibiting bodies, Business Improvement Districts (BIDS), charities and academic bodies of the highest calibre.
We work globally, most recently in the UK, Norway, Colombia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and over the last decade in Brazil, China, France, Italy, Spain and the USA.
Lucy Bullivant, Founder of LB&A, is an inclusive place strategist and built environment expert for clients including Central District Alliance, Building Centre, D-Arch – ETH Zurich, Lambeth Council, Enfield Council, Brent Council and Integreat Plus (Yorkshire). She is an award-winning author for Routledge, Merrell and Thames & Hudson, a competition jury member for market leaders including the AJ Architecture Awards and ArchMarathon, and an expert witness for developers such as Caledonian Properties. In 2010 Lucy was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a lifetime honour conferred to her for her creative leadership of architecture and the building of sustainable communities. Lucy is an Expert – Specialist for Design Council, a chair of the Design Review Panel led by Lambeth Council, a member of the Place Quality and Design Panel led by Enfield Council and the design review service run by Integreat Plus (Yorkshire). She is Trustee of the educational charity Temple Bar Trust.
Lucy’s expert knowledge of her field and 30 years of leadership experience enables her to deploy senior level decision making skills to devise and deliver cultural placemaking strategies in the context of specific socio-economic conditions and needs for a range of organisations in the UK and internationally.
Place tools need to be intelligently sharp, not blunt, to be of most use! Depending on your priorities, she carries out original research for you responding to your needs in a relevant and precise way, leads on stakeholder/community buy in, and pinpoints the inspiration of specific successful examplars of quality – built environment and cultural projects, the challenges and adaptive ways in which these can be mitigated. For her projects where applicable Lucy assembles bespoke teams of specialists to ensure the best quality results, and provides mentoring.
Services
– place visions and strategies – place-led cultural, cultural engagement.
– scenario planning.
– social value analysis.
– socio-economic research, analysis & strategy – cultural industries, mixed use, ground floor activation.
– stakeholder engagement and evaluation – curating and leading hybrid strategies & outputs – in-person & digital – plans, events, networks, focus groups and workshops – to leverage the intelligence and lived experiences of communities to support social value and lasting positive change.
– writing – place strategies, reports, books, advertorial, copywriting, advocacy (ie expert witness etc) – based on rigorous analysis. and driven by a vivid storytelling approach.
– cultural infrastructure mapping.
– design review panel chairing.
– mentoring.
Lucy is always ready to play an active creative role in successfully advancing high quality, engaging solutions and strategies for place vision. International bodies she has helped include the AIA Center for Architecture, NYC, ANCB Berlin (Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory), Institut pour la Ville en Mouvement, Paris (inclusive urban mobility specialists), FRAC Centre, Orléans (expert purchasing decisions for the organisation’s art and architecture collection) and Strelka Institute, Moscow (curating a seminar exploring urban interactive design ‘soft spaces’).
Lucy has successfully championed new methods and projects, and built understanding and consensus about the value of design quality across cultures, walks of life and socio-economic contexts through her books, talks, exhibitions (see below) and published features. Lucy has given over 60 public talks at prestigious venues across the world to audiences of up to 2500 people, and chaired numerous professional events internationally on topical issues.
Workshop-driven participatory design projects with community members are a valuable means of building new skills and a shared sense of ownership, and a cornerstone of civic urbanism. Lucy collaborates with architects Alex Furunes/Erikkson Furunes, and Goma Oficina on activities of this kind internationally with local community groups, authorities and social enterprises. These serve as platforms for participants’ different opinions and ambitions to come together to enable the building of facilities, spaces, and to advance educational and other life skills, helping to sustain their empowerment and the livelihood and resilience of their neighbourhoods. Our participatory design projects include Dugnad Days for Sletteløkka, Oslo, for Bydel local authority and the Oslo Architecture Triennales 2023 and 2019, Remake – We make/Made in Baishizhou, for the Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, 2016, and Fronteira Livre, for the São Paulo Bienal of Architecture, 2017. With Furunes Lucy has been developing and developing a community co-creation cultural strategy for Bjerke, the local authority, for the neighbourhood of Sletteløkka, Oslo, since 2019.
Curating, artistic direction
A successful exhibition is a blend of the experiential and the educational – seducing, entertaining and drawing you into an alternative, inspirational world. We devise cultural strategies and curate and direct successful and innovative exhibitions of public value at different scales engaging with architectural, urban design and visual arts narratives for international clients, cultural organisations, academia, art and medical charities, meeting goals on time and on budget.
To date we have curated and delivered more than 30 popular and groundbreaking exhibitions, and six international conferences. Lucy has scouted out and managed the participation of many original global creative talents in architecture, design, art and film in the numerous cultural events she has staged globally. Lucy’s most recently curated exhibition, Retrofit 23: Towards Deep Retrofit of Homes at Scale, for the Building Centre (10 May-12 October 2023) has attracted very strong attendance numbers across a wide audience. A number of her exhibitions – Fronteira Livre (working with the São Paulo Metro and the CAMI migrants group), Remake – We make: frameworks for social and cultural exchange (working with a fashion manufacturing workshop in Baishizhou, Shenzhen) and Dugnad Days (with the community group of Sletteløkka, Oslo) are urban social ‘acupuncture’ projects. While relatively small in scale they support community self-determination and enable members of a community to build a legacy of design, construction and conceptual skills.
Through these initiatives and by generating personal credibility with stakeholders, Lucy has influenced and proactively led transformative changes to many international programmes and initiatives. She has developed strong cross-cultural relationships and forged viable new strategies for future public activities involving a range of communities.
We don’t churn out our outputs! The artistic products we conceive, shape and deliver – including publications, exhibitions, videos and workshops – are born of effective partnerships with exceptional, tried and tested collaborators – acclaimed graphic designers including &&& and Kirstin Helgadottír, CHK Design, Melanie Mues/Mues Design and Alexandre Coco; exhibition designers Feix & Merlin Architects, Urban Salon (now Mowat & Company, and Diana Cochrane), Guarnieri Architects, and dot Architects (Beijing and Shenzhen); film directors including Paul McHale, Pal.tv and Helena Bullivant, and copy editor Marion Moisy.
Complex topics call for publications that are crisp and expressive, elegant, thought-provoking and engaging. We create beautifully designed illustrated publications on architecture, urban design and technology for global readership, including 4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Tool Kit for the Open-source City, AD/Wiley, Jan/Feb 2017 (see below), Sustainable Urbanism New Directions, Qatar University, 2017 (see below), and bioTallinn, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Estonian Centre of Architecture (2017).
Public speaking
• Keynotes
Keynotes are public assets. Lucy creates and presents engaging and original public keynote talks at venues around the world on topical polemics concerning architecture and urban design based on her ongoing international research, advocating and illuminating best practice. She customises all her presentations to match your audience’s specific needs.
Lucy can custom-design an authoritative keynote for your conference based on her research and devise successful participatory design workshops, brainstorming sessions and exhibitions enabling everyone to develop stronger strategies for liveable urbanism. Check out her webzine Urbanista.org for inspiration and the Selected Projects pages of this website for examples of her successfully delivered projects.
Lucy’s speaking engagements are handled by Speakers Associates. Contact Patrick Nelson +44 (0)115 9713173 patrick@speakersassociates.com
Lucy’s public speaking clients include:
The Architectural Association (2020- guest lectures, Sletteløkka/Oslo Architecture Triennale (2022), London Design Biennale 2018 (Latvia Day); 3rd Nordic Urban Lab 2018 (see left); Qatar University, Sustainable Urbanism New Directions Workshop 2016; World Cities Culture Shanghai Symposium 2016; AIA NYC Center for Architecture; ANCB Berlin; Moscow Urban Forum 2016; Strelka Institute, Moscow; Smart City Forum, Barcelona and Casablanca; COAC and IAAC, Barcelona; Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership; Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam, and de Baak (Dutch public sector management organisation); Venice Architecture Biennale; TEDx Vienna; Royal Society of Arts; V&A, London; Barbican Centre, London; Lime Wharf cultural innovation hub, London; RIBA, London; Royal College of Art; Architectural Association, London; University of Westminster; UCL London; University of Plymouth; Yorkshire Forward; Syracuse University, NY; UCLA, Los Angeles; University of Houston; ETH Zurich (Territorial Encounters, Future Cities Laboratory); University of Rome; Swedish Association of Architects; University of Tampere; National Council of Architecture, Turku, and the Institute of Malaysian Architects, Kuala Lumpur.
• Chairing conferences and seminars, facilitating brainstorming workshops
Chairing events well is about opening up insightful debate, supporting the ‘orchestra to play their best tunes’ and fully engaging the audience. Lucy chairs talks and roundtable events for public and private sector clients internationally, facilitating debate and reflection on many aspects of liveable urbanism to motivate and activate audiences. She leads brainstorming workshops in a range of formats to get people thinking more creatively.
Lucy has chaired events for clients including Sletteløkka/Oslo Architecture Triennale, AIA Center for Architecture, NYC; Architectural League, NYC; V&A, London (Talking Architecture, see below); Tate Modern, London (Softspace, 2007, see above); ICA, London; Roca London Gallery; ReWork conference, The Crystal, London; Titanic Foundation/Belfast City Council; Science Museum, London; Museum of Docklands, London; Napier University, Edinburgh; Architectural Association, and Royal College of Art, London; Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2017; and Strelka Institute, Moscow.
The goal of a successful brainstorming workshop is always to spur enthusiastic interaction and inspire further actions. Lucy has advanced inclusive, sustainable placemaking visions and strategies though workshops facilitated for clients including Enfield Council (Meridian Water Place Vision, 2016), and Qatar University (Sustainable Urbanism New Directions conference supported by the Qatar National Research Fund, 2016).
Chairing competition juries
Lucy has judged a number of prestigious architectural competitions, including the AJ Architecture Awards and Archmarathon, and chaired the LEAF Architectural Awards.
Design Review – Chairing and panel membership
Panel Member, Enfield Design Review Panel, 2018-
Over the next twenty years, Enfield Council’s regeneration plans will transform some of the most deprived areas of London, including Meridian Water, a £6 billion development delivering 10,000 new homes and creating 6,700 new jobs. The Council has set up a Design Review Panel to support its vision to make Enfield a better place to live and work; promote high quality design and sustainable development and protect the borough’s unique character.
The Enfield Design Review Panel is made up of industry experts, including Lucy Bullivant, who provide expert advice on the placemaking, urban design quality and sustainable design approaches of major new developments, regeneration programmes, policies, briefs and guidance within Enfield. It reviews projects and proposals, including pre-application schemes, and encourages applicants and promoters to bring proposals for review at their earliest stages of development. The Panel strives to secure design excellence in the built environment for both public and private sectors and guides the formulation and delivery of a Design Framework for the borough.
Chair, Lambeth Design Review Panel, 2019-
Lucy was selected to be a Chair of the new Lambeth Design Review Panel from June 2019 onwards. See the illustrated guide here.
Lambeth is a varied and dynamic borough, comprising Waterloo in the north, home to London’s Southbank cultural hub, Brixton, with its vibrant markets, and the leafy suburbs of Streatham and West Norwood in the south. The borough has a rich historic environment and upholds its duty to preserve and/or enhance the setting of its 62 conservation areas and to protect over 2000 statutory listed buildings. At the same time Lambeth offers great development opportunities across the borough, particularly in the Waterloo Opportunity Area and Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea (VNEB) Opportunity Area. The delivery of jobs and housing growth through the creation of sustainable new places and buildings that positively respond to Lambeth’s character is central to the borough’s design aspirations.
As part of Lambeth’s commitment to design excellence, the Design Review Panel (DRP) provides an additional service as an integral part of the planning process in line with the National Planning Framework (NPPF) and the London Plan. The Lambeth DRP is made up of a pool of independent built environment professionals who provide design advice on new development and public realm proposals. The pool has twenty-nine members (including three chairs) with expertise in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, placemaking and associated professions.
Panel member, Brent Design Advice Panel (Brent DAP)– 2017-20.
Brent DAP is managed on behalf of the London Borough of Brent by Design Council Cabe, and is made up of an interdisciplinary panel of 20 individuals, including Lucy Bullivant, chosen from the Design Council’s network of 400 Built Environment Experts (BEEs). The panel provides regular Design Review services, reviewing development proposals and masterplans, as well as design support services such as early stage procurement support and planning policy review, and training as required by the borough. These services exist to assist everyone involve in the planning and development process in the borough to ensure that design quality is at the heart of new development coming forward.
The London Borough of Brent is undergoing significant change and growth, to which the borough is responding through the production of masterplans and area actions plans. There is a strong focus on the Wembley area, where high density mixed use development is now being delivered at pace including a substantial amount of build to rent housing. The Brent Design Advice Panel (Brent DAP) has been established to provide independent, expert design advice to support the borough in achieving its objectives and securing the best outcomes and quality of life for residents, workers and visitors through development, regeneration and renewal in the borough.
