People Make Spaces: podcast interview with Becca Thomas
"A building isn't anything until you put people in it."
What if design focused on touching as many lives as possible, rather than creating exclusive spaces for the privileged few?
Becca Thomas, creative director in our community engagement and placemaking team here at Civic, brought a refreshing perspective when she was interviewed by GoodGeist, a podcast about sustainability.
In the ‘People Make Places’ episode, Becca shares her human-centered approach to creating spaces that truly work for diverse communities to podcast hosts Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor. She explains how our team focusses on people use spaces and making them accessible to everyone.
"For me, the thing that I love doing is creating spaces that work for everyone, and that a lot of people will get to experience. Whether I do that through a community conversation, trying to get people into the decision making, or whether it’s reuse of existing buildings people have a connection to that we’re making better. No matter whether that’s a city of a building, it has to speak to as many people as possible.”
For me, the thing that I love doing is creating spaces that work for everyone, and that a lot of people will get to experience.
Becca Thomas, creative director
The conversation explores the true meaning of placemaking and the sweet spot where considerate urban design meets the authentic needs of citizens.
It also delves into Becca's preference for retrofit and renovation, her vision for vibrant ground-floor spaces and how she approaches her different roles as a designer and a consultant.
“When we’re working as the designer, my architecture is made better by talking to the people that uses that space and building, and hearing what they like and need. The conversation is trying to figure out what makes a space yours, my pen is guided by that conversation.”
“In our other role, we are a consultant advising someone else like a local authority, national government, developer or engineering firm, and talking about city scale projects. My role is to sit as a translator between technical team and people, who generally don’t speak the same language. Most people don’t have an understanding of how a city is built or understand the constraints.
"My job is to help them understand enough so they can help us make decisions, so much of it is about being super honest about all the things that need to happen to make a city better.”
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