Title: Place making facilitators of knowledge and innovation spaces: insights from European best practices

Authors: Surabhi Pancholi; Tan Yigitcanlar; Mirko Guaralda

Addresses: School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia ' School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia ' School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia

Abstract: Knowledge economy seeks its nourishment from diversity and dissemination of ideas and creativity of its talent base. This has led to the acknowledgement of place making as a major strategy to attract and retain the knowledge base into the emerging knowledge and innovation spaces. The study seeks to explore the adoption of place making in this context. Literature and practice provide information to understand the evolution of various spatial typologies and the specialised role of place making in such locations. This helps in determining the key facilitators of place making. The paper takes an interdisciplinary approach and develops an integrated conceptual framework considering dimensions and facilitators of place making. Through the lens of the framework, best practices across Europe - i.e., Cambridge Science Park (UK), 22@Barcelona (Spain), Arabianranta (Finland), Strijp-S (Netherlands), and Digital Hub (Ireland) - are scrutinised to highlight various approaches to place making. The findings provide insights and a discussion into the interplay of form, function, image and underlying processes in globally emerging spatial typologies of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces.

Keywords: knowledge-based urban development; KBUD; knowledge space; innovation space; place making; Europe; best practices; spatial typology; knowledge-based development; cities; UK; United Kingdom; Spain; Finland; Netherlands; Ireland.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2015.072823

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2015 Vol.6 No.3, pp.215 - 240

Received: 08 Jan 2015
Accepted: 17 Aug 2015
Published online: 03 Nov 2015 *

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