“Precinct” is the word on all city-makers’ lips these days. It has snuck into job titles, government department names and awards categories. Much more than a collection of buildings and urban spaces, today’s precincts represent large units of collaboration and are increasingly being used by the government, institutions and the private sector to transform areas in an integrated way. The word’s increased use reflects a government imperative to think about city-making at a broader scale, to capture more value, to improve a project’s risk profile and to integrate public benefits through urban renewal.
However, the list of precincts that have underdelivered for their cities is long. Precinct design and delivery is often performed in an uncoordinated way: either left to the market to resolve, in a procurement process that precludes proper dialogue with stakeholders or consultation with end users, or rushed through to meet the compressed timelines of developer-led bid processes. As a result, the outcomes of these large urban projects are often poor-quality, disjointed urban environments that fail to deliver value for
