Regenerative Placemaking: Creating a New Model for Place Development by Bringing Together Regenerative and Placemaking Processes

In an effort to create thriving living environments, the regenerative development framework has gained recognition as a creative and reflective process that emerges from the uniqueness of a place to activate and support living systems. Another approach that has a strong engagement with the particularity of place is the concept of placemaking, a process of developing places through the active participation of the citizens that conceive, perceive and live in that place. Using discourse grounded theory, this chapter explores and analyses these two complementary place-based practices: regenerative development and placemaking to identify synergies. We propose the term, ‘regenerative placemaking’, to encapsulate this strategic process of (re)igniting people’s relationship to socio-ecological systems through place-specific temporary activations that act as a testing ground for long term potential.