My work aims to achieve a beautiful and sustainable built environment, that promotes wellbeing and facilitates prosperity. I work towards this aim through independent creativity, research and stakeholder engagement. I have firm ideas on how a people centred and urban design focused planning system - that is underpinned by spatial intelligence - can make a truly positive impact on people’s lives.

1.      Creativity

• Producing plans to illustrate my vision for specific places,

• Suggesting potential improvements to create a more effective planning system. 

2.      Research

• Studying existing patterns of development,

• Exploring development trends,

• Monitoring development proposals,

• Assessing public policy, strategy and plans. 

3.      Stakeholder Engagement

• Promoting my ideas and sharing my research,

• Working with local communities,

• Lobbying elected representatives,

• Producing a weekly planning blog,

• Producing a monthly planning news video podcast.

Check out my current projects to see what I’m working on at the moment and find information on completed work in my archive.

How I think…
My approach to the built environment is heavily influenced by psychogeography – I am primarily concerned with how people experience the places where they live, work and socialise, and the places they move through during their day. I see my role as a planner as essentially a storyteller, where I’m telling the stories of the people that occupy my imagined future places. I imagine how they feel about their experiences in these spaces; what they’re doing; what they see, hear and smell; where there is shadow, where there is sunshine, where they meet their colleagues or friends, and where the quiet corners for contemplation can be found.

How I operate…
Most of my work is funded by donations from businesses and individuals that value good planning and a quality built environment. I also take commissions for specific pieces of work and provide paid advice to other built environment professionals. My company trades as a social enterprise and is limited by guarantee, this means there are no shareholders, and all profits are reinvested in my work.

Why I do this work…
Northern Ireland’s planning system is sadly dysfunctional, inefficient, and ineffective. Every review and report over the past 20 years has said as much. The public sector has largely failed to produce any creative and proactive local planning proposals, so communities have had little opportunity to influence planning for their neighbourhoods, and the construction industry contends with a planning system that basically has no plans. This is sadly reflected in the often poor outcomes in the quality of our human environment. This is simply not good enough and must change.