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Explained: the influence of High Tech and Innovation on masterplanning

Throughout history the places we live, work and play have evolved. The purpose of our places has been focussed on supporting living, working, and social environments in the interests of personal and national prosperity. With technology changing our lives at increasing speed, masterplanning needs to keep pace. Associate Director, Sarah Morgan shares her views on how technology and innovation are influencing the discipline.

Our places have always evolved around their physical, social and economic fabric. We live in a challenging but interesting time both locally and globally;  our approach to life and development, now more than ever, is being challenged by a factor that has been the foundation of place from the beginning, our natural environment. 

Technology and innovation are informing solutions to rebalance our natural environment, they are presented as the key ingredients of the future that will enable solutions to the fabric of our places and primary infrastructure. We see this through the installation of solar panels across fields to harvest sunlight, and turbines turning wind power into electricity. Innovative infrastructure needs designing into our masterplans and buildings, this could be anything from community heating schemes through to recycled water systems at plot scale. As a result our places and buildings are becoming ‘smarter’ through the use of pervasive technology. 

Recently a very real example is the idea of places having Smart Mobility Hubs. Mobility hubs bring together shared transport with public transport and active travel in spaces designed to improve the public realm for all. Technology installation provides UV charging, live public transport updates, electric bikes / scooter, and car club facilities.  At masterplan level through to deliverability this offers obvious benefits that over time would provide better sustainable mobility options and connections; an excellent example of masterplanning for technology which improves lives and our environment. But we do need to consider how helpful all smart advances are, in comparison is a ‘smart’ fridge that orders and delivers milk more invasive than innovative? Whatever our personal preferences, how our places adapt for this is achieved through the input and efforts of built environment professionals, its many stakeholders, and most importantly the local community.

So why masterplan? 

Masterplanning is a cultivating process within the stages of placemaking. Understanding a place and its vision is crucial for successful placemaking. The process of masterplanning is to provide a strategic overview of how a place will develop; the output generally being an illustration of its opportunities alongside a thorough site review and strategies for delivery. The specific benefits masterplanning brings when considering high tech and innovation are:  

• balancing short and long term opportunities during a period of transition (particularly on large scale complex sites where it might be phased over a long period);
• understanding relationships between complementary uses (linked to clustering of energy and innovation / maximising opportunities); and
• considered and informed sustainable development that balances competing demands. 

With new technology and innovations emerging all the time, we are planning for the future whilst in a period of transition; new solutions continue to evolve all the time. Technology, innovation and energy have a fundamental role in shaping these places. Placemaking is at the core of this masterplanning process in order to create places for people to innovate, work and develop in a sustainable environment. 

Our Design team have experience in developing masterplan strategies for complex large-scale sites across the high tech and innovation sector. We provide strategic services to advise and support the preparation of strategic masterplans with expert knowledge of guiding these places through the visioning, masterplanning and determination stages of the planning and consultation process. We have worked on several high profile projects across the UK including Port of Aberdeen, Energy Generation Plant at Port Talbot and on varying coastal logistics sites. For full details on our masterplanning work on these projects please download our brochure.

To learn more about our high tech and innovation experience, please watch our video or download our brochure here. 

If you would like to find out more about our masterplanning services please get in touch with Sarah Morgan. 

22 March 2023