In placemaking, integrating multisensory experiences is a powerful approach for enriching community connections and ensuring inclusivity. Leveraging all five senses can transform spaces into memorable and engaging environments that narrate more compelling, more personal and more accessible stories.
By designing with multiple senses in mind, we facilitate broader participation, accommodating individuals of all abilities. This type of inclusive design enables full engagement for all individuals, including those with hearing or vision impairments. Digital placemaking provides the necessary technological tools to do so.

The biggest potential for digital infrastructure (such as outdoor-grade LED screens or mobile experiences) is that they create a public canvas that can change, grow and evolve over time with the community around it. This increases both engagement and the lifespan of a placemaking initiative.
Dynamic content can take multiple forms: data-driven art, wayfinding or announcements and more. By integrating sensors and the cloud to creatively represent data, public artworks can help foster a sense of pride and belonging among local communities.

Playgrounds were once the child’s domain, overseen by coffee-toting adults ensuring the safety of their little ones. With the emergence of digital technologies — and our aforementioned multisensory experiences — urban digital playgrounds have created a place for families to enjoy multigenerational activities together.
By enabling better stories with layers of sound, visuals and tactility — as well as the curiosity spiked by interactive technology such as sensors — older generations are finding enjoyment in the added level of sophistication of these experiences. With clever design, they become great attractions for families.

Digital placemaking doesn’t need to be difficult, and installing a uniquely sized digital display to an existing architectural design can create a platform for engaging content that enhances the space. In this section, we’ll look at digital displays that act as media facades and add digital interactivity to the built environment.
They become a way to augment the spatial design, adding yet another layer to overall experience. Tightly controlled colour palettes that change over time can act as shifting paint colours, all within the bounds of the overarching creative vision, but critically becoming a tool to enable ‘living’ or ‘evolving’ spaces.

If you have an existing space and are looking for a way to re-engage people, a mobile solution can do just that. Web-based solutions offer great access, while apps can provide better performance and a different feature set. One powerful tool that can enable these experiences is geolocation data, connecting real-world landmarks with people through their mobile devices. These experiences can encourage exploration through spaces, such as visiting one location after another to gradually discover a story. We can integrate sound and visuals as needed, or use the platform as a community engagement tool.