Sport + Recreation Services
We help create community places to play people love.
We provide a diverse range of design, strategy and management advice to the sporting, recreation and community planning sectors, supported by our valued partners and collaborators, allowing us to provide end to end servicing of your projects.
From parks and open spaces to major precincts and regional strategy we can bring a fresh approach to the planning, design and management of your community places to play in your local areas.
We offer a human centred approach to planning for great places. Influencing the design, planning and management of places in creative ways to be inclusive and welcoming. We put people, places and the planet at the heart of decision making.
Community + Sport + Recreation + Open Space Planning Services
We offer Community + Sport + Recreation Planning services focussed on delivering outcomes that create healthier, happier, more playful people and places. Implementing a community-centred approach to planning for great places that maximises well-being, happiness and sustainability outcomes and deliver lasting positive change.
We analyse the interactions between the design, planning and management of places and provide meaningful insights into the creative ways places can be more inclusive and help people live healthy, happy and more playful lives.
Our signature framework is centred on strengthening relationships between decision makers and their local communities and how spaces are enjoyed for years to come. We help empower and enable local communities to have a seat at the decision-making table to improve their daily lives and create more vibrant local places.
We offer and Specialise in
Sport, Recreation and Leisure Planning
Facility Planning, Project Advocacy, Master Planning & Design
Participation Strategy, Club Development and Climate Adaptation Solutions
Management, Facility Operations, Funding Models, Tenure and Business Operations
Operational Reviews, Feasibility Studies and Business Cases
Community + Collaborative Engagement
Local Community Research and Insights
Ideation and Planning sessions
Participant, User and Customer Persona analysis
Prototype Development and Solution Finding
Community Engagement and Workshops
Government Advocacy
Strategic Planning + Policy
Strategic Plans for National and State Sporting Organisations
Supply, Demand and Analysis for Facility and Open Space projects
Demographic and Land Use Profiles
Organisational Planning for State Sporting and Community Organisations
How Urbankind works
We understand every project, goal, vision and desired outcomes are unique, and not one project or strategy is alike.
With our proven expertise across National and State sporting organisatons, Local and State government, and industry stakeholders we can tailor a service and project approach specific to your requirements. We are experienced at assembling the right project team to meet your project needs.
Like the sound of the Urbankind approach to creating community places to play?
Reach out to Adam Cheyne, our Director of Community Sport to see how we can help you deliver lasting positive change in your local areas or feel free to connect via LinkedIn.
“Urbankind provides our partners with collective industry expertise from Australia and abroad, in sports facility planning, placemaking, and strategic planning. We are influenced by a Community and Human-Centred Design approach, which places people at the heart of all we do. Planning for the diverse needs of current and future generations is our specialty.”
Adam Cheyne, Director Urbankind
Our team have over 40+ years experience in the planning, placemaking and sports industry.
Our experienced team have worked in large international planning consultancies, led high-performing strategic planning teams in National + State Sporting Organisations and led projects in Melbourne, London, Sunshine Coast and across regional Australia. From city-shaping national infrastructure projects to national sporting strategies we’ve done it all. We are well-placed and adaptable to help deliver a new approach to planning and design, that delivers more sustainable outcomes for people, places and the planet.
Human Centred Design
Our innovative project and design approach enhances project outcomes for you
Helping all levels of government, national/state/local sporting organisations, community groups, Business and Tourism Associations and developers with an innovative project and design approach through our Human Centre Design for the natural and built environment ethos.
This holistic focus on solutions is underpinned by a strong research ethos and a willingness to engage in the cyclic process of prototyping and iterating. Our design-thinking methodology develops development of user personas, utilise empathy frameworks, and investigates the customer journey to help inform us and importantly understand your community.
Double Diamond Process.
Central to our Engagement and Consultation Process is utilising the Double Diamond Technique.
Our adaptation of the Double Diamond Process focuses around 4 key stages, which allows our team to understand the WHY of the community and inform our Master Plan outcomes through insights, solutions and testing.
Our 4 Stages of the Double Diamond Approach are as follows:
Discover: Research and gather insights relevant to the problem.
Define: Use your research and insights to define the problem.
Develop: Look for a solution to the identified problem.
Deliver: Finalise, produce and launch the solution.
Our Methods and Resources in the Field.
We specialise in Ethnographic Research.
At Urbankind we take into account the types of research that give us opportunities to observe the project area and the regions and intuit the communities wants, needs, uses or likes – but also consider the world of our users and how it might limit the research process. This then allows us and our designers to deliver a truly engaged and tested design or project solution, specific to your unique project needs and objectives.
These approaches can pivot also to digital and online methods, particularly in response to social distancing requirements and flexible working arrangements. We find a combination is often best where possible to maximise participation of users and engage harder to reach participants
Our speciality is talking to people and bringing them in to the project journey and delivery.
We do this by:
Taking the time to have in-depth conversations in a people focused manner
We find and develop diverse focus groups
We love to Interview – this is our more formal approach with structured questions, and allows us to really understand specific stakeholders issues and opportunities.
We conduct ethnographic research, and observe and study how users or the community move, participate and interact with their environments.
Our passion is helping people connect in creative ways with the communities they plan and design for to ensure people are at the heart of decision making about things that will impact their daily lives and deliver lasting positive change.
Want to learn more about our Directors?
To learn more about our Directors qualifications and experience, please head to our LinkedIn pages.
