Wembley Park Cultural Placemaking Strategy Delivery

International Busking Day at Wembley Park, Photo: Quintain

Futurecity's cultural placemaking strategy for Wembley Park worked across Quintain’s teams to reenvision the site, and viewing Olympic Way as a cultural spine.

Futurecity was appointed to devise a radical new culture and placemaking strategy for the scheme surrounding the iconic Wembley Stadium. Wembley Park is the largest build to rent development site in the UK in an otherwise suburban borough, being delivered at a faster pace than anywhere else in London. As such it required a strategy that would create a vision that would offer a sense of place in a rapidly changing, monumental environment and a cultural identity that could shift perceptions of Wembley from a remote location far from the cultural centre of London, to a confident new Creative District.

To achieve this Futurecity worked across Quintain’s teams to challenge how they saw their site, flipping the masterplan on its head and viewing Olympic Way as a cultural spine, feeding into a series of distinct creative neighbourhoods. A set of 5 cultural principles and 3 cross-cutting themes based on Wembley’s unique music, sport and cultural heritage, cultural assets and development ambitions, provided a framework for cultural programming, commissions and partnerships. Futurecity was reappointed to assess the delivery of culture and placemaking to date and create recommendations to enhance Wembley Park plans in the lead up to 2020. Working across Wembley Park’s marketing, development, design and retail departments, Futurecity developed a set of recommendations that identify how Wembley Park can lift its cultural ambition by connecting its diverse cultural activities, helping identify and attract game changing cultural anchor organisations and creative industries.

Announced in 2019, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) and Quintain announced a major partnership that will see the Orchestra move its headquarters to Wembley Park. The partnership was brokered by Futurecity, who helped both parties develop a shared vision to establish a creative hub bringing together education, community outreach, performance, digital projects and administration in a single location.

Project information

Status

Built

Borough

Brent

Size

343983 sq m

Completion

2027

Location

11 Exhibition Way, Wembley Park, Wembley HA9 0FA, UK

Team Credits