What we do

Social Place (previously Julia King & Associates) devises tools and processes that enable diverse voices to contribute to design and planning decision-making, and to shaping the future of places in imaginative and equitable ways. Social Place offers policy guidance, research (including literature reviews), engagement workshops and training, and advocacy work (published papers, conferences, masterclasses and public speaking) to advance the public discourse around inclusive cities. Social Place’s core work delivers innovative forms of public consultation and community design services. Current clients span a range of stakeholders across the UK (private, public, charitable and academic sectors) including Chelmsford County Council, Railpen and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Social Place is Dr. Julia King (Director and Founder) and Olivia Theocharides-Feldman (Founding Associate). Julia has a background in architecture and Olivia in anthropology, Social Place is founded on this multi-disciplinarity. Read more about us here.

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Our Approaches

Research and Reports

Engagement and Workshops

Design

We work in a range of ways and always tailor our methods of working based on the particular place, people, timeline or brief

Our Ethos

Care & Reciprocity

We embrace a reciprocal ethos of care with all members of the communities and teams we work with. Whether we work together over just a few hours or over several months, we aim to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for everyone, placing value on accommodating the different needs and challenges of those we engage with and respecting individuals on their terms.

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Integrity & Representation

Our priority is to accurately represent the voices of communities, particularly marginalised ones, even if those perspectives shared with us are critical or counter to a client’s desired outcomes. We will therefore not censor, modify or edit perspectives shared with us, from our research findings, reports, designs or any other outcome in a way that would inaccurately represent the voices of the local community.

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Learning & Unlearning

We strongly believe that collaborative thinking about places and spaces requires that we learn together and from one another. Key to this is the importance we place on ‘unlearning’, or approaching every site and context with a degree of naivety and without preconceived ideas, to facilitate honest and candid dialogues, where people are genuinely listened.

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Diversity & Adaptability

We will seek to work with a diverse range of people so that we are accurately representing wider community views in the projects we do. We will strive hard to keep a flexible, accessible, and incentivised approach to working with community members so as to overcome some of the participatory challenges that may impact some members of the community more than others.

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