The design quality in the public realm can have a profound effect on the quality of life experienced within it. An environment in which people can feel safe and which helps to foster a sense of civic pride within communities can have a positive effect in terms of social cohesion and collective wellbeing. The research considers both the hard and soft issues within this context exploring both aspects of the physical built environment as well as the social element of communities. The role of designers and design thinking in the 21'1 century extends far beyond the traditional view of the creation of a manufactured object in terms of its form, function and material. Product Designers now operate in a wider labour market and their skills are utilised in service, interaction and experience design among others in a transdisciplinary mode of design and design thinking. There is an opportunity in regeneration for design thinking to assist in the design of urban environments which positively impact on quality of life and deliver sustainable outcomes for communities. This research investigates the case for design-led responses to regeneration and the issues which it aims to address drawing on primary data collected from a workshop, interviews and project all directed by the Author as well as case studies of UK and European cities. The thesis also deals with the identification of a correlation between quality of life and quality of environment, highlights the visual impact of the environment and considers retrospectively the impact of major events and flagship buildings. From this research thesis offers Design and Implementation Guidelines with regards to regeneration for the benefit of communities and concludes that design and design thinking can have a positive impact in this area by utilising the skill set of designers and the design process as a methodology. It is also suggested that cities must place greater importance on the health and social issues which affect communities with the context of regeneration and that the design process provides a platform from which to achieve the case specific outcomes which are required in order to provide lasting and viable solutions.

In the United Kingdom Government cross-departmental agendas concerning community regeneration, improvements in public health and the promotion of sustainability have promoted a variety of wellbeing related projects that use individual and community engagement with green spaces as a vehicle for bringing about social change. Such initiatives have generally taken a rather mechanistic approach focusing on causal mechanisms and health outcomes, and these have failed to effectively engage the wider population. Insufficient attention has been paid to the social dimensions of wellbeing and the use of green spaces and how these relate to cultural and symbolic meanings of 'wellbeing' and 'environment'. Practitioners and researchers have thus been calling for more imaginative criteria for evaluation. This thesis draws on evidence gained from focus group discussions and walking interviews with participants aged between 20-50 years of age living in three different wards of Bristol in the South West of England. The thesis explores lay perceptions of wellbeing and green spaces and relates these to the conceptual models used by a range of policy makers and professional practitioners. The findings suggest that social relationships are of primary importance to lay perceptions of wellbeing and the ways in which green spaces contribute to its promotion and maintenance. The study revealed that social relationships are complex and nuanced in relation to wellbeing and the use of green spaces and challenges simplistic models that fail to take this to account. The thesis presents a more complete framework for understanding wellbeing in terms of the complexities of the relationship between wellbeing and green spaces, and concludes by suggesting more effective ways of engaging people of this age group and social status in the wellbeing benefits of contact with nature and green spaces.

This piece of research was motivated by professional experiences of engaging communities in planning and a perceived conceptual gap in understandings of that field. Issues of power and communication have been well examined but the associated production of knowledge is underexplored. Theories of community engagement tend to focus on issues of ‘voice’ and the means to achieving deeper democracy. Similarly, participatory planning theories frame the debate in terms of communicative processes or competing rationalities. Within that body of work, knowledge is mainly seen as an adjunct of power and there is little focus on knowledge itself. In particular there has not as yet been a thorough study of how understandings of space are produced in a spatial planning context which includes lay participants. This thesis attempts to broach that gap and asks the questions 1) ‘Is community engagement a social learning arena for spatial planning?’ and 2) ‘What is the dynamic between different types of knowledge around spatial planning where there is lay participation?’ The research is based on two years of embedded observation within a joint planning unit and examines the review of the North Northamptonshire Core Strategy of 2008, which culminated in substantial community engagement work early in 2011. Findings from that case study were tested through a series of workshops involving a wider community of planners from across England. Research findings indicate that local knowledge has a particular nature and spatiality. They also demonstrate the dynamics of lay knowledge and planning knowledge, in the context of spatial strategy-making. It is hoped that these findings can help in understanding the production of planning knowledge and inform current efforts to bring communities closer to policy makers.

This thesis critically reviews epistemological and methodological aspects of the application of spatial planning policy for cultural clustering in the UK. The thesis contains four published papers and a critical review of these papers. Particular attention is given to issue of the theoretical and conceptual underpinning with respect to policy for cultural clustering, and in particular the way in which such policy reflects issues of local identity. It is argued that such policy lacks coherent theoretical and conceptual underpinning, and also lacks linkage with local identity. For such reasons, it is argued that policy is frequently potentially sub-optimal or even counter-productive in terms of outcomes. It is further argued that the thesis contributes to the development of the spatial planning discipline by providing new evidence and understanding of the operation of cultural clustering policy and its potential effects.

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