Leading the Conversation: EGY at the Festival of Place
EGY returned to the Festival of Place in July – wooed by the events un-corporate, collaborative atmosphere, bringing together passionate voices shaping the future of placemaking. The event reaffirmed our mission to lead — not follow — by championing blue/green infrastructure and human-centred design that make places truly thrive.
We had the pleasure of returning to the Festival of Place at Boxpark Wembley in July — and each time, we fall a little more in love with how refreshingly un-corporate it feels. This isn’t your usual grey-suit, grey-hair echo chamber. From the moment you walk in, you can sense the community of people who attend, all deeply passionate about place-making and who bring real energy, curiosity and purpose to the table.
At EGY we’re not here simply to observe trends or pick up sound-bites — we’re trail-blazing how blue/green infrastructure and human-centred design can shift the conventional development narrative. Festival of Place offers exactly the kind of environment that echoes that ambition. The talks and workshops weren’t about ticking boxes; they were about tackling big questions together — how do we build with equality and equity? How do we mesh infrastructure, landscape, climate resilience and community into something tangible, not just aspirational?
What we love is the scale and ambition of conversation – local authorities’ shoulder to shoulder with investors, designers, developers and community groups — all sharing, probing, challenging. The venue itself reinforced the dynamic feel. You can move easily from a deep-dive fishbowl discussion to a relaxed chat over coffee about the lived experience of place.
For EGY the value lay not just in “what’s next” but in deepening our conviction: that our role isn’t to follow but to lead — to bring infrastructure thinking alive and weave in blue/green systems, people, ecology and ideas. Our attendance at Festival of Place reaffirmed that we’re in the right space. We returned energised, filled with fresh connections, and most importantly with renewed impetus to bring bold, inclusive, sustainable solutions into every project we touch.
This event is more than useful. It’s aligned to our mindset. In a world of off-the-shelf thinking, we’re here to ask “why”, to strip away assumptions and make better infrastructure for places that truly thrive. We loved being there — and we’ll be back. Not to follow, but to keep leading the conversation on what great infrastructure can be.
(Images courtesy of the Festival of Place)