Homify
Mantej Singh, David Martin, Mark Armstrong, June Lee Boxsell, Tiffany Hoy, Richard Nugent, Jing Li & Di Wu

Transforming Sydney Olympic Park Town Centre with experiences and activations informed by engagement-led evidence.

The Homify initiative started in June 2020 as a way to reimagine four ‘everyday’ open public spaces and surrounding streets and plazas at Sydney Olympic Park. It seeks to attract Sydneysiders and hyperlocals to relax and socialise in the public spaces in this much-loved sports and major event destination.

Building on two years of ongoing engagement, a 10-week human-centred discovery and research phase began in June 2020. Through this, the community and stakeholders were deeply engaged through innovative online discovery workshops, empathy interviews, site observation visits and surveys to establish their needs, aspirations and inspirations. The process identified a ‘grand challenge’ and ‘calls to action’ for each site, which fed into a co-design process to identify responses.

‘Transformational experience’ infographics were developed for each site, which identified key activation opportunities for each site and its surrounds to guide the development of ongoing community experiences. This is now feeding into concept designs and activation options for each site and an overall framework of ‘Rings of Experience’. Homify ideas inspire prototyping, experimentation and pop-ups to progressively go from temporary to semi-permanent to permanent changes.

Homify reimagines a major event precinct with community-inspired local spaces that bring colour, joy and comfort – a feeling of ‘home’ to foster community pride and ownership, spark social connections and support a thriving local economy. The project demonstrates how government, industry and business can partner with the community to co-design and reimagine innovative public spaces.

We invite you to join Homify!