Why it’s crucial for innovation to have a physical home

A look at why real-world gathering places are vital for innovation, connection and creating hope.

Last week, as I left a meeting with the city council, a familiar question echoed in my mind: How do we find simple, low-cost interventions that can truly regenerate our city centre? In truth, I know I'm chasing a silver bullet that doesn't exist. The deeper issue, I think, lies in rekindling collective energy and helping communities rediscover a sense of agency and imagination.

Tauranga, where I currently live, is a city blessed with golden beaches, native forests and a relaxed coastal lifestyle, and has long attracted retirees seeking sun and security, giving it a higher median age than many other New Zealand centres. However, a walk through the city centre tells a different story, one of disruption, delays and decreasing foot traffic. Prolonged construction and political instability have fostered a low-grade civic disappointment, an erosion of confidence that, as urbanist Jeff Siegler suggests, can manifest as community apathy. I don’t think this is just about rates or ‘vanity projects’, it's about whether our city reflects the diverse identities and aspirations of its growing population. Without places to see ourselves reflected and to actively shape our environment, disillusionment can take root. Note the lower median age of the 20-24 age bracket in Tauranga; does the city reflect their identities and aspirations? 

The invisibility of good ideas

I've spent a lot of my design career immersed in project rooms in a cloud of Post-Its. I’ve learned that keeping work solely in the digital realm can render it invisible. Unless someone actively seeks it out, an idea risks vanishing into a sea of emails and folders. My approach has always been to create physical environments where people can immerse themselves in thinking, where their responses are visibly heard and factored into a project.

I feel like this insight takes on new urgency in our post-pandemic, hybrid-working world. While there are studies debating remote work's productivity, the experience of a Council contact struggling to ‘gel’ a renegade project team reminded me of a crucial point: building trust, fostering networks, achieving consensus, and challenging ideas is key to getting them off paper and into the world. This is the very essence of innovation and community-driven initiatives. It happens far more powerfully when we share physical space. You can't capture the spontaneous spark of a shared moment or the depth of a conversation over coffee through a screen alone.

On top of this, the internet, while a powerful connector, has also become a space where negativity often amplifies itself. Algorithms reward outrage and hopeful, constructive ideas can get buried under noise or anonymity. This creates a distorted perception, where a vocal minority might dominate the narrative leaving positive contributions no visible platform to be seen or grow.

A ‘living room’ for community innovation

I've returned to an idea I have loosely held on to for some time - a placemaking hub for Tauranga, something like Melbourne's PlaceLab or other community-led innovation spaces. It's been a ‘mental itch’ for me because I think it addresses a fundamental need: Where is the open door for grassroots community innovation? Where can someone go to share an idea about the city if they're not already well-connected?

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of ‘third places’ - informal public settings like cafes and libraries - underscores this need, describing them as ‘the heart of a community’s social vitality’. For Tauranga, this translates into creating some kind of ‘civic living room’. A dedicated, physical, community innovation commons.

This space doesn’t have to just be for workshops. It could be part-studio, part-urban play-space. It could be co-designed with the community, from schoolchildren to small business owners, and used for everything from large-scale planning discussions to small, happy moments of connection. Talks, pop-ups, exhibitions, idea sprints or film nights. It could be an extension of the university and knowledge precinct, a visible hub where students, artists, businesses and residents could collaborate on real-world community challenges. Innovation leaders like IDEO and the Innovation Unit UK consistently emphasize that trust, empathy, and generative ideas thrive in person.

Complementing but not competing - digital as an enabler

We don’t need to overly romanticize physical space, or dismiss the huge power of digital tools. AI, video conferencing and online collaboration offer significant efficiencies, they can gather broader input, facilitate remote participation and manage complex data. These technologies are a massive help, capable of making co-design processes run more efficiently and supporting people in ways previously unimaginable. The world of work has and continues to change at a fast pace. 

However, digital realms cannot replicate the ‘energy of presence’. The non-verbal cues, the tangents, the consensus we can build quickly and authentically. They are different tools, each with their own strengths and biases. The digital excels at broadcasting, aggregating and analyzing; the physical excels at building empathy, fostering trust, and igniting collective action.

I’ve always sought to understand how best to bridge these realms, allowing them to complement each other. The physical Commons provides the anchor, a visible manifestation of our intent, and a kind of glue that binds us together. The digital tools then extend the reach, capture outputs and enable broader participation for those who cannot be physically present.

If communities are to have more of a role in regenerating our cities, not just councils alone, I believe we need to invest in the social infrastructure that makes collective problem-solving not just possible, but enjoyable. This means creating spaces that welcome participation, invite experimentation and celebrate the messy, hopeful work of making places better together. In Tauranga, I think we have a unique opportunity to build this: a visible, active home for innovation, imagination and belonging to the city, where both our digital and physical lives can come together to build a more hopeful city future.

For those interested, I have created a proposal for the city council to see if it’s possible to actually get something like this off the ground. If you love granular detail and are disconcertingly interested, you can read that here.