Village Well

Thank you West Vic Business for giving us this opportunity to share our work on a project that is so dear to the Horsham community. We are very grateful to the community for their guidance and support throughout this project and we can't wait to see the project come to fruition.

A special Thank You to the team at Village Well for their commitment to our Green Lake project and incredible place making expertise.
In particular CEO, Valli Morphett for her engaging facilitation of the initial workshop with key stakeholders.

The Green Lake Recreational Precinct Vision is available to download from the West Vic Business website.

https://online.flipbuilder.com/WestVicBusiness/mtva/

Village Well have been working with a number of traders associations since the pandemic hit, including the City Precinct and Lonsdale St traders groups to re-inspire and reimagine what a 21st century business in the CBD looks like. We've been doing workshops, attending meetings, and coming up with creative and new strategies to support their membership and customers.

At the heart of it all, it comes down to the traders - the shopkeepers, hospitality businesses and retailers - without these our city is not alive, yet alone cannot thrive or survive. What's the key to bringing our city back to life? Supporting our traders and of course, bringing foot traffic and office workers back to the city!

The City of Newcastle are going on a courageous journey to create a 21st century council for a post-covid and climate resilient future for Novacastrians. One that integrates the New Local principles and Donut Economic model. ⁠
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Village Well spent 2 days last week with the CoN executive team including senior managers and directors who bravely threw out their agendas after they walked in, and dug deep to do 'the work' to see how they could truly rethink their Economic Development & Community Development strategies and how to support an organisational structure to ensure that the next 5 years can deliver a climate resilient city for Newcastle. ⁠
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We are looking for 3 Councils to do the same, and educate their leadership team to the New Local. Get in touch with us to find out how.

Did you know we created a Place Activation Toolkit for all city makers and shapers to use? A guide beside and inspirational tool to kickstart your creative ideation process around ways to build back better by putting
people, place and planet first.

Alongside some actions specific to this ongoing recovery, this Toolkit also inspires an ongoing narrative around building stronger and more inclusive, regenerative and resilient places and communities. It draws on global examples but mostly focuses on Australian ones, some of which are specific to our ‘place’: Melbourne.

Download it here: https://www.villagewell.org/get-inspired

Village Well have been working with the City of Stonnington to look at how placemaking can be embedded across the organisation. With an LGA that includes some of the highest number of mainstreets in Melbourne, it is characterised by beautiful laneways, streets, parks and plazas - we look forward to seeing the fruits of this hard work come to life!

'When we heal ourselves, then we can heal our mainstreets'. We recently read a great article from our friends at who interviewed Mindy Fullilove on the inextricable link between trauma, healing and mainstreet.

Read the article here:
https://www.pps.org/article/the-joy-of-being-in-dr-mindy-fullilove-on-trauma-healing-and-main-street

Gilbert and Michael have been working together for over 20 years, the term 'localism' isn't new at the Well. 2020 forced us to rethink to super hyper localism, which is why we are pushing 'The New Local' this year - a movement towards refocusing community, economic development and placemaking approaches. Michael and Gilbert together developed a compelling story for a new economic development and place-led approaches to building resilient and regenerative communities, cities, towns and mainstreets in a post-COVID-19 and climate change world.⁠
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If you haven't read any of Michael's work yet, we highly recommend this read on how to keep $$ in your local economy and reinvest in your towns and centres.⁠
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One of the most important elements to creating a great mainstreet is providing traders - the shop owners and keepers who are the guardians of the 'street' to feel ownership to create and curate the spaces to help us dwell and connect.

Covid-19 impacted our mainstreets and small businesses but quick thinking and innovation to allow car parks and underutilised spaces to be brought to life.

Download our mainstreet toolkit available for free on our website to learn more.

If you have a little time to read, here is a great article published by Medium that discusses the importance of the 'commons' in a post pandemic world, with Giselle Wilkinson, Colin Hocking, Jose Ramos, Gilbert Rochecouste and Maya Ward as contributors.

What we Learned About the Commons through the Covid-19 Pandemic Giselle Wilkinson, Colin Hocking, Jose Ramos, Gilbert Rochecouste, Maya Ward

What makes a great main street?
Some of these things! Download our free toolkit off our website to help your traders, centre managers, place managers and community make great places!

Drumroll...we've been sitting on this for a while to get it just right! The Mainstreet Guide: 10 steps to make a great main street is available for free download off our website. Head to 'Get Inspired' on the tabs to download now!

Some exciting projects we have been working on recenlty with superstar team include the reimagining of Marvel Stadium. Subscribe to our newsletter to find out more about what we have been working on!

We've been squirrelling away putting a brand spanking new website together with - check it out and let us know what you think!