Two of our major projects in South Wales have been shortlisted for the 2026 Pineapple Awards, affirming the vital role of amplifying local voices in placemaking and community-led design.
Caerffili Town 2035 Festival of Ideas has been shortlisted in the Community Engagement category, while the Newport Placemaking Plan is a finalist for Strategy.
A new era for Newport
The Newport Placemaking Plan is setting a new course for a city defined by its independent spirit. As part of the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns Programme, we collaborated with Newport City Council and the people of Newport to draft a new era for the city centre.
The plan addresses placemaking fundamentals—centring community, civic pride, identity, meaning, safety, activity and vibrancy.
To capture the energy of the city, we partnered with Cowshed to engage over 1,700 residents and business owners. This resulted in ‘60 Big Ideas for Newport’.
These ideas are brought together as a clear vision for Newport’s next era, with a set of short, medium, and long-term initiatives that everyone is invited to help shape and deliver.
While the plan looks ahead to 2040, change is already visible. “Quick win” projects, including street art and new outdoor performance spaces, are already injecting life and music back into the streets. Momentum is beginning to build behind bigger wins for the city, too, with £20m in central government ‘Pride in Place’ funding secured to accelerate regeneration.
Platforming the people of Caerphilly
With the largest castle in Wales and a rich mining heritage, Caerphilly is a town where pride in local history is abundant. But today, it faces many of the challenges common to post-industrial valleys towns.
Caerphilly already has a placemaking plan to deal with these challenges. It’s a plan we’re leading the way in delivering—with projects like Ffos Caerffili Market and the renewed Windsor and Stockland Squares already bringing new opportunities to the town centre.
But, even with these changes, research showed that only 28% of residents were aware of the plan—with many feeling disconnected from the town’s future.
In response, we partnered with Cowshed to deliver ‘The Festival of Ideas’—a six week festival that empowered residents to contribute to the development of solutions for their town.
From Lego workshops and augmented reality toolkits to a “King or Queen of Caerffili” station where children pitched their own town-centre proposals, it created a space where every voice mattered. The impact has been transformative, with public awareness of the plan doubling to 56%.
“To have both Newport and Caerphilly recognised by the Pineapple Awards is a testament to the power of listening. Fundamentally, these projects are about giving people the agency to shape the places they call home.”
Paul Seaver, Associate Director, Head of Masterplanning and Urban Design
Looking to the future
These shortlists are a celebration of the residents, partners, and local businesses in Newport and Caerphilly who have dedicated their time and care to reimagining the future of their places they call home.
If you’d like to hear more about the projects in depth, you can watch us talk through them live at the Festival of Pineapples from Feb 24th–26th. Sign up for the presentation here.
