A shared language for shaping better places.

What do we mean when we say a place feels welcoming, unequal, alive, or neglected?

Too often, we lack the words to talk about place together. Without a shared language, conversations fragment, histories are overlooked, ecologies ignored, and power imbalances left unchallenged.

Place Literacy provides an answer. It builds the awareness, shared language, and tools to see how visible, hidden, and invisible forces shape place, and develops the agency to act for more abundant, sustainable, and resilient futures.

Our Approach

At IF/, we practice Place Literacy through a structured process that blends observation, interpretation, and reflection to move beyond surface impressions into deeper understanding.

Our tools and frameworks help communities, practitioners, and learners create a shared language of place. They draw on two core resources: the Elements of Place, which offer entry points for noticing and questioning the forces that shape place, and the Shared Practices, six habits that guide awareness into action.

Elements of Place

  • The viewpoints, positionalities, and cultural lenses through which place is seen and experienced. It reminds us that no place is understood from a single angle.

  • All the living systems that animate place. From health and wellbeing to ecological interdependence, life makes place dynamic and responsive.

  • The physical matter: organic, geologic, synthetic, waste, water, and air. Materials carry histories of extraction, use, and reuse, shaping how places feel and function.

  • The shapes, structures, and topographies of place, from landscapes and hydrological patterns to streets, buildings, and styles. Form gives physical presence to place.

  • The practices, routines, and rhythms that unfold in place. Activity highlights how people and communities use, adapt, and redefine spaces through everyday life.

  • The connections, roles, and interdependencies that bind people, species, and systems. Relationships define place through power, exchange, and care.

Every place, no matter how familiar or complex, can be explored through six elements. Together, they act as a scaffold for inquiry, helping us notice connections between what is visible, partly hidden, and often invisible.

Shared Practices

At its heart, Place Literacy is about civic capacity: giving everyone the ability to notice more about their surroundings, make sense of what they see, and work together to shape change. It unfolds through six shared practices that move from awareness to understanding to action.

These practices are not a fixed sequence but part of a circular, iterative process. Each one feeds into the next, but also loops back on itself: observation leads to new interpretations, critique reshapes how we describe, and engagement opens fresh possibilities for transformation. Taken together, they form a living cycle of habits that can be repeated, adapted, and deepened over time, strengthening how we see, question, and act in relation to place.

IF/ supports the development of Place Literacy in two ways: through the Place Literacy Lab and the Place Literacy Campaign.

The Lab is the experimental engine, where new methods are researched, tested, and refined. The Campaign takes these ideas into the world, sharing tools and practices openly and supporting the growth of Place Literacy worldwide. Together, they embed Place Literacy across schools, communities, cultural programmes, and policy, creating the conditions for better places, stronger connections, and more equitable futures.