Creative Placemaking

Design for the Arts

Creative placemaking is the process of engaging the local community, artists, nonprofits, government entities, and private developers as part of a broader urban design strategy that utilizes community engagement, tactical urbanism, creative urban design, and arts & culture to achieve the following outcomes:

Celebrate & build on the unique culture of an area

Realize truly unique places and spaces

Foster a strong sense of community identity and pride of place

Incentivize private reinvestment

Start My Project

Before we get started, please tell us more about your project! If we determine that your project is a good fit for our expertise, someone from our team will be in touch with you about the next steps within 1-2 business days.

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Our Projects

Oasis Community Garden

Apr 2011

Civic Facilities Master Plan

Jun 2011

Women’s Council Butterfly Healing Garden

Feb 2016

Lester Park

Apr 2016

Nine Rails Creative District Master Plan

Feb 2018

Community Design – Gateway Ballpark Cover

Gateway Park

Dec 2018

Logan Arts Master Plan

Apr 2019

Jefferson Community

Feb 2020

Community Design - Platform Landscapes Cover

Platforms Landscape

Dec 2020

Big O Doughnuts Shop Facade

Aug 2022

Expertise

At Io we specialize in creative placemaking, including the following types of projects and scope of services:

Arts District Planning

We've been involved in public arts planning work for Logan, Ogden, and South Salt Lake City.

Tactical Urbanism

Our team has completed design and planning work for numerous tactical urbanism & public art installation projects

Creative Public Space

Our work incorporates creative parks, plazas, & streetscapes, including projects such as Platforms and the new Dumke Arts Plaza in Ogden Utah.

Live Work

We understand the unique needs of development planning for creative and arts districts, including envisioning multi and live-work developments.

What our clients are saying...

Sara Meess

IO LandArch has successfully provided a variety of services for Ogden City – from documenting historic landscapes to preparing the master plan for a major redevelopment project. IO created the design concept for the Ogden Business Exchange, a redevelopment project that is transforming a historic but vacant stockyard into a state-of-the-art business park. Io’s design weaves in the rich history of the site and its proximity to natural amenities to create a truly unique sense of place..

Sharen Hauri

Io has been a tremendous help to the City of South Salt Lake as they have worked over the years to help plan and design numerous city buildings and parks. We are grateful for this consistency and reliability as we complete many projects in phases. Io’s attention to detail and quality and willingness to listen to our needs ensures we are always happy with the end product.

Amy Jorgensen

I absolutely love working with Io! They are smart, insightful, and excellent at what they do. Their team is keenly attuned to the relationships between history, place and design - and work closely with clients to build a plan that is responsive and visionary. A pleasure to work with, Io brings the best work to the table, I give them my highest recommendation.

Venessa Castagnoli | Executive Director

Ogden Contemporary Arts were lucky enough to work with io Landarch on our outdoor sculpture park, PLATFORMS. Shalae was critical to pulling off this community project. She offered their services as an in-kind donation and even went as far as recommending volunteer options, as we are a nonprofit with limited funds. The outcome was astonishing. What was once a lot of overgrown weeds, chain-link, and trash, is now a welcoming park scattered with beautiful native plants and whimsical winding pathways. Ogden is lucky to have such a community-oriented landscape architecture firm in our community.

The Pingree Mansion

Io LandArch custom-designed my solar-carport. They even got approval from the historic landmark commission where I live (which would have been a headache to do on my own). It turned out beautifully. It’s as much work of art as it is carport and fit my budget. I’m very happy with the results and highly recommend them.

By Rebecca Sato