There’s perhaps no infrastructural element or system better suited to tell a story than the street. Sometimes the stories they tell are so quiet you could be excused for missing them altogether. Other times they’re inescapable, as loud as the crowds that gather to experience them. Either way, their place-narrative draws you in; even if you don’t quite understand how or why. Melbourne’s Hosier Lane, for example, exposes the city’s artistic heart though walls heavily laden with street art, scratch away at those surfaces and the culture of the place begins to reveal itself through a tapestry of stories.

In Adelaide, the streets are used to tell stories of place, history and culture in ways that are no less effective, albeit far more discrete. North Terrace Promenade in the CBD’s cultural precinct retells the story of Victorian era Adelaide within a very contemporary setting. While Rundle Street’s integrated installation by artist Michelle Nikou speaks to a bright economic future by literally paving the sidewalks with gold coins. Urban narratives aren’t always about the past or present. But they have to be local to convey a strong sense of place-making and hold any value for a community.

Many urban designers and landscape architects would agree the experiential qualities narrative brings to a place can be its greatest asset. This is particularly true in a digital age where information overload has diminished the appetite in some of us to simply go outside and spend quality time in a park or street. Narrative provokes us to think differently about these spaces because it causes us to interact. It also prompts conversations around how to use public space and how to respond to the stories being told. Do I stop to read the engraving? Should I be silent when looking at the water feature? Is this box something I can sit on or should I walk straight past it?

As a landscape architect and director of Wax Design, Warwick Keates is well versed in embedding community values within place through narrative. He also understands the longer term benefits of facilitating emotional response through experiential design. “I often try to create new narratives so the idea of memory and place attachment becomes more powerful,” he says. “If it’s possible to build in place-narrative and some form of storytelling, it means people will come back to get the next chapter of the story. This idea of being able to interrogate a space before it reveals itself is really important.”

Indeed, Wax Design’s recently completed Main Street regeneration in Willunga (almost 50 kilometres south of the Adelaide CBD), aims to reinforce pedestrian activation and set up the idea of destinations along that street. Keates achieved this by celebrating the heritage and people of Willunga through repair rather than destruction, while being mindful to maintain the original character of the street. Road levels were corrected, stormwater issues resolved, gardens installed and a historic slate drain restored. The thing that unifies each alteration and lends the scheme a sense of logic and cohesion is a strong narrative overlay that provides clues to the sense of place, enabling people to form their own personal connection to the site.