Carpe Noctem : “Seize the Night”-
is a novel lens to see your city ‘after dark' and turn that vision into an action plan for positive urban change.
What is the Carpe Noctem, night-time strategy & design program?
Is your city center or precinct dead instead of alive after five? Or is it notoriously, rambunctiously alive? Are residents and cultural establishments in harmony or in conflict?
Carpe Noctem is the brainchild of Leni Schwendinger and Alistair Turnham, two of the world’s foremost night-time city design experts. Carpe Noctem distills their deep knowledge and years’ of experience into a practical process that can be commissioned in totality or as modules.
Simply described, Carpe Noctem is based on active learning with high-level participation of business leaders, mayors, councilors and officers, senior police, community and youth leaders. Once the sun sets, Leni and Alistair take your stakeholders on a meticulously prepared walk around your precinct, town or city route. Leni and Alistair will be your nocturnal tour guides! After the night walk, the group comes back together to workshop your ‘after dark’ future. The workshop insights and revelations are captured into an action-based report.
Leni and Alistair will hold your hand through the Carpe Noctem process, from planning and managing the night walk to staging the workshop and presenting the findings and recommendations.
Who is Carpe Noctem for?
Councils, municipalities, civic leaders and mayors
initiating a 'night-time strategy' or joined-up approach to the night-time economy.
01
Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Local Development Corporations (LDC)
who need to improve safety, enhance activation and drive footfall and spend in local businesses.
04
Planning, urban design, transportation and economic development departments
who need to up-skill colleagues so that they can ‘design for the night’ and to properly appraise planning applications and masterplans for best functionality after dark.
02
Educational institutions
who are training students and academics in the emerging field of ‘night-time design’ and who also want to create safer campuses and safer student and staff experiences.
05
Property developers and landowners
who want to optimize new masterplans or for their existing estates and complexes after 5pm.
03
Other stakeholders
who have joined our proven Carpe Noctem process include local police, community groups and trader associations. Carpe Noctem also makes a great session at urban-related conferences.
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Who benefits from Carpe Noctem?
You, colleagues and the community will benefit from seeing your city, neighborhood or precinct with new eyes.
Together we will start or accelerate your process of ‘after dark’ change so that we get the night-time right.
Attendees will go back to their organization to plan, manage and design the night to be safer, more exciting, more inclusive and more prosperous.
Shortcircuit the process of developing an evening and night-time strategy and hit the ground running...
What is the Carpe Noctem process?
We can deliver certain stages as standalone products (e.g. training and the night walk) if you want to start slow!
PLAN
01
In the weeks running up to the night walk Leni and Alistair will meet with you virtually to prepare the Carpe Noctem route, agree on an invite list and ensure workshop details are nailed down.
The day before Leni and Alistair will arrive on site in your city, meet with you and walk the route that night, ensuring that it flows perfectly.
NIGHTWALK
02
Briefing: A neighbourhood presentation prepares participants for the program. Including global best practice approaches to developing the night-time city and sharpening observation skills based on local examples.
The Walk! Leni and Alistair lead participants along the pre-planned walk for active learning and bonding: debate, learning and fun!
Debrief: We then decamp to a pub or other night-time venue at the end of the walk to debrief and air our initial thoughts.
03
WORKSHOP
Leni and Alistair stay in town to prepare and deliver a workshop with the NightWalk participants. This uses our unique method of agreeing and developing priorities for action.
Examples of Carpe Noctem in action
Dublin City Council
London Borough Hammersmith and Fulham
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
“As a result of our Carpe Noctem training, RBKC have included a focus on the hours of darkness in our local action plan for the high street. Everyone loved the session. There was very helpful content in the 'classroom' part of the workshop, and the guided walkabout really changes your perspective and understanding of how places feel at night. Leni and Alistair’s ideas and quick wins that came out during the session have stuck with me and we would love to implement them.”
— Nadia Robinson, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Meet the dynamic American and British duo behind Carpe Noctem.
Leni Schwendinger is a published, award-winning authority on issues of city lighting, with more than 20 years of worldwide experience, creating illuminated environments. This work is shared through Leni’s public speaking and envisioning engagements, including the “NightSeeing™, Navigate Your Luminous City” program.
Her projects can be experienced at sites such as parks, subways and bridges. She is directing a startup, International Nighttime Design Initiative, establishing an interdisciplinary profession. Projects for the Initiative include Smart Lighting Guidance for New York State and developing innovative pilots with think-tank, New Urban Mobility.
Leni is a Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, a Design Trust for Public Space Fellow (NYC).
lslp.net
Alistair trained as an urban planner and is the founder of MAKE, the night-time city consultants. He created the first night-time strategy as far back as 1995, and has since completed over 200 projects worldwide to improve cities ‘after dark’. He pioneered the idea of ‘after dark placemaking’, as well measuring the night-time economy (NTE) and leads the research for the Night-time Industries Association's annual UK NTE Study.
His recent high-profile projects include working on a two-year night-time business support programme for the the Mayor of London’s '24hr London Team' and training the new Night-time Advisors for the Irish Government. He helped develop Purple Flag, the global scheme for accrediting quality night-time towns and precincts, and now sits on the UK, Ireland and the New South Wales Purple Flag assessment panels.