Safer Cities Through Play: The Newcastle Night Galleries
- Paul Egglestone
- Oct 13
- 2 min read
When most cities talk about “crime prevention,” they reach for CCTV, fences, and floodlights. But what if safety could come from something more playful?
That question drove the Newcastle Night Galleries project — an experiment in creative placemaking featured in The Elephant’s Leg II: Creativity in Action.
Beyond surveillance: creativity as safety
The project drew on CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design), a framework used in planning and urban design across Australia. But while CPTED is usually about fences, lighting, and “target hardening,” FASTlab and its partners asked: what if we flipped it?
Instead of punitive measures, we designed for activation, play, and community guardianship. The Night Galleries turned ordinary sites in Newcastle’s CBD into interactive, illuminated “henges” — two-metre-high multimedia lightboxes that responded to touch, sound, and movement'
How it worked
Three sites, three experiments:
Kuwumi Place became a musical playground where passers-by could remix beats and melodies.
Market Street Steps invited families to unlock AR creatures hidden in digital “habitats.”
Pacific Park transformed abstract artworks into immersive soundscapes and AR experiences.
Collaborators included the City of Newcastle, Newcastle Art Gallery, small tech firms (Design Anthology, SAPHI, VEARA), and local sound designers.
Impact: These installations reframed nightlife not as risky, but as creative and participatory.
Lessons learned
Creative placemaking works — playful design attracted broader sections of the community, building a sense of ownership and safety.
Partnerships matter — artists, technologists, and local government each brought unique strengths.
Platforms, not one-offs — the henge prototypes were designed to be reused, adapted, and scaled — and they’re already finding new life in other cities.
Why FASTlab cares
For us, the Night Galleries proved that creativity isn’t just cultural enrichment — it’s civic infrastructure. By treating public space as a canvas for art and play, we created safer, smarter, and more liveable cities.
📖 Explore the full case study in The Elephant’s Leg II: Creativity in Action: Read the book
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