Former NLA Director Benjamin O’Connor introduces Shape, a new venture helping places cut through strategy overload by bringing people, priorities and plans together to create clear, coordinated action for the way urban life is changing.


After a decade at NLA, much of it spent talking about the future of cities, it feels both familiar and slightly surreal to return with a new hat on. This time I am here to share something new that I am building which feels like the logical start to the next chapter. 

The starting point for Shape is simple. Too often, places are rich in strategies but struggle with alignment. Shape exists to bridge that gap. We help cities, institutions and partners make sense of what they already have, bring people and priorities together, and turn fragmented plans into clear pathways for action. This feels particularly important at a moment when the rhythm of city life is shifting. 

Hybrid working has quietly rewritten the daily choreography of our urban centres. The commute has not disappeared, but it has become more intentional. People travel in less often, and when they do, they expect much more. At the same time, leisure trips, culture and social life increasingly draw people into cities, while also keeping them rooted in local high streets closer to home. 

On top of this sits the pressure to decarbonise, retrofit instead of demolish, grow regional productivity, strengthen night-time economies, support local culture and still balance the books. It is no surprise that places now have an overabundance of strategies. Many point in the right direction, but few truly pull together. 

What I hear again and again from local authorities, developers, business improvement districts and cultural organisations is not “we need a new strategy”. It is “we need what we already have to add up.” 

This is the gap Shape aims to fill. Instead of arriving with a shiny new document, we begin with what already exists. We help teams make sense of overlapping plans, surface shared intent and turn that into a clear story about people and place with a practical route to delivery. 

Sometimes this means bringing economic development, culture, regeneration, housing and transport colleagues into the same room and mapping how their priorities intersect on an actual street corner. Sometimes it means helping a private sector partner understand how they can support an emerging knowledge hub or leisure cluster. Often it is about making choices: what we will not do, as much as what we will. 

The prize for getting this right is bigger than any single project. Cities that join up their strategies will attract talent, investment and visitors, and spread those benefits more fairly across their neighbourhoods and communities. 

NLA has always been at its best when it convenes people who do not normally talk to each other and gives them a shared language for the city. Shape grows directly out of that spirit. We want to help places move from beautifully written plans to confident, coordinated action, turning complexity into clarity and strategies into somewhere you can stand on a Thursday afternoon and feel the difference. 

I am excited to be doing this alongside the NLA community and to see what we can shape together next.