Our active local research provides a strong foundation to confidently write city vision documents, neighbourhood plans and urban strategies. This active approach to co-created design also informs our design work on parks, public gardens, squares, civic spaces, and public art commissions, where we have an active interest in play and ecology.
Feria Urbanism is a small agile team. We work with a close network of architects, engineers, landscape designers, social media managers, film makers and digital innovators. We are comfortable leading projects or working in collaboration with a larger team.
Richard Eastham
BSc (Hons) MA (Urban Design) Dip UP (Dist) MRTPI AoU
Founding Director
Richard is an urban designer and urban planner with extensive experience in the preparation of design strategies and development frameworks. He has particular expertise in engaging with local communities to help shape and influence emerging spatial strategies.
Richard is a member of three design review panels, a recognition of his skills and wide experience. He has also been nominated as one of the four most inspiring people in the planning and design profession by the Royal Town Planning Institute’s 2015 Young Planner Survey. He has led the preparation of urban framework plans for Liverpool, Hemel Hempstead, Preston, Weymouth, and Bexleyheath. He has also led on the production of neighbourhood plans for community groups in Kent, Hampshire, and East Sussex. He has specific experience in the design and planning of the after dark city. Richard is a visiting tutor on the architecture course at the Arts University Bournemouth and an urban design teaching fellow at the University of Southampton.
Prior to establishing Feria Urbanism, Richard was an associate director at Terence O’Rourke in Bournemouth, before becoming a director at New Masterplanning in Poole. He was born in Preston, Lancashire and trained at the University of Sheffield, the University of Manchester and Oxford Brookes University.
Jennie Savage
BA (Hons) MA Fine Art
Creative Director
Jennie is a public artist, teacher, and communicator, and has been working across the UK and internationally for over twenty years. Her extensive experience of developing public art, both through community engagement projects and permanent sculptures, has given her significant insight into urban developments and how communities think. Jennie’s skill set connects her broad understanding and academic interest in urban redevelopment and town planning with her extensive experience of working with communities, as an artist.
She has developed a public art practice that maps tacit community knowledge to create works that find focus around community agency and co-creativity. Jennie applies a process of close listening to communities whilst conceptualising overall projects to articulate ideas, allowing our team to fully engage with the public. One of her primary areas of academic interest is community-led design processes, considering how public spaces might be built in response to collective experiences.
Since 2009, Jennie worked as a tutor on the fine art course at Chelsea College of Art (University of the Arts London). She also teaches on the architecture course at the Arts University Bournemouth where she works with Richard. She has published several books on urban development, including “Nutopia: Envisioning Future Cities” (University of Plymouth Press).
Henrike Johannsen
BA (Hons) Architecture
Practice Associate
Henrike trained at the Arts University Bournemouth where she studied architecture. Her main interest is in the creation of practical and enjoyable spaces for human habitation. Her work and ideas are influenced by the different ways in which people engage with one another in the places where they live, work, play and visit. She is an active member of our team and supports our project work across all disciplines.
Henrike helps to undertake extensive studies of project sites and their surrounding context. This allows our team to develop the most appropriate design response. These assessments are often in rural areas, where she has worked with Richard on several neighbourhood plans that seek to preserve the countryside setting of smaller villages. She has also undertaken research in towns and cities, seeking to uncover how key aspects of urban life function at both street level and at a strategic scale.
She provides desktop research findings for our major projects, including those that involve rewilding and woodland planting schemes as well as research into urban planning policy. Henrike is skilled in the use of illustration software and creates engaging 2-D maps and 3-D drawings that help communicate our design and planning ideas to a wider audience.
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Awards and Associations
About Our Name
We chose the name Feria because it reminds us about all the things that makes us tick. That the things we do away from work inspire and nurture our creativity just as much as our professional experiences – the places we see, the people we spend time with, the bike rides we take. All of this is essential.
Feria is the Latin word for “free day” and in ancient times, was a day on which the people, especially the slaves, were not obliged to work, and on which there were no court sessions. Gradually, these days became used for markets, social gatherings, and celebrations.
The word is used today in Latin countries to describe the “fair” – the market, the circus, or the festival – those events that transform urban space for one day, for one night, forever: something out of the ordinary, bringing people together, raising spirits and leaving a memorable impression.
We hope we do the same.