For years, the language of placemaking has been dominated by intelligence: seamless journeys, frictionless experiences, and data-driven optimisation. Technology promised to make places work harder, faster and more efficiently for the people moving through them.

Over the Christmas break, watching Love Actually offered an unexpected moment of reflection. It evoked a Britain of two decades ago – confident, outward-looking, and culturally assured.

For a long time, the BBC didn’t really have to explain itself. It was “for everyone” and that answer carried weight. Most people accepted it. Today, it doesn’t land in quite the same way.

In recent years, pop culture has been spilling into our cities in increasingly physical ways. What once lived on the big screen and within fan communities, now appears on pavements, high streets and public spaces.