Oli Boaler, Placemaking Manager

Posted on 25 Aug 2025

With a background in architecture and a passion for connecting people, places and stories, Oli plays a key role in shaping the future of Rochdale’s town centre and cultural spaces.
       
                         
Tell me a bit about yourself

I’m Oli Boaler, a Placemaking Manager at RDA within the Culture and Placemaking team. I’ve been with the RDA for two and a half years, but my background is as a qualified architect, mainly working in and around Greater Manchester.

What really drew me to this role was the opportunity to develop a deeper, long-term connection with place. In my previous work, I loved how projects allowed me to engage with communities, but the appeal of this role was the chance to work on a much broader and sustained level, connecting people’s stories and ambitions with wider strategic objectives and different projects to create a cohesive approach to placemaking.

I’ve lived in Greater Manchester for just under ten years now, but I grew up in the South-West, studied architecture in Cardiff, and have also lived in London and Berlin.

What is your role with the RDA?

Whilst my title is Placemaking Manager, all of our work across the Culture and Placemaking Team and wider sector is interlinked. Placemaking is all the different factors that come together to shape our experience of a place ,  from the connections we form, the stories we tell each other, or our experiences of the places and spaces we inhabit.

My specific role is in the intersection between the built environment and the cultural, community, and visitor economy focused activities happening across Rochdale. A key focus for me is bringing vacant or underused buildings back into life, ensure they contribute positively to the borough and the local economy, and help support the ambitions of our communities. I also work on making the physical environment feel more engaging and creative, recognising that town centres are evolving due to changing retail habits, working-from-home trends, and economic shifts, but remain as important to our sense of local identity and pride as they ever have.

Why did you choose to work with the RDA?

I was drawn to the RDA because I wanted to work somewhere ambitious, somewhere that was open to new ideas and genuinely committed to making a difference. Rochdale felt like a place where positive change could have a real and lasting impact on the people who live here.

I also wanted to move into a role that allowed me to have a long-term relationship with a place. As an architect, you develop connections with an area through a project, but once it’s complete, you move on. With the RDA, I get to be involved in ongoing transformation, building relationships with the community and helping to shape Rochdale’s future through long term relationships with people and place.

What projects do you work on?

I work across a variety of projects, including strategic work, capital projects and other placemaking interventions. Key examples include:

• The redevelopment of Touchstones – our boroughs main arts and cultural hub which is currently undergoing transformation.
• Richard Street Studios – opened in September 2023, this space supports local artists and creatives, which is now run by local creative CIC Breaking Barriers.
• Town of Culture Outdoor Gallery on Drake Street – launching soon, featuring artwork from local artists selected by a community panel, delivered in partnership with Culture Coop.
• Milkstone Road Improvements – an iterative series of creative interventions, including murals, events, and shopfront improvements, currently being developed in partnership with Culture Coop and local communities..
• Bringing vacant historic buildings back into use – working with different property owners to find sustainable uses for key buildings that contribute to the experience and economy of the town centre.
• A big part of my role is also securing funding to support these initiatives, working with partners like Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

As important as the ‘what we do’ though is the ‘how we do it’. A core principle of how we try to work is through ‘Community Wealth Building’, a model focussed on empowering and supporting local people and organisations to expand their remits to deliver wider strategic work on behalf of the wider place. In following this approach, we support local skills, jobs and capacity, maximise funding to local organisations, and place people with local knowledge and trust at the heart of delivery.

What do you really enjoy about your profession?

I love working with people and building long-term relationships within the community. Often, there are great ideas or ambitions that don’t have an immediate solution, but by being embedded in the place, I can help connect different opportunities and needs together over time.

I’m also quite outcomes-driven, so I enjoy seeing tangible progress. Some of the larger capital projects take years to come to fruition, so having smaller, quicker wins, like the Outdoor Gallery, helps keep that balance and momentum going.

What makes you get up in the morning?

The drive to make a difference and contribute to something meaningful. Town centres are at a pivotal moment, and while the challenges are significant, they are also exciting places to work in because they still matter so much to people.

There’s a real sense of pride in Rochdale, and I want to be part of ensuring that its future reflects the creativity, ambition, and resilience of the people who live here.

Tell me something people don’t know about you

In 2015, I wrote and published a vegetarian cookbook for meat eaters titled Let’s Eat Less Meat. The book was designed to help people cut down on meat even if they didn’t want to eliminate it completely, offering simple, flavourful, and satisfying recipes that appealed to both vegetarians and those looking to make small but meaningful changes to their diet.