From experts to integrators: holding the whole in city-shaping projects

In 2023, ahead of his presentation at WRLDCTY in New York, Heath Gledhill recorded this short explainer while at Aurecon.

The provocation is simple: Is it enough to be an expert?

Using the example of an everyday urban journey, Heath invites us to reflect on how people experience cities — as a seamless whole shaped by movement, light, sound, technology, and human interaction. Yet behind that experience sits a fragmented delivery reality, with many disciplines responsible for individual components of the outcome.

As projects grow more complex, with increasing regulation, interfaces, and stakeholder expectations, sustaining a unifying ambition becomes harder. Yet experience remains the ultimate measure of success.

The central proposition is a shift in professional posture: from individual experts working in parallel, to experts and integrators working in concert. Integration, in this framing, does not replace technical excellence. It builds on it; requiring leadership that can move fluidly between detail and ambition, while keeping decisions anchored in the human experience.

Drawing on practice-based insights, Heath outlines several reframes required to support this shift:

• Clarifying intended outcomes early

• Seeing teams as networks of complementary expertise

• Broadening how impact and experience are measured

• Strengthening accountability for the whole

• Adopting more connected, human-centred ways of working.

The message is not disciplinary, but collective. Moving beyond linear and siloed models is a shared responsibility and a necessary step toward better long-term outcomes for cities.

These ideas continue to inform how we think about complex, place-based decisions today. As city-shaping challenges become more interconnected, the need to hold the whole, across people, movement, and place, remains as relevant as ever.

Watch the video here: