My proposed definition of place as location + meaning can suggest distinct sources for each of the constituent elements of a sense of place, brought together to form something new.
If so it is safe to assume that the location, imbued now with an enhanced level of meaning for the individual aware of place, maintains an identity in and of itself. It exists, in other words, on its own terms in the physical world with or without an individual’s added sensitivity to place.
Likewise the meaning that is woven into a location turned place is sourced from, or better filtered through, the individual. As something human-generated, this meaning is also therefore subjected to cultural influences, on some level. The individual act of comprehending locational meaning consequently becomes the imposition in a broader sense of a cultural perspective.
It’s important to consider the cultural influences that contribute to a distinct perception of place because they represent the catalyst, the impetus behind the strong sense that results. They are at least partially responsible for the discrete experiences of place sense between different individuals, the intensity or lack of any such sense amongst some, or the way a shared sense of place is acknowledged and put to use by a community.
So what then is the role of culture in the sense of place?
Two types of cultural influences come to mind. The first involves the imposition of cultural trappings onto or into a location, particularly those considered part of the natural environment. This can be described as the creation of the 
so-called cultural landscape, or more specifically in this case, the built environment.
By its nature this type of cultural influence suggests a certain level of ownership or at least something like a need for control over the environment. It is indeed often associated with the idea of taming or overcoming nature.
Whilst sense of place is experienced in these cases as a heightened awareness, that consciousness is further transformed on a practical level, put on display or used as the building blocks for something arguably outside of the location from which it emerges.
Culture can also exert influences as a component of individual perception, rather than arising as an element of the location, triggering and directly shaping the unique sense of place within the mind.
At first glance, culture here might seem an imposition of something alien, as a distraction even from a genuine and highly personal sense of place that is best shaped by the influences of the location alone. But that cultural influence is in fact critical. It ultimately shapes how place sense settles within the conscious mind, how powerfully it is felt. It is the reason place experiences for a given location can be quite different across individuals within a group.
In this light the mapping of a cultural landscape, one that leverages a distinctive sense of place, onto a location is not necessarily a bad thing. It can, as I’ve noted in a previous post, help generate a stronger and positive sense of community. Place in this case can be put to good use, to promote constructive ends – both borrowing from and contributing to cultural perspectives.
And there are plenty of examples of built environments that clearly pay proper deference to their contextual location 
and obviously exist in a harmonious state with it. The appropriation and display or otherwise practical use of iconic elements associated with a location can generate positive results just as they can be characterised as presumptuous or in bad taste. They might for example bring attention to the persistent degradation of a location that might otherwise go unnoticed and result in its loss altogether.
But employing something as strong and as sublime as sense of place represents a balancing act, to be sure. There are inherent risks in the use of an awareness that in part arises from the location under consideration. For this contribution to meaning sits well outside the range of direct influence and the idea of capturing it may very likely be no more than a misunderstood imposition of cultural influences that happen to synch on some level with a physical location.
That part of sense of place attributable to the pertinent location must be acknowledged as such, given its due as it were. It need not be manipulated any more than that to contribute value. In fact when it is treated firstly as an autonomous contribution, available as a foundation upon which culturally influenced perceptions can be developed, it is positioned to deliver to its full potential. In this way location serves as the proper context within which an individual’s unique sense of place can come into being. Place ultimately is meaning but its genesis is to be found in physical space, in geography.
A realised sense of place represents an interplay between its constituent elements, that inherent to a particular location and that 
resulting from the imposition of a cultural filter. A formulaic explanation of how these elements interact as part of place sense would be misguided – their interaction is dynamic and situational – but it is enough to recognise that they do in fact interrelate and depend at different times and in different ways upon one another.
While difficult to pin down precisely, the recognition of this complex weaving of the cultural with a location fully capable of existing on its own terms and otherwise distinct from that perspective is critical to the understanding of place and its significance.
It speaks too of the inherently ethereal nature of the sense of place and as such of its hold on me.
place 