Placemaking

Placemaking is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets and waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or interesting. Landscape often plays an important role in the design process.

According to Bernard Hunt, an architect practicing in London:

We have theories, specialisms, regulations, exhortations, demonstration projects. We have planners. We have highway engineers. We have mixed use, mixed tenure, architecture, community architecture, urban design, neighbourhood strategy. But what seems to have happened is that we have simply lost the art of placemaking; or, put another way, we have lost the simple art of placemaking. We are good at putting up buildings but we are bad at making places.^[1]

A journal on the subject, is Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm. Places is about the design of places, the experiences they make possible and the consequences they have in our lives. Being in places involves social encounters, immersion in the sights, sounds, sun, wind and atmosphere of a locale, and curiosity about the traces of thought, imagination and investment that have guided their construction and use over time. The journal investigates the dynamics of nature and culture and the conscious stewarding of resources by fostering discussion in multiple voices, with strong imagery and language that is clear and accessible, crossing general interests, professions and scholarly disciplines. The focus is on places of public import and on designs and proposals that embody thought in ways that deserve public discourse and continuing attention.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Jon Jerde
• William H. Whyte
• Dan Biederman
• David Engwicht
• Jane Jacobs
• Fred Kent
• Jan Gehl
• Christopher Alexander
• Donald Appleyard
• James Howard Kunstler
• Donald Appleyard
• Allan Jacobs
• Enrique Penalosa
• Community of place
• Ronald Lee Fleming

References

1. ^ "sustainable placemaking" - Keynote speech by Bernard Hunt of HTA Architects, 22 February 2001

Books

• The Art of Placemaking: Interpreting Community Through Public Art and Urban Design, by Ronald Lee Fleming at The Townscape Institute (2007)
• Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities, by Lynda H. Schneekloth & Robert G. Shibley (1995)
• How to Turn a Place Around, by Project for Public Spaces (2000)
• The Ecology of Place, by Timothy Beatley and Kristy Manning (1997)