Placemaking

‘What if we built our communities around places?’ (PPS)

Placemaking aims to inspire people to collectively reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community; strengtheningthe connection between people and the places they share. The Placemaking semester emphasizes a collaborative process through which we can reshape our public spaces to create value, contribute to the quality of life and liveability of a place. The Placemaking semester facilitates creative use patterns with particular attention to the physical, cultural and social identities that define a place and support its continued development. The overall goal is to create meaningful placemaking concepts that contribute to peoples health, happiness and well-being (Kees Klomp, 2020). Placemaking designs that not only pay attention to the physical component of a place, but also to experiences that keep a place lively, attractive and interactive for different target groups in the long term.

The Placeman (2024) - Fred Kent, founder & former president of Project for Public Spaces (PPS)

'Placemaking is profoundly different from the normal design process. We say, 'When you focus on place, you do everything differently.' We bring attention to the particular place and its dynamic within the existing community. Then we focus the community's ideas to build on that dynamic. The result? A plan emerges that is theirs, and which they can improve as it evolves' (https://www.pps.org/article/the-atlantic-interviews-fred -kent)

'We don’t have a welfare problem, … an environmental problem, a crime problem, a climatic change problem, a population problem or an economic problem. And we don’t have an educational problem. They are symptom, not disease. At bottom, we have an institutional problem, and until we properly diagnose and deal with it, all societal problems will get progressively worse…...There is simply no way to govern the diversity and complexity of twenty-first century society with separatist, specialist, mechanistic, seventeenth-century concepts of organization.' — Dee Hock, Visionary Business Leader (https://www.sociallifeproject.org/the-global-catastrophe-will-be-solved-by-local-communities/)

Our Global Catastrophes will be Solved by Local Communities:

Why Placemaking Can Help Facilitate the Change We Need

(Kent, Madden & Walljasper, 2020)

NDSM Wharf Amsterdam 2024