Dezeen writer Reinier de Graaf recently confessed that he has “no idea what placemaking is.” This is not surprising. As he mentioned in his article, placemaking cannot be found in the dictionary and was still, until recently, underlined by Microsoft as a spelling mistake. However, being unable to find placemaking among the popular lexicon of the day does not make the relatively new concept any less important.
What’s interesting about the term “placemaking” is that it has become ubiquitous without being widely noticed — sitting between the cracks of urban design, landscaping, development, and other physical hardware of places. Amid the built environments that we all base our lives around can be beautiful spaces that simply do not work. There is no “stickiness” or culture to the physical developments. This is where the concept of placemaking makes its mark.
Placemaking is the creative science of determining all the software elements that can make a place successful. These can include everything from values to forming a community to creating spaces that draw in the public. However, the soft elements are often left out of the planning when creating a space, leading to less successful spaces.
Serendipitous Placemaking
To get our heads around what placemaking truly is, we can look to the case of communities such as Bushwick and Williamsburg in New York. These were bastions of creativity for the starving artist community through the 1980s and 1990s. Other people began noticing the culture these artists formed and started moving into the area. Through creativity, culture, and the forming of community, placemaking happened. It was not something that happened overnight but instead serendipitously through the involvement of creative community.
Placemaking is essential because you do not always have the luxury of time in development — buildings need to go up, and investors need to get their ROI. Placemaking requires deeper strategy and an intention to embrace the mantra of “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
Placemaking strategy should answer critical questions. Why do people choose to live where they live? What is the culture of a particular development? How does the human dimension come into play? How are people using space? Why does a built environment matter? Asking these key questions and then seeking answers is a great way to explore the spaces between development and urban design.
Where Do Placemakers Come From?
Placemaking has grown out of marketing, branding, and the design and selling of consumer goods. However, the professionals who hail from these industries are used to immediate feedback. With placemaking, feedback can take time to unveil. Former marketers, branding experts, and those who worked in consumer goods make tremendous placemakers because they are humanists. They see things through a cultural lens.
The industry of placemaking, like the word itself, is still in its relative infancy. People may continue to say they have “no idea” what placemaking is because it comes from academia and history and has not been thrust into the common vocabulary until recently. The concept is derived from a biological understanding of why people gravitate toward the spaces where they feel the most comfortable. The art of placemaking goes beyond just building buildings and extends into choreography and considering the entire ecosystem of a development.
Better Education leads to Better Understanding
Because placemaking plays such a critical part in the development and building of where we live, work, and form communities, there is a dire need for better education on what placemaking is and why it is important. Placemaking can very easily get lost in urban design, architecture, and all of the facets of the built environment.
Placemaking is an experience that takes time to learn. Good developers are humanists. They deeply understand the “who” behind a design, not just the why or the financial opportunities. They are placemakers — putting the end-user first when they begin to design and develop a space.
To say, “I have no idea what placemaking is,” is fair enough because it is a new and evolving industry. Soon, those at the forefront of this new industry hope that people will be able to go to school and train to become placemakers. The end goal is to advance humanity. We are all on this planet for such a very short time, so we may as well do everything we can to make our lives better. This is where placemakers shine.
