As the culmination of our long effort to give voice to places around the country, we have filed an Amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging Constitutional recognition of the inherent personhood of Place, [...]]]>

Says Kent: "Places are people too, my friends." / Photo: Sittingo.com

We’re excited to announce today that PPS is launching a new campaign to extend First Amendment rights to public places.

As the culmination of our long effort to give voice to places around the country, we have filed an Amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging Constitutional recognition of the inherent personhood of Place, ensuring the same right to freedom of speech as human beings. We believe that this follows naturally from the Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court Ruling, which gave corporations the same legal rights as people.

In nearly 40 years of work across all 50 states and 42 countries, PPS staff have found incontestable evidence that public spaces have distinct personalities, just the same as people. In fact, public places consistently demonstrate higher rates of cooperation, efficiency and public benefit than corporations and individuals. And like people, they should have the right to express themselves.

Through our online and in-person engagement and evaluation tools, we have been able to give voice to places. This voice should be able to influence elections and defend itself, just as people and corporations can.

The campaign got its start last summer when PPS President Fred Kent, responding to an audience at the Iowa State Fair, declared. “Places are people too, my friends.”

Fred Kent's fertile imagination has helped him appreciate and "listen to" places as if they were real people. Photo: Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times

The campaign also advocates the creation of Super PACs (Place Action Committees) to make sure places are well-represented in the public process, without cooperating directly with political campaigns. Some observers predict this effort will lead to a new era of “Place Capitalism,” where the Place is recognized in its role as a means of production and source of resilient wealth.

This legal recognition is further necessitated in light of the fact that automobiles have been getting closer to achieving the same rights as people, and the transportation system that serves these near citizens has been siphoning wealth from Places, perhaps in preparation for this battle.

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Also see other past PPS Faking Places editions that we have produced every year on April 1st – Happy April Fools Day!

Photos: Sittingo.com and Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times

As Jane Jacobs said, [...]]]>

One of the "placeless" blocks of Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway.

Jane Jacobs made famous the isolating effect of Boston’s Central Artery on Boston’s North End.   As she is celebrated this weekend with Jane’s Walks around the world, the situation in Boston reminds us that few of her lessons have truly been learned by the professionals planning cities today.

As Jane Jacobs said, “People do not use city open space just because it is there and because city planners and designers wish they would.”

This week the Architecture critic for the Boston Globe tore apart the design of the Greenway, saying, “The Greenway is a design disaster.”  We have been meaning to put this on our “Hall of Shame” but this critic has done it for us!:

The Greenway, by contrast [to Quincy Market], is placeless desert. It’s a series of oversize shapeless spaces, none of which seems to have a purpose… There are things to look at but nothing to do.

The Greenway serves effectively as a beautiful new median for the very cars it was meant to replace.

The Boston Globe has been leading a pointed and educated discussion on the future of the greenway.  Last week the editorial board tried to point a way forward from what they describe as a failure on every front:

“Architecture needs to evolve from expressing the individual’s creativity to supporting the community’s creativity.” — Silvia Soonets, Architect, Arqui5

If the primary goal of architects and landscape architects was to create places that people want to be in, would we be designing our communities [...]]]>

Federation Square, in Melbourne, had the primary goal to create a great place.

The Role of Placemaking in Fostering Better and More Creative Design

“Architecture needs to evolve from expressing the individual’s creativity to supporting the community’s creativity.” — Silvia Soonets, Architect, Arqui5

If the primary goal of architects and landscape architects was to create places that people want to be in, would we be designing our communities the way we do today? If contemporary architecture was asked to be responsive to community outcomes, public uses and human comfort would it be done differently? Would it create more demand for the skills of designers?

Looking at design magazines and looking at our cities, it appears that the professional shaping of the built environment has been reduced to creating isolated physical forms with little consideration for their contribution to a larger experience of a place. This reality no doubt closely reflects a demand on design professionals to merely create designs (for buildings, parks, roads, master plans, etc.). Since they have rarely been asked to create places that attract people, it follows that they have not, for the most part, created such places.

At a time when the skills, technology and need for creating successful places has never been greater, there are so few truly successful examples of new public spaces being created or improved.

It Will Take Architects to Create Great Places

Design professions can be much better employed in shaping the public realm. The role of design can and should be much broader and bolder, but will undermine itself if it continues to try to drive a city building or Placemaking process the same way it does today. If the role of design is to create places, design actually become more valuable and creative while developing more productive relationships with clients, partners and communities it is serving.

But if we merely focus on the goals of “good” or “world class” design as an end in itself, we limit the potential of what can be accomplished, and we ignore architecture’s ability to respond creatively to context. When a project prioritizes creating places that meet the needs of its community, the design problems and solutions become more clear, interest in the project rises, and talented people step up to collaborate in the process.

How PPS is Working to Support the Design Professions

Our intention at Project for Public Spaces is to boost the prospects of success for urban designers, architects and landscape architects by creating public demand for quality urban spaces and educating communities to work creatively and constructively with design professionals. Ultimately, we want designers’ work to be more valued than it is today.

PPS works to understand, bring about, celebrate, and inspire public spaces that are valuable to cities with the hope that we can get more of them. When public spaces are not adequately used, do not add value to a community and or become “owned” by the citizens that are meant to use them, it is not only a loss for the community, but a blow to the design professions whose contributions have been limited.

By focusing on the broader goal of creating places, we are consistently able to draw more creativity out of the various professions, as well as the communities they serve. We believe that creating successful places should be easier and more rewarding than it is today, and we dedicate ourselves to making that happen.

Temperatures average below freezing during the darkest month of the year in Slovenia.  However, the country’s public spaces are overflowing thanks to a government program called “Happy December,” designed to infuse life into downtowns.

Several concerts take place each day in [...]]]>

Temperatures average below freezing during the darkest month of the year in Slovenia.  However, the country’s public spaces are overflowing thanks to a government program called “Happy December,” designed to infuse life into downtowns.

Several concerts take place each day in the central square of Ljubljana, adjacent to food and warming stations that allow people to stay outdoors for hours in below-freezing temperatures.

Most of the activity happens after dark, with peak crowds staying out well after midnight to enjoy the entertainment, lighting and hot wine.

The city’s year-round Sunday flea market goes on strong in sub-freezing weather, taking the place of the food market held along the river banks during the other six days of the week.

Christmas markets are set up throughout the city center, combining high quality crafts and clothing with local food and alcohol, free programming, public gathering areas, creative lighting, games and other amenities.

See a comprehensive set of Flickr images!

An essay by PPS president  Fred Kent on the current Downtown Brooklyn Development efforts including the Waterfront: http://www.pps.org/info/ppsnews/brooklyn_essay

Another recent article about this issue heavily quoting Fred Kent:  http://www2.pps.org/updates/one-entry?entry_id=6531