Project for Public Spaces » Phil Myrick http://www.pps.org Placemaking for Communities Mon, 13 May 2013 20:45:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Placemaking Connects People to the Environment by Connecting Them to Each Other http://www.pps.org/blog/placemaking-connects-people-to-the-environment-by-connecting-them-to-each-other/ http://www.pps.org/blog/placemaking-connects-people-to-the-environment-by-connecting-them-to-each-other/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:52:13 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=78796 The dialogue generated around the idea of “Placemaking as a New Environmentalism” is showing that this matter of how to engage with building sustainable spaces and places resonates with people across professions. In particular, Kaid Benfield’s articles from earlier this year, Is placemaking a ‘new environmentalism’? and Smart growth is a start. [...]]]>

How does Placemaking strengthen sustainability efforts, you ask? Great places make people feel like a part of a community that's worth sustaining! / Photo: Fred Kent

The dialogue generated around the idea of “Placemaking as a New Environmentalism” is showing that this matter of how to engage with building sustainable spaces and places resonates with people across professions. In particular, Kaid Benfield’s articles from earlier this year, Is placemaking a ‘new environmentalism’? and Smart growth is a start. But it’s not enough have inspired us to expand on our original thoughts.

While the majority of the world’s citizens would probably not label themselves as environmentalists, most people do care about having a safe and enjoyably world to live in into the future—in the near term, for themselves, but in the long term for their children and grandchildren, as well. For an environmental movement struggling to find a new language as it looks to tap into this latent concern, Placemaking can provide a holistic vocabulary for defining the problem and reframing the solution.

Often, when we talk about the relationship between human beings and the environment, we use a very specific, almost clinical vocabulary; we talk about minimizing your carbon footprint, eliminating waste, and reducing stormwater runoff. This language of being less bad and at best achieving a state of environmental neutrality fails to spark peoples’ imaginations and get them thinking about how such improvements will lead to them living a better and more enjoyable life. In contrast, the messaging that has been used to re-frame the American Dream around the automobile and draw millions of people out into suburbs has focused squarely on inspiring visions of social mobility and privacy. “Don’t you want a safe, private yard for your kids or dog to run around in?” ask proponents of sprawl. “Don’t you want to keep the freedom that your car gives you?”

Placemaking can offer environmentalists a way to re-frame discussions about creating more compact, planet-friendly neighborhoods, streets, and cities. The deepest benefit of Placemaking is that it gives people a reason to gather and discuss their own visions for the future of their community. This process builds social capital by prodding neighbors to talk meaningfully about the places that they share. As a result, Placemaking instills a sense of ownership in the people who use a given space, and develops the kind of community pride and stewardship that is so critical to creating truly sustainable cities and towns. Put simply: there’s a big difference between posing the question “Don’t you want to limit your city’s Combined Sewer Outflows?” versus “Don’t you want to live in a neighborhood where people are proud to be connected to the land that they share?”

Another related challenge that environmentalism faces today is that solutions are routinely framed in a consumptive way. Activists, advertisements, and pamphlets encourage people to buy green products and services. Beyond that, green design is mostly about capital-intensive projects–big buildings with big green roofs, big infrastructure–which most people have no personal connection to, as they can only utilize these buildings, parks, and bridges once they’re already complete. In trying to sell people on the idea of building a truly sustainable society, the passivity of the role of “consumer” is a serious problem.

Placemaking is proactive. It introduces a new level of stewardship and a new paradigm for sustainable design that transforms people’s relationship to the environment from abstract to concrete. Although donating money to environmental organizations, passing new laws, and buying green products are important contributions, the heart of the matter–the physical place of the environment–is not often directly touched upon.

Placemaking aims to inspire communities to want, desire, and create better human environments. The vision is thereby built into the action, and people can engage in attainable results in both the long- and short-term. The creation of great places, neighborhoods, cities and towns transcends a single issue and brings diverse, interdisciplinary stewards to the table. Placemaking therefore attracts new partners into the environmental movement. While many groups, activists, and citizens may not be energized by issues framed in purely environmental terms, they will engage in Placemaking when it encompasses their passion for public health, food access, local economics, culture, or myriad other concerns as well as ecology. Sustainability is arguably most effective when it is not an end in itself, but a strong undercurrent to an inclusive effort to build better lives and places.

Join us in Beacon this September 10th to learn more about Placemaking and sustainability! / Photo: PPS

To that end, our own Phil Myrick has been developing a  multi-module course, Placemaking in a Changing Climate, that hits on a number of topics from transportation and land use to green infrastructure.  The next offering, focused on green infrastructure, will take place this September 10 in Beacon, NY.  According to Phil, “Budgets are slim and cities need multiple outcomes from every investment, even an investment in sustainability should bring return on multiple levels. By using Placemaking to frame investments in green infrastructure, for example, we can create lively town centers, enhance pride of place, promote local economic development, and address sustainability.  In fact, local sustainability measures can be spent in ways that produce huge social and economic returns for our communities.”

When people collaborate to create stronger community identity, they also engage what Phil calls “communal synapses” that enable them to act.  Karl-Hendrik Robert, founder of The Natural Step, said it best:  “Without healthy social settings, we cannot share experience and understanding about what is happening to our world, and we don’t have the opportunities to act as communities and address great problems.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the course, adding Placemaking into your mission to create greater, greener places, and abundant examples and data specific to green infrastructure, click here to download a flyer with more information, or click here to register for the course.

Please note that there is a $75.00 participant fee for the Placemaking in a Changing Climate course, or $125.00 with CEUs for planners and architects.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/placemaking-connects-people-to-the-environment-by-connecting-them-to-each-other/feed/ 5 Setting the Table, Making a Place: How Food Can Help Create a Multi-Use Destination http://www.pps.org/blog/setting-the-table-making-a-place-how-food-can-help-create-a-multi-use-destination/ http://www.pps.org/blog/setting-the-table-making-a-place-how-food-can-help-create-a-multi-use-destination/#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:58:45 +0000 Patra Jongjitirat http://www.pps.org/?p=78739 Food – we need it, we love it, and we structure our lives and cultures around it. San Antonio, Texas, is a city that is starting to structure its neighborhoods around it, starting with an ambitious redevelopment project called the Pearl Brewery. Located on 22 acres along the banks of the San Antonio River [...]]]>

The Pearl Brewrey's Farmers' Market has helped to make the site a food destination / Photo: John W. Schulze via Flickr

Food – we need it, we love it, and we structure our lives and cultures around it. San Antonio, Texas, is a city that is starting to structure its neighborhoods around it, starting with an ambitious redevelopment project called the Pearl Brewery. Located on 22 acres along the banks of the San Antonio River north of downtown, today’s Pearl is a multi-use campus of buildings originally founded as the J. B. Behloradsky Brewery and City Brewery over 120 years ago. The current vision for the site is for a vibrant urban district to grow out from a culinary destination that brings people together around the celebration of local food and culture.

Since PPS first got involved with the master planning process for Pearl in 2005, we’ve watched this place change the way that San Antonians think of food and its role in their city. Senior Vice President Phil Myrick, who is working now on the next phase of expansion, describes Pearl as “the vision and bold scheme of a local entrepreneur of hot sauce and salsa.” This entrepreneur and visionary developer is Kit Goldsbury, who purchased the fallow Pearl campus in 2001 through his investment firm Silver Ventures. Developments currently underway at Pearl include a plaza and hotel and the addition of retail, restaurants, and residential units that now number over 200.

The main brewery building's landmark tower watches over the site / Photo: RedTail_Panther via Flickr

A key development milestone was Kit’s courtship of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) which led to the establishment of  a third campus at Pearl in 2010 (their other two residences are in Hyde Park, New York and Napa Valley, California). Says PPS’s Meg Walker: “CIA was an early anchor for Pearl, which was housed in a smaller building before moving to its current and larger home. The Farmers Market at the site also got going early on, along with food festivals in the parking lot.” The weekly market in particular was a Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper way of weaving local, fresh, and seasonal foods into daily life of the site’s neighbors. Together, the CIA and Farmers Market have been key in re-framing Pearl as a major destination at the intersection of community life and healthy, local food.

Future plans for Pearl reflect a well-curated mix of creative uses in support of food endeavors of all types. The presence of the CIA will act as a major stimulus for other food and cooking events on the campus, tapping into the power of triangulation to enhance the vibrancy of the place. Ideas for the public plaza, for instance, include edible gardens and a chef’s table, while the Black Box aspires to be a pop-up space for young entrepreneurial restaurateurs.

Latin American food  is a common thread throughout these ventures, as are creativity and comfort. “This stems from an articulated vision and desire to give back to the San Antonio community in a nurturing way through food,” Meg explains. Part of the nurture is designing a space that provides comfort to its users in the most practical of ways. Elizabeth Fauerso, chief marketing officer at Pearl, says, “The need for shade and water provisions to make the campus feel welcoming and usable in a hot climate was one of the key considerations in designing the landscape.”

Plenty of shade makes Pearl enjoyable even in San Antonio's hot summer months / Photo: The Brit_2 via Flickr

Pearl also hosts a variety of activities and programs, including cultural events (films, parties, conferences, and live performances) and engaging services and retail like the independent Twig Book Shop and Bike World bike rentals. Well-connected by an expanded Riverwalk and a bike share station , Pearl uses the Power of 10 to create a magnetic destination for the surrounding community. “Pearl is helping set an exciting drumbeat for San Antonio,” says Phil. “In several of the local workshops that PPS has conducted recently in the city, when asked to map San Antonio’s best places, participants have mentioned Pearl despite it being brand new to the scene. There is a feeling of serendipity that people associate with it.”

The momentum behind Pearl’s transformation is remarkable, but at the same time planning remains responsive and flexible. Meg emphasizes, “Pearl is not springing full-grown out of the developer’s head. While some developers want everything at once, build-out at Pearl has been evolving incrementally over the past six years, gradually bringing restaurants in and creating places people want to visit as a destination. And it’s working. People love it.”

In the larger context of the city, Pearl is the leading edge of River North’s rebirth as a vibrant arts district that promotes an urban lifestyle and creative living opportunities. In fact, the combination of dense urban housing and the infrastructure to embolden its growth is a key tenet of the plan for a vibrant central city. In February 2012, HR&A published a report, Center City Strategic Framework Plan, Implementation, commissioned by Centro Partnership of San Antonio and the City that illustrates how Pearl helps fulfill the city’s goal to encourage more people to live downtown. “Residential growth is the key to unlocking the benefits sought by the city,” the report explains, “including downtown amenities, redevelopment of existing building stock, and the presence of more vibrant neighborhood life on the street and in the public realm.” Anchored by the amenities and vibrancy of Pearl’s food and cultural attractions, the River North district  is enjoying a population boom that would have been unimaginable just five years ago when it was mostly vacant industrial land by the highway.

Going back to Kit’s original vision, Elizabeth says, “Pearl is his love letter to San Antonio.” In helping create the heart and soul of the neighborhood, Pearl’s potential as a public multi-use destination is kickstarting the economic development of a more livable, nourishing downtown.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/setting-the-table-making-a-place-how-food-can-help-create-a-multi-use-destination/feed/ 2 Ready to Turn Your Place Around? Let’s Make it Happen! http://www.pps.org/blog/ready-to-turn-your-place-around-lets-make-it-happen/ http://www.pps.org/blog/ready-to-turn-your-place-around-lets-make-it-happen/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:17:40 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=78687 It’s almost that time of year again: every fall, we host Placemaking trainings at PPS HQ. These two- and three-day sessions are designed to help anyone working on creating great places learn how to authentically engage with community members and other constituents around the shaping of public space. The How to Turn a Place Around [...]]]>

PPS President Fred Kent leads a Placemaking tour of Times Square during the April 2012 How to Turn a Place Around training. / Photo: PPS

It’s almost that time of year again: every fall, we host Placemaking trainings at PPS HQ. These two- and three-day sessions are designed to help anyone working on creating great places learn how to authentically engage with community members and other constituents around the shaping of public space. The How to Turn a Place Around and Making it Happen programs not only give participants hands-on experience with a variety of tools for observation and evaluation of a of different places–they also give you the opportunity to meet and work with other planners, advocates, developers, architects, and local change agents who are facing similar challenges in cities around the world.

This fall, we will be hosting two training sessions at our New York City office: How to Turn a Place Around will take place on November 1-2; and Making it Happen will take place on November 7-9. We are also excited to be able to offer a special West Coast edition of How to Turn a Place Around shortly before that, during the Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place conference in Long Beach, CA, this September 14-15!

  • How To Turn a Place Around (New York, NY / Nov. 1-2, 2012)
    This two-day bread-and-butter course offers a comprehensive introduction to the wide world of Placemaking. Through discussions and case studies, participants will learn about strategies for creating extraordinary places out of ordinary urban spaces. HTTAPA is a great opportunity to meet PPS staff–our veteran Placemakers–and to gain insight and inspiration for implementing your own Placemaking efforts, whether for a business project or your own community. The course will be led by Fred Kent, Kathy Madden, Phil Myrick, and other PPS staff.
  • Making it Happen (New York, NY / Nov. 7-9, 2012)
    This three-day course picks up where How To Turn a Place Around leaves off. For people eager to jump into action, participants will learn tools and best practices for implementing and sustaining vibrant places through management techniques. This interactive workshop includes site visits to successful places in New York City and teaches participants how to evaluate places using key Placemaking principles. The course also allows time for participants to share and receive feedback on their own projects. MIH will be led by Fred Kent, Kathy Madden, and Norman Mintz, with guest presentations by Eldon Scott, Alan M. Hantman, and Andy Manshel.
  • How To Turn a Place Around (Long Beach, CA / Sept. 14-15, 2012)
    Exciting news for West Coast Placemakers: PPS will be teaching its core intro to Placemaking course in Long Beach. In collaboration with the Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place conference, the course will focus particularly on transportation and streets, and will incorporate many elements of both HTTAPA and the Streets as Places training course.

Please note that enrollment in all Placemaking trainings is limited to 35 participants in order to ensure a personalized experience and close-knit environment, and registration is now open for all three of the trainings listed above. We look forward to working with you! Click here to register for one of our upcoming trainings.

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/ready-to-turn-your-place-around-lets-make-it-happen/feed/ 0 Make Your Place Great: Register for Our Spring 2012 Trainings Today! http://www.pps.org/blog/make-your-place-register-for-our-spring-2012-trainings-today/ http://www.pps.org/blog/make-your-place-register-for-our-spring-2012-trainings-today/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:07:48 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=73795 Spring is here at last, and that means it’s time for another round of PPS’s bi-annual Placemaking Training programs. We love doing trainings because, even after 37+ years of working with communities around the world to make great places, we still discover new things while working with each group of attendees, who bring knowledge and insights from their projects in cities all over the world. If you are working on a place-based project or just want to learn more about our placemaking approach, we hope that you will join us on April 19-20 for How to Turn a Place Around, or the following week, on April 25-27, for Placemaking: Making It Happen.

  • How to Turn a Place Around
    This course serves as a comprehensive introduction to the practice of placemaking. We’ve learned through our work that placemaking is a sacred community process. People take the shaping of their blocks and neighborhoods very seriously, and have much to offer to planners, architects, designers, and local leaders who are ready to ask the right questions–and to listen. Through the discussion of key case studies like the Perth Cultural Centre’s Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper activation plan, as well as opportunities to get out into the streets of New York City to experiment with tools like the Place Game and Power of 10, attendees develop a deeper understanding of what really makes public spaces function. The course is conducted by PPS president, Fred Kent, along with Kathy Madden, and Phil Myrick, and other PPS staff. For more details about this course, click here.
  • Placemaking: Making It Happen
    Making It Happen takes things a step further by teaching people who are ready to take action–especially people who are embarking on a new project–about best practices for developing an effective public space management and implementation strategy. Over the course of three days, we’ll travel around New York City to visit some of its best-managed spaces with the people who helped make them happen. This course will also give participants the opportunity to discuss and get feedback on their individual projects during facilitated, interactive workshop sessions. Kent, and Madden, and Norman Mintz from PPS will all present, and we’ll also be joined by Urban Space Management director Eldon Scott, Alan M. Hantman, FAIA,10th Architect of the US Capitol and former Vice President of Architecture, Construction, and Historic Preservation at Rockefeller Center, and Andy Manshel, the Executive Vice President of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC). For the first time, we’ll be expanding the course to take place over three days instead of two, and will include site visits to some of New York City’s best managed public spaces along with a dinner at PPS the first night and a reception the second night and more time for participants to present and get input on their projects.  All of this will also allow for more of the networking and collaborative learning that past participants have found so beneficial to their work. 

    We’re thrilled to be welcoming Andy as a new addition to the Making It Happen training team. Before joining the GJDC, Andy served as the Associate Director and Counsel at the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation and General Counsel and Director of Public Amenities to the Grand Central and 34th Street Partnerships. He is currently the treasurer of PPS’s board of directors. He will be talking about the practical elements of public space management, successful strategies used in Bryant Park as well as the more challenging environment of Jamaica, and what is generally applicable to other places. To learn more about Andy, and for other details about this course, click here.

Please note that enrollment in all placemaking trainings is limited to 35 participants in order to promote a close-knit environment where participants can learn techniques for implementing and managing public space improvements that are practical, economical and meet the community’s needs. We’re looking forward to working with you to help you discover new ways to make your place great. Click here to register for one of our upcoming trainings now!

]]> http://www.pps.org/blog/make-your-place-register-for-our-spring-2012-trainings-today/feed/ 0 San Antonio Is a Popping City! http://www.pps.org/blog/san-antonio-is-a-popping-city/ http://www.pps.org/blog/san-antonio-is-a-popping-city/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:22:41 +0000 Project for Public Spaces http://www.pps.org/?p=73553

San Antonio's iconic Alamo Plaza / Photo: Blondie5000 via Flickr

Downtown San Antonio is probably best-known for its public spaces: the RiverWalk, the Alamo, and Main Plaza chief among them. But the local perception has long been that the city’s core is for tourists, not residents. Luckily, there is a considerable amount of energy being devoted to changing this perception, and remaking downtown as a place for people. Just this past weekend, the city hosted its second Síclovía, which saw two miles of the central Broadway corridor closed to automobile traffic. The event, which also included San Antonio’s first Better Block project, drew more than 40,000 people out into the streets for a day-long celebration of public space–a response that surprised even the event’s organizers.

“We’re just so excited, because other cities who have a stronger reputation for this kind of thing came, and they were blown out of their shoes,” said the city’s Health Program Manager, Maggie Thompson, who organized the city’s first Síclovía last October, and built upon the success of that event with assistance from the federal Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant program. “After the first one, there was such overwhelmingly positive support from the public. The mayor came out as a fan of this initiative, the city manager came out and spoke. It now has big public support.”

Síclovía 2012 Route Map

Downtown’s sidewalks and plazas will remain very much in the public eye this coming week: the city will mark the 176th anniversary of the massacre at the Alamo with public ceremonies this Tuesday and Wednesday, while the annual Luminaria festival will flood the area with color over the weekend. And while major events can help to enliven spaces in the short term, there are real and concerted ongoing efforts to make liveliness the default for downtown. PPS has been working with several city agencies, non-profit organizations, and companies on a variety of projects, and from where we sit, downtown San Antonio looks like it’s really building some serious momentum.

Since last summer, PPS’s Phil Myrick has been working closely with the Center City Development Office under Assistant City Manager Pat DiGiovanni, leading a series of workshops and trainings to teach city staff about the placemaking process. PPS also recently began helping the city revitalize and reconceptualize Alamo Plaza and Plaza de Valero. These places have played an important role in the city’s history; this has led to their popularity with tourists, but has had the unintended side-effect of driving many locals away. One of the main goals in re-thinking these spaces has been to focus on changes that will open downtown up to a wider variety of uses. Speaking specifically about Alamo Plaza (for which there will be a Placemaking Community Meeting this Wednesday evening), Phil explains: “We’re trying to think of it primarily in terms of its huge potential to be a great city square that becomes an anchor for activity in downtown, and makes people want to come back to the city center to work, live have fun, bring their children, and generally have a wonderful experience.”

Beyond downtown’s historic plazas, the city is also gearing up for major overhaul of HemisFair Park and its surrounding streets. Officials have kick-started an effort to craft a new Downtown Transportation Plan for the area around HemisFair, and will host the second public meeting on this initiative tomorrow night.

The energy around placemaking in San Antonio is starting to spread out into the city’s neighborhoods, as well. Last summer, PPS launched Power of 10, a website where San Antonians could share their ideas for how downtown could be improved. Power of 10 generated roughly 300 ideas from the public, and we’re now working with Texas Public Radio to launch a citywide version of the site in May, which will lead to the implementation of citizen-sourced Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper projects later in the year. We’re also working with Rackspace Corporate Headquarters to create a new public park for the northeast side neighborhood surrounding the former shopping mall that the company is redeveloping as its base.

San Antonio, in short, is a city that ‘gets it.’ Back to Phil: “I think that people are going to look back on this moment as a real turning point. We’ve been happy to be involved in guiding [city officials'] thinking, but they’ve lined up an incredible slate of projects.”  If you’re interested in learning more, make sure to check out one of this week’s public meetings on the Downtown Trasportation Plan (Tuesday) or the Alamo Plaza re-design (Wednesday), and keep an eye out for May’s citywide Power of 10 launch. We’ll be keeping you posted!

Photo: Blondie5000 via Flickr

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