Project for Public Spaces » workshop

Want to Create Family-Friendly Places? Get the Kids at the Table!

Project for Public Spaces — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:15:18 +0000

Children play on the Museum of Art and History’s rooftop sculpture garden during a Placemaking workshop / Photo: Greg Larson

In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake changed the face of downtown Santa Cruz, damaging dozens of buildings and hobbling the local retail scene. The Cooper House, which had been a key public gathering space in this oceanfront city’s core, was ruined. When the site was re-developed, a larger building was placed along the street, and a smaller adjacent public space, Abbott Square, was tucked away in the middle of the block as a retail pass-through. The square never really became a real destination for downtown…but now, with the help of the adjacent Museum of Art and History, that may be about to change.

PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin and Priti Patel visited Santa Cruz recently to kick off a series of Placemaking workshops with the MAH, a cultural institution that has been re-inventing itself as a participatory community hub since bringing on Nina Simon (a past Citizen Placemaker interviewee) as director almost two years ago. The museum has outlined a new vision “to become a thriving, central gathering place where local residents and visitors have the opportunity to experience art, history, ideas, and culture.” To further that mission, the MAH is taking advantage of a 50-year lease on Abbott Square to bring the excitement within its walls out into the public realm, creating a great new destination for Santa Cruz.

Naturally, Nina and her staff brought the same innovative spirit that they’ve applied to exhibitions and events at the museum to the Placemaking Process. While hundreds of citizens and stakeholders participated in workshops and meetings over the course of several days, it was a children’s workshop organized in collaboration with one of the dads in the community, Greg Larson, that really showed off the museum’s capacity for thinking outside the box.

“The children’s workshop was exciting because it speaks to two things,” says Cynthia. “First, it showed that it’s not really far-fetched to think that kids can talk about public space and contribute really meaningfully to Placemaking. Kids have great imaginations, and they can look at an adult problem and think differently about what they want to do with it. Second, it highlighted the museum’s role as a community institution, as a creative and networked place, and so clearly spoke to that vision that the staff is working toward.”

“Kids have great imaginations, and they can look at an adult problem and think differently about what they want to do with it.” / Photo: Greg Larson

One of the most exciting things about this unique component of the process in Santa Cruz was that it grew organically out of the museum’s public engagement efforts leading up to the workshop. “One of the things we’ve heard over and over again from people is that there’s no place for families to come downtown with their kids,” Nina explains. “When I ran into Greg, a museum member and manager for an adjacent town, I invited him to the Abbott Square workshop and he asked if he could bring his daughter. He runs a dads group, and offered to put together a family component to the workshop.”

Greg worked with the MAH’s Director of Community Programs, Stacey Garcia, to plan activities to engage local kids into the Placemaking process. On the day of the event, Greg and 25 local kids (aged five to 10) joined the adults in the opening presentation on Placemaking in the workshop led by Cynthia and Priti, before breaking off for a series of adventures and brainstorming activities. The first stop was Abbott Plaza itself, where everyone was encouraged to think about ideas for the space. “We told them, ‘Imagine you could have anything you want in this square, and got them to start sharing ideas while they were in the physical space,” Greg recalls.

Next, it was up to the museum’s rooftop sculpture garden, where kids were encouraged to play on the art while considering what made the space fun, and thinking about what would make them want to come back. After that, they went back inside to do some more traditional group brainstorming, drawing their ideas on big sheets of butcher paper, and then sharing ideas with each other. Among the ideas generated were a theater space, Chinese lanterns, a giant slide, a maze, a chocolate fountain, a zipline, flowers, a climbing wall, a tunnel—even a replica of the Titanic!

Sharing ideas with the group / Photo: Greg Larson

The kids then voted on their favorites to select a few key “big ideas” to present to the grown-ups, and then spent some time coming up with three skits to act out during that presentation to illustrate their ideas for the climbing wall, maze, and tunnel. Once they were back with the adults, the skits proved to be a big hit. “The kids crawling around and over and under the tables in the room during their skits got the adults more engaged,” says Greg. “It was beyond theater in the round; the kids took the stage to the adults.”

True to form for an arts-friendly town like Santa Cruz, those adults were ready to play ball! Says Cynthia: “One of the dads worked with the city, and also teaches rope climbing, and it got him thinking, ‘You know, we could hook some guide wires between the buildings, and I could teach lessons in the plaza. It’s not that far-fetched.’ Kids wanted a zipline, and he was like, ‘You could do that, actually…’ These kids didn’t know to be cynical.”

In fact, the ideas were so well-received that, according to Nina, the kids’ contributions had a marked impact on the adults’ discussion. “You could tell that the adults really became the stewards of the kids’ ideas, in a sense. It re-oriented us to what it really means to create something that’s family-friendly.”

When you approach it the right way, Placemaking has the potential to bring out the kid in everyone. While priorities have to be determined and decisions have to be made, at the start, there is potential in every public space for an amazing new destination to emerge. Sharing freely and openly at the outset is key because, even if some of the more outlandish ideas won’t be feasible, they can help to set a tone and establish the kind of flexibility and open-mindedness that lead, ultimately, to stronger results.

“I think that the main takeaway was that it really is possible to engage kids in productive ways, parallel to adults, in a creative design process,” says Greg. “It’s important for it to be multi-modal, experiential, reflective, artistic, tactile. If there’s anything consistent to what the kids drew up, it was that the square and the art on the square needs to be engaging, or participatory as Nina would say, where they can touch it or interact with it, not simply observe it.”

We’ll be back in Santa Cruz next month. We’ll keep you posted as the new Abbott Square shapes up!

Click here to view a slideshow of the results of the kids’ workshop!

How to Really Look at Your City: An Interview With Connie Spellman

Project for Public Spaces — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:46:33 +0000

Connie Spellman

PPS Transportation Associate David M. Nelson is our resident expert on all things Omaha. When he heard that we were interviewing Omaha By Design director Connie Spellman for the Placemaking Blog, he was not at a loss for words! David had this to say:

Growing up in Omaha wasn’t necessarily glamorous. In 1980s, Omaha was opening a new freeway on one side of downtown and tearing out a million square feet of gorgeous warehouses—the single largest loss to the National Register of Historic Places—on the other. The egregious acts of the 80s became the built environs of the 90s. And Omaha, simply put, was a place you left, not a place you lingered.

Then came 2001, when everything began to change. An organization called Lively Omaha was formed, which would go on to catalyze an incredible urban renaissance within Nebraska’s largest city. In fact, Omaha By Design, as it is now known, inspired me to pursue my career in planning and design. Through their tireless environmental and urban design work, Omaha By Design has restored the elegance of the prairie landscape, implemented a form based code, and empowered neighborhood after neighborhood to realize their own visions. Today, Omaha is one of the most liveable communities in the US—a distinction for which Connie Spellman and everyone else behind Omaha By Design deserve much of the credit.

Omaha by Design has been something of a pioneer in working with Placemaking at a citywide level. Can you tell us a bit about how your work in this field got started?

The Omaha Community Foundation (OCF) was first introduced to Placemaking when PPS came to town as a consultant for the National Park Service (NPS). The NPS was interested in building its new regional facility on Omaha’s riverfront, which was beginning to experience a revitalization. As part of that process, Fred Kent suggested hosting a Place Game Workshop, so the city partnered with the OCF to help organize the event and get the right people to participate.

At about the same time, OCF had commissioned a report, Above All Others on a Stream. The consultant summed up the comments from over 75 donors interviews with the five words they wanted Omaha to be: smart, significant, sparkling, connected and fun. That threw everybody for a curve, because, in the late ‘90s, those weren’t terms you’d use to describe Omaha! That led the OCF to create an initiative called Lively Omaha [which became Omaha by Design in 2003] to begin working toward making those descriptors a reality.

I was hired to lead the initiative. The original idea was to transform Omaha into the “City of Fountains,” even though Kansas City had already become known for its fountains. I guess the idea was that Omaha was going to do them one better; but I didn’t really think that fountains would get us the outcomes we were shooting for. I started looking back over the process that led to the initiative’s creation, and that’s how I personally discovered PPS’s work. The rest, as they say, is history.

How did Placemaking help you to re-orient the work you were tackling? It sounds like it helped to crystallize something for you.

I wasn’t familiar with the term “Placemaking,” at least not at first. The parts that captured my attention were the ideas about public space. Public space, to me, was a park, or a road; I had a very limited understanding about what the term “public space” meant. Realizing that public space is basically everything except your home or business was a very eye-opening experience for me. And because some of the people at the OCF had gone through the Placemaking workshop, I started asking them about what they did and how it was organized.

I remember the president of the foundation taking me over to a window in his office when we were talking about this; we looked out over the Civic Center, and there was a very blank porch along the entryway, the plaza was empty, and there was a faded bench on the corner—it’s a very vivid memory, because it was the first time I looked at my city with fresh eyes. I had lived in Omaha for probably 30 years at the time, and I loved it, but I’d never really looked at it. I got hooked very quickly. I thought, “I get it; we can be better.”

Omaha by Design’s 2012 PARK(ing) Day installation, at at 13th and Howard Streets in downtown Omaha / Photo: Omaha by Design

And that eventually led to your organization conducting Place Game Workshops all over Omaha; several a year?

I went to one of the Placemaking trainings in New York right after I got hooked, and then we worked with PPS to create our first website, which we had for six years. Then we invited PPS to Omaha to train local residents to become Place Game facilitators so we could start doing more of these games around Omaha. It was a great way to start helping other people open their eyes and see the city in a new light.

We’ve done more than 70 Place Games during the past 11 years. The amazing thing is that quite a few of the facilitators who attended that first training session with Fred are still volunteering with us today. We’ve had new ones join us as well, so we’ve got a half dozen that still love to lead Place Games.

How has the organization’s work and scope changed over time? And what role has Placemaking played in that evolution, if any?

The catalyst for us to start looking at our role was the local development of two Walmart stores back in 2001. The architects were coming in with a very generic design for the stores, right about the time we were beginning to introduce this new vocabulary and encourage interest in how our city looks and feels. You could sense the beginning of this heightened awareness when the attorney for Walmart was asked by a planning board member (who had just come back from Fort Collins, Colorado), ‘Why are you building this plain, bland box in an area that is one of the most beautifully-maintained and landscaped places in the city?’

The attorney’s response was essentially, ‘Fort Collins has design standards, and we build to design standards and local politics.’ That led to Lively Omaha conducting a lot of research about design standards. We talked with City of Omaha officials, and while there were components of urban design in the master plan, it was not a major element.

Fortunately—and this is another influence of PPS—I had created an advisory committee to guide what our organization was doing. At the Placemaking training I attended, I learned that you need to engage leadership in public space work, and that includes city government department heads, the development community, designers, neighborhoods, public art folks—people from all corners of the city. When this idea of creating design standards for Omaha came up, it was great to have that advisory committee available to kick around ideas and to ask, “Why aren’t we—why isn’t Omaha—asking for more?”

So with the support of our advisory committee and the leadership of our founding donors, we decided to begin broadening our focus by working on an urban design plan for the city. Our donors helped raise about $750,000 to hire Jonathan Barnett with WRT in Philadelphia and Brian Blaesser with Robinson Cole in Boston to create a comprehensive urban design plan for the city. That was passed unanimously by our city council in 2004. Of course, we all recognized that just because it’s in the master plan doesn’t give the urban design plan the effect of law, so our donors agreed that we needed to work to get the new design standards codified. That took us two years, and we were able to get major changes to the existing city codes passed—unanimously, if you can believe that—by the planning board and city council, with developers at the table.

The Urban Design Handbook for Omaha illustrates the high standard of design that Omahans consider appropriate for protecting their city’s unique character, for everything from parking garages (shown here) to pubic spaces / Photo: City of Omaha

What is Omaha by Design working on now?

Right now we’re transitioning to becoming an independent nonprofit organization. 2011 was our 10-year anniversary, and that was when the OCF (which originally thought this was going to be a three-year pilot project!) and our original donors suggested that we were ready to start thinking about striking out on our own. After we reached out and determined that the community wanted us to continue on as an independent organization, we spent about six months going through the process of figuring out what that means and creating a vision statement, mission statement and business plan. If there was any organization pursuing something we were doing, we eliminated it. But there wasn’t much overlap; we’d always been focused on something very different from what other nonprofits were doing for the city. I think that’s why we continue to be supported.

Our mission today is simple: we’re dedicated to improving the way Omaha looks, functions and feels. We facilitate partnerships among our public, private and philanthropic sectors to carry out projects that will improve the quality of our city’s built and natural environments. All of our projects stem from recommendations outlined in the urban design and environmental components of Omaha’s master plan, which we helped develop during the past decade. We also monitor the local environment for adherence to policy changes resulting from these visioning documents and stand ready to act on activities that threaten to undermine their validity.

Ultimately, we’re successful for two reasons. First, we have the incredible support of our community leadership. That allows us access to the resources to make this work, and it’s been the direct result of a lot of coalition building we’ve done over the years. The second reason is the people who do the work; 99% are volunteers. They give willingly of their time, talent and resources. Some of the people who attended our very first meetings have kept with it all the way. Without them, we would have been a three-year pilot project that came and went. Omaha by Design is lucky to work in such a generous community; it makes great things possible.

Houston Library Plaza: Building Knowledge, Building Community

Project for Public Spaces — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:35:37 +0000

Children play on the central library’s “front porch” during LibroFEST / Photo: Houston Public Library

Library culture in the city of Houston is undergoing an exciting shift as the Houston Public Library reconsiders its public role. Instead of thinking of its programming as needing to remain within the building’s four walls, recent efforts are pulling the activity into outdoor spaces. Building upon the momentum of other successful downtown projects, Director of Libraries, Dr. Rhea Brown Lawson, reached out to PPS to help them realize their new vision.

Earlier this year, PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin and Elena Madison traveled to Houston to train more than 150 people—library staff as well as community partners and stakeholders—on how libraries can maximize the role they are inherently equipped to fill. Libraries are natural hosts of community life. They are recognized as broadly accessible places, intentionally inclusive, and welcoming for everyone seeking knowledge and cultural enrichment. Throughout the workshops, participants explored the potential of libraries to be active centers of public life and creativity, not merely static warehouses for books.

Today, the staff at the Houston Public Library’s central branch is directing their attention toward the plaza out in front of the building. In little time, this space has been transformed from a barren expanse of concrete into a public stage par excellence. Taking the core Placemaking principles to heart, the library has begun implementing a Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper strategy to attract more people to the space through a variety of programming and design improvements. With an eye toward connecting the plaza to what already exists in the surrounding area, particularly the weekly Farmers’ Market that takes place in front of City Hall across the street. The Central Library plaza now provides seating to accommodate spillover from the market, hosts a library card sign-up at the farmers’ market, and organizes book sale events. Lunch-hour readings are also creating an inviting gathering spot for the community of surrounding office and business workers.

It is important to note that much of the new programming is being organized without great additional strain on the library’s resources. For an institution that habitually deals with limited funds and staff capacity, community partnerships have been key in helping to implement the vision for the plaza. The mix of activities that’s taking place in this exciting new downtown destination—from simple events like readings all the way up to major celebrations like the recent LibroFEST, organized with Arte Publico, the Society for the Performing Arts, and Writers in the Schools—directly serves the needs of the business and residential communities that had heretofore stayed off of the streets, preferring to frequent the shops in the climate controlled underground tunnels instead.

Getting ready to perform during LibroFEST / Photo: Houston Public Library

Madison and Nikitin agree that the project has benefited enormously from the fact that Houston has been a forward-thinking city in terms of combining institutions and city services with the aim of creating great places. Strong early partners included the Houston Arts Alliance and Green Houston, and the City of Houston’s sustainability department in charge of the farmers’ market. As the plaza’s transformation has begun, additional partners like the Houston Public Library Foundation, Friends of the Houston Public Library, and a mix of local cultural organizations have helped to generate public and political interest. Collaboration has, from day one, been a critical component of the plaza’s success.

By positioning the plaza as an open and flexible platform, the library is now able to mingle with and integrate itself into the daily rhythm of its corner of downtown. In the long term, this will help to build support for more capital-intensive plans for the plaza, including a resurfacing and the construction of a water wall, an amenity at the top of locals’ list to provide relief from Houston’s hot, muggy summers. And although the new activities taking in plaza have necessarily been focused on the audience of the central branch, the seeds for change have been planted across the city’s network of libraries. It is hoped in the near future that more branches will start building out their own “front porches.”

In the information age, it is important to remember that we gain knowledge not just from the page (digital or print), but also from our interactions with other people. By taking the lead in Houston, the staff of the central library has proven themselves to be indispensable advocates of community life. Their example is one that other libraries would be wise to follow!

Creating Common Ground in a City Divided

Project for Public Spaces — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:17:16 +0000

Locals mill about Silanga Field, which will soon become the Silanga Community Centre / Photo: PPS

In Nairobi, Kenya, the contrast between rich and poor neighborhoods is beyond stark. And even though half of the city’s population lives on a mere 1.5% of the total land area, in Nairobi, public space is scarce. Since the creation, by Colonial powers in 1948, of the master plan that led to the formation of the city we now know today, little to no provision has been made for well structured common spaces for much-needed programming, activity, and services. In that same period, the city’s population has ballooned from 120,000 to more than 3.1 million people–and that’s just the official number! Nairobi is home to many informal settlements, where it’s very difficult to take an exact head count.

One of the most well-known of these settlements is Kibera, a massive slum comprised of 13 separate villages where most residents get by on less than a dollar a day. It is here where PPS has joined forces with UN-Habitat, the City Council of Nairobi, and local partners including the Kilimanjaro Initiative, KENSUP (the National Housing branch of the Kenyan Government), Chief of SOWETO (South West Township) in Kibera, and the Undugu Foundation, for one of two pilot projects in the city’s effort to create 60 great public spaces over the next several years.

Earlier this year in Kibera’s Silanga village neighborhood, PPS’s Cynthia Nikitin and Board Member Vanessa September met with community members to conduct a Placemaking workshop to generate ideas and support for the next phase of improvements to a soccer field that serves as an important recreation facility for this long-underserved community. Today residents continue to work toward the transformation of Silanga Field (which contains school facilities, a meeting room, a pottery studio, and other important resources) into what they have agreed, collectively, to re-name the Silanga Community Centre. “I have taken great delight in the confidence that is being displayed by the team in how they have taken ownership of the projects,” wrote PPS board member Vanessa September (who continues to work on the ground with partners) in a recent email. “If they have 58 more spaces to do, then the sooner they take ownership, the better!”

We have written previously on the Placemaking Blog about how dangerous social conditions produce alienating public spaces in developing world cities, especially for women. In Kibera, the desire for a safe and welcoming space for the community very clearly influences recommendations for everything from comfort to accessibility. A variety of Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper improvements are included in an as-yet-unpublished report detailing recommendations generated through the Placemaking process, with many of them focused specifically on creating a safe space for people to gather. From using fences to define the perimeter of the site (and designate entrance and exit points), to programming the space, very intentionally, with local security meetings and social programs focused on youth and good parenting, the focus on safety plays a critical role.

“The best way to make a public space safe,” the report suggests, “is by creating positive activities in and enhancing wider citizen ownership of the space.”

We often say that public spaces reflect the communities that surround them; this can be both a good thing, and a bad thing. In Nairobi, the lack of adequate public spaces reflects the stark social divisions across the city and, worse yet, reinforces them. Since Nairobians rarely come into contact with people from different socioeconomic groups, there is little upward mobility for people in places like Kibera—diminishing one of the chief benefits of urban agglomeration. The lack of space communicates to these people that their presence is undesirable. This contributes directly to the sense of isolation and desperation that makes for more dangerous neighborhoods.

In wealthy areas, meanwhile, fear of the violence created by this tension leads to more fortress-like compounds and walled golf courses when what the city really needs are great public spaces, and shared destinations where people from different neighborhoods and backgrounds can take part in the formation of a shared civic identity. Spaces like the Silanga Community Centre are steps toward a stronger Nairobi.

Presently, the UN-Habitat is working with local partners to accurately survey the site, and prepare for the RFP process in order to push forward on Silanga Field’s reconstruction. The newly appointed City Planning Director, Mrs. Rose Muema, recently presented on progress at the site both at the World Urban Forum in Naples Italy and more recently to major donors from Norway, Sweden, and Spain, “[stressing] the importance of participatory approaches to development.”

Interested in Free Livability Solutions Technical Assistance? Apply by November 2nd!

Project for Public Spaces — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:41:47 +0000

Through a grant from the EPA Office of Sustainable Communities’ Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program, the Livability Solutions coalition will be offering free technical assistance workshops for up to 12 communities around the US; applications are due by Friday, November 2nd. Livability Solutions is a coalition of professionals from 10 leading nonprofit organizations with deep experience in sustainable development. PPS is proud to be a part of this group, which is dedicated to helping communities around the country to put their planning priorities into action.

During one- to two-day workshops, Livability Solutions coalition members will work with selected communities to help them address a variety of challenges. Whether you are working to overcome a significant hurdle within a longer-term process, or just starting to develop a plan for achieving a particular livability or sustainability goal, coalition members can help you to identify the tool or palette of tools that will best help your community to move forward. A short report will be prepared for each community following the technical assistance, and communities receiving technical assistance will be asked to follow up one month and nine months after receiving technical assistance to report on their progress toward objectives set during the assistance.

If you’re interested in learning more, or have questions about the program, click here to register for a webinar on October 10th that will provide an overview of the application process.

We’re looking forward to working with you and other members of the Livability Solutions coalition to help your community implement changes that will move them along the road towards smart growth and sustainability. To get started on your application, visit the Livability Solutions website today!

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Please note that there are also two other organizations currently offering free technical assistance through the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program:

Through a 3-day intensive visit and consultation, the technical experts on the Global Green team will evaluate how the sustainability of a specific neighborhood can be enhanced through an upcoming catalytic project by applying metrics from the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system and developing actionable recommendations for our grant recipients.
Each year, Smart Growth America offers free assistance to local communities interested in building stronger local economies and creating great neighborhoods. These workshops will be awarded to a limited number of qualifying communities. Communities interested in receiving free technical assistance from SGA are invited to join our informational webinar on Thursday, September 27th at 2:00 pm EST.