Civic Centers

Placemaking Resources

Good buildings are good places, inside and out. Public areas like streets, plazas, entryways, lobbies, and atriums send strong signals about a building: whether it is a welcoming, lively, and attractive; whether it's a place where people want to be. Good public spaces can help you retain tenants, attract visitors, and raise your profile in the community.

This section features tools to help you improve your building’s public spaces - such as guides to sizing up problems and opportunities - and tips for simple but effective changes that don’t take much time or money. Elsewhere, the Management section offers suggestions for organizing events and activities that can enliven your building's public spaces.
  • Furnishing Your Public Space

    Learn about the "whys and wherefores" of public-space amenities with this series of features. Each offers design and use guidelines to help lay people and professional designers work with each other. Also included: notable examples of amenities from PPS' image database and, in some cases, information on select manufacturers.

  • Creating Places That Work

    An article by PPS Vice President Kathy Madden detailing a place-oriented approach to design and planning, as well as a "steps to take" checklist for working with communities.
    Planning Commissioners Journal

  • Sustainable Places

    In this piece, PPS President Fred Kent explains why well-planned buildings and public places are critical to creating environmentally sound, sustainable developments where people can live and work.
    Project for Public Spaces

  • Power to the People: The Placemaking Process

    In her review of a PPS' "How to Turn a Place Around" workshop, critic Susan Hines explains how the public can become an effective member of a design team. LAND Online/American Society of Landscape Architects

  • Audit Your Building's Public Spaces

    Coming Soon! - An easy checklist that property managers, designers, and the general public can use to assess how community-friendly their building’s public areas are.
    Project for Public Spaces

  • Eleven Principles for Turning Public Spaces Into Civic Places

    A step-by-step guide to place-oriented planning and design. Includes recommendations and case studies from Boston, Miami, Denver, and Chicago, among other locales.
    Project for Public Spaces

  • PPS's Place Diagrams

    Download our place diagrams and initiate the placemaking process in your community.