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EDUCATION
& TRAINING
 Some
10,000 people already attend our workshops annually.
But in the past seven months, PPS' training
programs have truly kicked into high gear. In
addition to teaching our placemaking philosophy
through partnerships with the General Services
Administration (GSA) and the Neighborhood Reinvestment
Training Institute (NRTI), we also developed
two programs of our own: a specialized course
in context-sensitive design for traffic engineers;
and a session for a broad spectrum of professionals
and community activists, based on our How To
Turn A Place Around publication.
In
August, PPS staff introduced 300 building
managers - the men and women in charge
of every federal building west of the
Mississippi - to our philosophy of placemaking
at a training session in Denver, Colorado.
In the spring and fall, we focused on
"Creating a Sense of Place in Neighborhoods"
at Neighborhood Reinvestment Training
Institutes in Chicago and Minneapolis,
working with audience.
Our
5-day course on Context-Sensitive
Design
offers a new approach to
transportation
planning, looking "beyond the pavement"
to the role that streets and roads can
play in enhancing communities and natural
environments, and encouraging transportation
professionals to collaborate with communities.
Developed for the New Jersey Department
of Transportation, more than 600 of the
agency's employees and "customers" have
attended so far; we're also working to
expand the program to other state transportation
agencies. Finally, we kicked off our national
program in creating great places last
month, conducting our first "How To Turn
A Place Around" training course for a
35 participants in New York. The two-day
session included site tours, an extensive
site analysis, and workshops on placemaking
- and due to positive response, we've
scheduled two courses for next year.
PPS
creates and conducts visioning workshops
that help communities identify salient
issues and needs and collaboratively develop
recommendations to address them. Our workshops
typically involve a slide presentation
and discussion, followed by small breakout
groups that explore individual issues
in depth. Often PPS's Place Performance
Evaluation "Game"copyright (see below)
is used in this process. In conjunction
with this participatory process, PPS also
helps communities develop implementation
strategies that can be carried out in
a short time within a longer range context,
sometimes by community members themselves,
including residents and local businesses.
PPS
has developed a Place Performance Evaluation
"Game,"copyright which is a short, user
friendly exercise that synthesizes PPS
observation, interview and analysis techniques
for people to use along with their own
common sense and intuition for a quick,
but productive, site assessment. PPS has
successfully used it for groups of up
to 100 in conferences, meetings and community
workshops. It gives participants an opportunity
to observe on-site conditions for themselves
and understand the dynamics and needs
of a particular space within a structured
context, allowing them to very quickly
see the good and bad qualities of a place.
The evaluation can be done by anyone who
is observant, from a highly trained professional
to a lay person.
Training
sessions are available from PPS in which
communities can learn how to gather and
analyze data, observe activities, conduct
interviews, utilize research and other
techniques to help them understand the
problems and opportunities of their public
spaces and how to improve them. PPS also
organizes special educational workshops,
which may include speakers with expertise
in the specific issues being addressed
and/or representatives from other communities
who recount their own experience in dealing
with similar issues successfully, followed
by an on-site visit (or visits) to the
area(s) of concern and discussion of potential
solutions. Transit facilities, streets,
parks and public markets are among the
topics that can be addressed individually.
Individual
PPS professionals give some 30 to 50 one-day
customized presentations a year concerning
public space and pedestrian issues, community
concerns and revitalization of local economies.
Supplementary meetings are often scheduled
on the same day, as well as a tour of
the area of concern.
PPS
has a library of over 700,000 slides that
show examples of successful and
unsuccessful design and management strategies
in public spaces both in the United States
and around the world. PPS draws from its
archive in creating and conducting visioning
workshops that help communities identify
salient issues and needs and develop recommendations
to address them. Many of our slides also
are available as a resource for a fee.
Categories include public art, amenities,
markets, open spaces, parks, gardens,
streets, transit, buildings, geographic
locations, maintenance programs, events,
people in places and retail activities.
PPS
has produced a series of educational publications
and videotapes that are pragmatic guides
to community improvement from a user-oriented,
place-building point of view and a valuable
supplement to the above activities. Available
for sale from PPS, they cover issues ranging
from the management of downtown public
spaces to how transit and streets can
advance community livability to the use
of public markets in community revitalization
to the role of parks in rebuilding communities,
and also include guides to the PPS approach.
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