Placemaking is a multidisciplinary collaborative process in which people come together to create vital public spaces that bring health, happiness, and social connection to their communities.
The placemaking movement was born in the 1960s, when pioneers like Jane Jacobs and her mentor, William H. Whyte, published their groundbreaking ideas that cities should be designed for people, with walkable streets, welcoming public spaces, and lively neighborhoods.
Both of them had no professional training in urban planning, nor do they have any architectural background. At times, Jacobs has been dismissed as just a mere housewife. Yet, together, they are of utmost importance in terms of placemaking, and are described to be placemaking heroes who relied on their observations and common sense to show why certain places work, and what can be done to improve those that do not.
Through placemaking, each one of us brings to the table something that can make a difference to places. Whyte believed that small urban places are "priceless," and the city street is "the river of life...where we come together." Jacobs shared in her book that cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. These ideas are as relevant today as they were in the past, and perhaps even more so.
How to Turn a Place Around by Project for Public Spaces
How to Turn a Place Around is a good reference for placemaking made possible by the Project for Public Spaces (PPS). PPS is a cross-disciplinary non-profit that shares a passion for public spaces. PPS founder and president Fred Kent worked as one of Whyte's research assistants on the Street Life Project, conducting observations and film analyses of corporate plazas, urban streets, parks, and other open spaces in New York City.
Let us look at the key phrases for placemaking, “together, created by everybody”. In Singapore, the phrase “kampung spirit” has been often mentioned in recent years. Kampung is a physical place and refers to “village” in the Malay language. Another term that has been used in the past is “gotong royong”, an Indonesian phrase for mutual cooperation.
Both “gotong royong” and “kampung spirit” involve the neighborly act of volunteerism, and working together with the sense of community. It promotes a selfless approach that proved beneficial to the building up of a cultural identity among people and their connection with the surroundings.