Placemaking Monthly Newsletter - Project for Public Spaces

Posted May 8, 2017 - 09:02

This newsletter from the Project for Public Spaces connects people who share a passion for public spaces to ideas and issues, news, quotes, places, and events from the placemaking movement.

This newsletter connects people who share a passion for public spaces to ideas and issues, quotes, places, and events from the placemaking movement.

In this issue: Nairobi's "Making Cities Together" Conference; Exploring Placemaking in Amsterdam; Exciting Plans for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History; Walk/Bike/Places 2018; Ancestral Andean Placemaking

"Making Cities Together" in Nairobi: Implementing the New Urban Agenda through Placemaking

On May 3-4 2017, Nairobi, Kenya was host to UN-Habitat's Urban Thinkers Campus "Making Cities Together: The City We Need, through Safe, Inclusive, and Accessible Public Spaces," a global placemaking-themed gathering to discuss the role of public space in implementing the New Urban Agenda. Stay tuned for our report back from this exciting event.

Exploring Placemaking in Amsterdam

As PPS prepares for Placemaking Week 2017, a look at some of the innovative and inspiring placemaking initiatives taking place in Amsterdam.

Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History Turns Abbott Square into Creative Public Space

With the countdown underway for the long-awaited opening of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History's new plaza this June, Executive Director (and PPS "Citizen Placemaker") Nina Simon discusses the institution's unique mission to "bring art and history out into our community, and invite our community in."

Announcing Walk/Bike/Places 2018 in New Orleans!

With a slight name change, but an unwavering commitment to building sustainable and equitable communities through active transportation and place advocacy, the PPS's ever-popular Walk/Bike/Places Conference will convene in New Orleans, LA, September 16-19, 2018.

Harnessing Indigenous Andean Placemaking—"The Minga"—for the New Urban Agenda

Reflecting on his experience at Habitat III in Quito, PPS Fellow Jaime Izurieta-Varea discovers that placemaking—the “Minga”—has been a part of Andean culture for centuries. This tradition of community engagement, he explains, could be an important tool for “leveraging the cultural traditions of Latin America to build better cities from the ground up.”

Want to write for the PPS blog? We are now accepting article pitches. Submit your query letter here.

As part of the organization's new Strategic Plan, PPS is seeking to hire a Chief Operating Officer (COO). Click here for more details about this exciting new position. Qualified candidates should submit application materials to Nicolas Shearman, at [email protected].

Yes there are the projects that happen downtown – that important building, that important park – but there's also those community centers, those parks and district facilities, the homes, the opportunities that you have to make a neighborhood beautiful for a family or a child that feels like no one cares.
- Former first lady Michelle Obama, keynoting last week's AIA 2017 Conference

These are the places we remember most vividly, the places where serendipitous things happen, the places we tell stories about.
Submit your Great Public Space today!