Weekly Placemaking Round-Up | September 11 - 17, 2017 - Project for Public Spaces

Posted September 18, 2017 - 12:57

Here is the latest issue this new weekly roundup of news, ideas, opportunities, and more - a curated list of content for placemakers by placemakers - from the Project for Public Spaces.

This Week's Highlights:
September 11 - 17, 2017

When Apple announced earlier this week that its stores will be renamed “Town Squares,” not everyone was on board with the company’s attempt to co-opt this essential community institution. As we argued on our blog, while these retail zones can perhaps serve as “third places”—and may even yield opportunities for education and innovation—true town squares must continue to be publicly owned and managed, locally defined, and independent from corporate branding and control.

Topics: Public Squares, Digital Placemaking
New research by the University of Massachusetts and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, shows how commuting choices impact quality of life in India. While cities across India are undertaking a variety of land-use, transportation and housing projects, the authors argue, most plans don’t consider the important connections between the built environment and the health of residents.

Topics: Streets and Transit, Healthy Places

Showing how cities have been humanity’s greatest source of innovation as long as people have settled in them, a new Sidewalk Labs series explores 15 innovations that have shaped the history of urban life. The lesson? The impacts of advances in urban technology, design, and policy across history are vastly unpredictable, and usually the result of public- and private-sector collaboration. But what history has taught us for sure is that “when cities provide the capabilities for innovation to take hold, people take it from there."

Topics: Urban History and Innovation

As we prepare for Placemaking Week 2017 in Amsterdam, a look at how the Dutch capital is experimenting with the present and future of transport through targeted interventions, innovative designs, campaigns, tech, management, and planning efforts. Come experience this culture of experimentation yourself this October—there’s still time to register for the conference, and we’ve extended the deadline so there’s one more week to lock in the regular rate!

Topics: Placemaking Week

More Placemaking Stories & Ideas

Detroit Redefined: City Hires America's First Official "Chief Storyteller" (The Guardian)
City of Utrecht Opens Largest Bicycle Parking Lot in the World (ArchDaily)
Seeing Medellín through the Eyes of a Copenhagener (CityLab)
Mexican-American Preservationists are Saving San Antonio's Urban Fabric (NextCity)

Events and Opportunities

Call for Proposals: CNU 26.Savannah Congress Program (Deadline: Sept 25, 2017)
Event: EcoMobility World Festival and EcoMobility Congress 2017 (Kaohsiung, Taiwan: Festival, Oct 1-30; Congress, October 2-4, 2017)
Conference: Place Invaders - Kitchen Table Conference in Adelaide, AUS (Oct 6, 2017)
Conference: "Black in Design: Designing Resistance, Building Coalitions," Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA, October 6-8, 2017)
Conference: Placemaking Week 2017 in Amsterdam (October 11-14, 2017)
Conference: World Urban Parks European Congress 2017 (Wirral, UK, October 16-19, 2017)
Training: How to Create Successful Markets at PPS Office in NYC (October 27, 2017)
Conference: Placemaking LatinoAmérica (November 6-9, 2017)

Instagram of the Week

Bassin de la Villette, Paris
"One of the best things about water is the look and feel of it...It's not right to put water before people and then keep them away from it." (William Holly Whyte) Be sure to check out Fred Kent's Instagram shots at pps_placemaking.

Have something to share? Please send your placemaking stories, news, job openings, grants, awards, calls for proposals, and events to [email protected] today. We'll be sure to give you a tip of the hat.

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Weekly Placemaking Round-Up | September 11 - 17, 2017 - Project for Public Spaces