FUTURE CITIES CONFERENCE - OMA

APRIL 2016

Brendan NelsonNational President, Planning Institute of Australia

PLACEMAKING…IS THERE A ROLEFOR REGULATION?

WHAT IS PLACEMAKING?

Community Lead Visioning

Placemaking inspires people to collectively

reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the

heart of every community.

People & Places

Strengthens the connection between

people and the places they share.

Collaborative

Placemaking is a collaborative process by

which we shape our public spaces.

Placemaking focuses on the physical,

cultural, and social identities of a place.

ORIGINS OF PLACEMAKING AS A CONCEPT

Placemaking is not a new idea.

The thinking behind Placemaking gained traction in the 1960s.

Jane Jacobs and William Whyte introduced the idea of designing cities

for people, not just cars and shopping centres – focusing on the social

and cultural importance of lively neighborhoods and inviting public

spaces.

Jacobs advocated “four generators of diversity" that "create effective

economic pools of use”:

Mixed primary uses, activating streets at different times of the

day

Short blocks, allowing high pedestrian permeability

Buildings of various ages and states of repair

Density

DO YOU LIVE IN A GREAT PLACE?

Successful places have four key qualities:

people are engaged in activities

the space is comfortable and has a good

image

they are accessible

it is a sociable place.

Some of the measurements of a Great Place:

Land Use Patterns / Rent Levels / Retail Sales

Crime Statistics / Environmental Data

Pedestrian Activities / Transit Usage / Traffic

Street Life / Volunteerism / Evening Use

CONVENTIONAL AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT

Is this a platform for Placemaking?

Mixed primary uses, activating

streets at different times of the

day

Short blocks, allowing high

pedestrian permeability

Buildings of various ages and

states of repair

Density

“It’s hard to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has

been accomplished.” William Whyte

This is our biggest future

Challenge

IS PLACEMAKING THE SAME AS URBAN DESIGN?

More than Urban Design

Placemaking is more than just promoting

better urban design.

Built Form Focus

Urban design aims at the creation of

useful, attractive, safe, environmentally

sustainable, economically successful and

socially equitable places.

Sense of Place

Good urban design pursues local identity

and sense of place, cultural responsiveness

and purposeful environmental innovation.

PLACEMAKING vs URBAN DESIGN COMPARISON

URBAN DESIGN

• House

• New buildings andinfrastructure

• Design

• Space

• New places

• Utilitarian

• Experts?

PLACEMAKING

• Home

• Existing buildings and places

• social programs

• Place

• Existing places

• Social

• Owned by the people (spirit)

• People watchers?

Source: PlaceFocus

CAN PLACEMAKING BE REGULATED?

Current planning legislation in Australia is heavily process orientated

focussing on the use of land and development.

Planning Instruments and regulations tend to focus on urban design

and built form of new development.

Placemaking has a focus of function over form.

Current Planning processes provide limited opportunity for community

stakeholders to voice their own ideas and aspirations about the places

they live, work and play.

The process of placemaking can be regulated but the outcome cannot.

A great public space cannot be measured by its physical attributes

alone.

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PLACEMAKING

PLACEMAKING is not

• Top-down

• Reactionary

• Design-driven

• A blanket solution or quick fix

• Exclusionary

• Car-centric

• One-size-fits-all

• Static

• Discipline-driven

• One-dimensional

• Dependent on regulatory controls

• A cost/benefit analysis

• Project-focused

PLACEMAKING is

• Community-driven

• Visionary

• Function before form

• Adaptable

• Inclusive

• Focused on creating destinations

• Context-specific

• Dynamic

• Trans-disciplinary

• Transformative

• Flexible

• Collaborative

• Sociable

Source: Project for Public Spaces

PLACEMAKING AS A PROCESS

It is centered around observing, listening to, and

asking questions of the people who live, work,

and play in a particular space in order to

understand their needs and aspirations for that

space and for their community as a whole.

With this knowledge, a common vision for that

place is developed.

The vision should evolve into an implementation

strategy.

The Implementation strategy should begin with

small-scale Quick Wins that bring immediate

benefits both to the spaces themselves and the

people who use them.

QUICK WINS

Quick wins don’t have to be

expensive

Implementation

11 KEY PRINCIPLES OF PLACEMAKING

The Community Is The Expert

Create a Place, Not a Design

Look for Partners

You Can See a Lot Just By Observing

Have a Vision

Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker,

Cheaper (Quick Wins)

Triangulate

They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”

Form Supports Function

Money Is Not the Issue

You Are Never Finished

Community Lead Vision

Plan & Program of Uses

translate

deliver

Source: Project for Public Spaces

THE POWER OF TEN

Developed to evaluate Placemaking at

different city scales.

You need more than one great place in a

neighbourhood

It’s not enough to have only one great

neighbourhood in a city - you need to

provide people across the city with close-to-

home opportunities.

It’s not enough to have one liveable city or

town in a region - you need a collection of

interesting community.

How does your city/community rate?

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

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Ageing Population – We will need to continue to evolve our places.

Technological Advancements – AV’s, changing nature of retail and office precincts

– will continue to evolve labour markets.

Climate Change – More than 80% of our population lives in vulnerable coastal

settlements.

Globalisation – We are competing with the world. As we move towards a

knowledge-based economy, strategies for economic development must

increasingly take into account the importance of place.

Charles Landry identified the importance of place to the economy: places need to

be “distinctive”, have a recognisable “variety” of people, business, culture, buildings

and “flow”, and allow people to choose their own pace and path. The physical and

cultural characteristics of a place are most clearly linked to its attraction of talent,

business and investment.

HIGH LINE – NEW YORK CITY

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The High Line has increased property values along

the viaduct by $3 billion through new investment

and higher rents.

City gain of $60 million in revenue yearly with very

little offsetting increase in cost.

$108 million net investment - a two-year payback.

TESLA POWERWALL / GOOGLE CAR

If shared AV’s (autonomous vehicles),

there would be 70% fewer private

vehicles on our roads (MIT – Singapore)

How will this change the future of our

cities?

FUTURE PLACEMAKING OPPORTUNITIES?

Source: Visions 2040 / Victoria Eco-Innovation Lab, University of Melbourne (2014)

FUTURE PLACEMAKING OPPORTUNITIES?

Source: Visions 2040 / Victoria Eco-Innovation Lab, University of Melbourne (2014)

SUMMARY

Placemaking requires a collaborative community lead approach to establish a

vision, plan and implementation.

Its about places and how people use them – creating places where people

want to work, live and play.

Built Form & Urban Design by itself is not enough to create a place. It does

however provide a foundation upon which future placemaking can evolve.

Regulation can dictate process but not outcomes for placemaking. Current

legislation, regulations and planning instruments in Australia focus more on

built form than function.

Placemaking principles will become increasingly important as we manage

the future megatrends.

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