Creating better places

What is placemaking anyway?

Last Sunday at the ACF Brisbane Northside community discussion, we had a thought-provoking discussion on placemaking from three different perspectives – The Built Environment, Transport, and Gardening. 

Sense of place through the built environment

Penny introduced the concept of genius loci which is a foundational concept for architectural design.  For the ancient Romans, genius loci referred to the protective spirit of a place. They believed a 'genius', or a 'guardian spirit' resides in everything and everywhere.  In modern usage, it refers to the unique qualities of a place, not only in terms of its physical makeup, but in how it is perceived. Essentially, it’s the vibe of the place, the atmosphere, or the feeling it evokes. 

Penny also challenged us to consider what is the difference between “a space” and “a place”.  I proposed the idea that a space is something you simply move through and within that space might be a place which invites you to linger.  I suggested a place has a distinctive, intriguing, or pleasant character.

Tony raised the example of Chermside shopping centre.  He felt that the original shopping centre was a space with its long halls of shopfronts while the open-air leisure and restaurant area added more recently was a place. Its gardens, open spaces, curves, and seating encouraged children to play and people to spend time there.

As part of this, we considered the privatisation of places in our society and how that impacts inclusiveness.  Some Councils and developers approach placemaking as a tool for economic development.  These types of places often exclude marginalised groups because access to the “public” place requires a car and is focused on facilitating commerce, which means if you are not spending money, you are not welcome. 

This led to the idea that maybe place is about a sense of belonging. Penny shared pictures of function spaces associated with Sydney 2000 Olympic venues.  I said I would not feel comfortable in those spaces which were quite formal, cold, and masculine.  Penny explained they were designed for corporate entertaining which was mainly done by and for male business executives.  This reinforces the idea that place means different things to different people.

Sense of place through transport

David proposed a more expansive and post-modern idea that all spaces are places, just that some are not very good places. He spoke of his early childhood when he spent almost no time in the car.  Car trips were rare occurrences – he and his schoolfriends walked or biked to school, to the shops, to each other’s homes, basically everywhere they went.  They knew the place they lived intimately and felt connected to it and each other because of this. Many other attendees echoed this idea from their childhood experiences.  

David also spoke about how originally people lived close to their work and socialised with colleagues and their families outside work because they all lived in the same area.  The children all went to school together and people were connected to the place they lived and worked.   

Now in our sprawling city the average commute to work is 17km (around 1hr in congested traffic).  Car-oriented design has resulted in decreased walkability and longer travel distances with activities concentrated in discrete pockets.  Where most of us live there are no corner shops, and many suburbs (including Carseldine and Bridgeman Downs) have no primary school.  This means we must drive to the shops, drive to work, drive children to school and play dates, drive… everywhere!  Children (and adults) now spend so much time in the car it too has become a place (and not a very good place).  We are isolated and disconnected from the places we live and work and from each other.

David went on to speak about teenagers who hang out together in the streets.  We often see streets as connectors between places rather than places themselves.  But they are very much places to these young people.  We then discussed how our streets are also not very good places because they designed for cars not people. Streets literally marginalise people by pushing them to the margins while cars take centre stage.

It seems many of our society’s biggest challenges are linked to car-centric streets being poor places for people.  We have an obesity and chronic disease epidemic due to reduced physical activity.  The lack of access to good places has led to widespread social isolation and depression (especially for people who are older and younger). A lack of transport options in some parts of our community has caused uneven access to jobs, social services, healthy food options, and community interaction. 

The transport method could be a force for better placemaking. Reducing car-dependency and improving walking and cycling facilities makes streets more equitable and inclusive places.  David shared an alternative vision for the Northwest Transport Corridor which has been preserved for use as an arterial road connecting Gympie Road around Bald Hills to Stafford Road in Stafford. 

Rather than building another arterial road with four lanes of black tarmac for cars this corridor could become a place for people and community.  The vision is to create a string of places along the 10km corridor including a primary school in Carseldine; playgrounds and a community centre and library at Albany Creek Road connected by a green and shady active-transport boulevard.

This reminded me of how the city of Seoul in Korea reimagined the Cheonggyecheon expressway in 2003 and replaced it with a restored stream flowing through a 1000-acre park in the city’s centre.  Not only did it transform the city’s public life and economic success, but congestion improved.

Sense of place through verge gardens

Gayle shared some important places from her childhood including her sandpit and a bottletree.  She described how the smell of damp sand is so evocative can still take her back to childhood sandpit.  This seems to support the idea that place is about an atmosphere or feeling.  She also talked about a place she created in her garden with a tree, a low shrub, and a birdbath.  These elements form a triangle appreciated by birds.  They go from the shrub to the birdbath to splash then to the tree to dry. This is not placemaking for people, except as outside observers, but placemaking for animals.

Gayle is a strong advocate for using street trees supported by verge gardens to green cities, increase biodiversity and combat urban heat island effects.  We discussed how verge gardens could be a method of placemaking, if done well.  They are great for encouraging people out into the street, for starting conversations, and for encouraging pedestrians to pause. They connect our homes to the street and to our neighbours’ homes.  Verge gardens are part of a corridor which connects everybody and everything.

We discussed how placemaking might tie into sustainability and the idea that if you feel connected to a place you are more likely to seek to protect it. We didn’t go deeply in to it on Sunday but at its heart placemaking is about creating better places for people.  Better places connect us and create a sense of belonging.  They are greener, healthier, and more equitable and that is sustainable development is at its essence. When it comes to making better shared places, open respectful conversations are needed to understand contesting needs and viewpoints, and to build trust and understanding.  

We talked about how change tends to occur at the margins, or along the boundaries.  Streets are our most fundamental shared public spaces and verges are at the boundary between private and public space.  Today, and for most of the last century, we have taken for granted the idea that our streets are primarily zones for cars, parking, and the transporting of goods. This has not been the case from most of human history.  Creating a verge garden is about reclaiming the edge of street as a better place for people and animals.  Reclaiming just one road corridor as a better place for people is also a change at the boundary.  

Finally, we asked who can or should make better places? We decided placemaking isn’t solely the domain of professional planners or architects. Creating better places can be an informal initiative led by one person or neighbours or a community group. Street libraries or organising a block party could be forms of placemaking if they met Council guidelines and respect all users of the street. Sometimes a small conversation with family or friends could be a catalyst for a change that creates better places.  Never underestimate the power of conversations for revealing possibilities and creating change.  We encourage you to talk with others about what creating better places means to them and start a conversation that may just change your street, your neighbourhood, your city or even the world for the better.  Who knows what is possible?

Importantly this reflects my experience of the discussion and doesn’t capture everything we discussed.  Any errors and omission are my own.