Placemaking

People shape places and places shape people

Placemaking is an inclusive and collaborative process, a mindset, an attitude that brings people together to create positive changes in a place or area. It aims to improve not only the physical elements of a space, but also the way people think about and connect with the world around them.

It is a response to the car-dominated, unattractive and unsafe environments found in many urban areas, but it also has deep roots reaching back to the way communities and citizens used to be created pre-World War 2.

Town Team Movement and the global leader of the placemaking movement, PlacemakingX, have partnered to create the world’s first online education platform with structured training courses to help you learn more about placemaking. We have collected and curated the most important placemaking concepts, tips and lessons learned into one place to make it easier and faster for you to learn.

Our definition of placemaking

Placemaking is a philosophy and an iterative, collaborative process for creating public spaces that people love and feel connected to.

Placemaking.Education’s online courses allow you to learn at your own pace, when you want, where you want! Check out the current courses we offer.

Online Placemaking Training Courses Currently Available

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Placemaking Coaching and Group Learning

Placemaking aims to improve not only the physical elements of a space, but also the way people think about and connect with the world around them.

Background to the Placemaking Movement

Project for Public Spaces founded the placemaking approach in the 1990’s. PPS defines placemaking as:

“As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value.

More than just promoting better urban design, placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

With community-based participation at its center, an effective placemaking process capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential.”

Project for Public Spaces

Example of what you might learn at Placemaking.Education

Placemaking is often used as a “catch-all” term. This can make it confusing and difficult to understand.

Placemaking is a word used in a range of disciplines and contexts – planning, urban design, development, health, marketing, economic development, community development and more.

As a philosophy and process, placemaking seeks to bring separated disciplines together to work for a common vision of creating better places. We pull apart the components of ‘Place’ shown in the diagram below to better understand them.

Being clearer and more specific in the use of these words can help to improve your understanding of the concept, which can then make it easier to implement.

https://www.placemaking.education/p/introduction-to-placemaking

Have a question on Placemaking courses or training? Please contact us.