PPS Staff

Every placemaking project is also a transportation project. Whether you’re improving a park, a plaza, a waterfront, or a public building, odds are that there is a street on one or more sides of your site—and that street can make or break your placemaking ambitions.

While there is no one park or town square that can accommodate 22.5 million people, which is the global refugee population according to recent UN estimates, public spaces can still play a key role in addressing today’s global refugee crisis.

Amsterdammers have been doing placemaking for years, and for us, it’s a huge part of what makes the city so lively and full of creative energy. Project for Public Spaces has a long history of working with the planning department and district managers of this great city, and we’re excited to return.

There is growing evidence showing that place impacts people’s health on multiple scales.

The same principle that makes urban devolution so attractive and plausible—that governance is most responsive and responsible when it is as close to the people it serves as possible—can just as easily be applied to even smaller scales of self-government.

Placemaking, a collaborative process by which we (residents, architects, activists, community leaders and planners alike) shape our public realm together, is fundamentally about inclusion and shared community ownership.