FUTURE CITIES CONFERENCE - OMA APRIL 2016 Brendan Nelson National President, Planning Institute of Australia PLACEMAKING… IS THERE A ROLE FOR 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 and infrastructure 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. 8

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

BENEFITS OF PLACEMAKING  Support for the Local Economy  New Businesses  Reduction in Crime  Increased Civic Engagement  Improved public health  Youth Engagement and activities  Improved Environment Accessible Engaged Comfortable Sociable Great Place

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 15  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, 3D Printing.  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 16  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. 20