One of my passions is for place making. Passion is a term that’s used lightly nowadays, but I mean it in the traditional, fervid, living-breathing-annoying-my-wife-with-constant-pontificating sense of the word.
I was introduced to a brilliant website on the subject when I attended a place making master class run by a guy called Gilbert Rochecouste a couple of years ago. Gilbert used to manage Melbourne’s largest suburban shopping centre before starting his own place making firm as form of penance, which incidentally struck me as a wonderful idea that should be introduced more widely, and is now a celebrity in the urban planning world.
During the class Gilbert introduced us to Project for Public Spaces, which is a leading American place making organisation. Since that master class, I constantly refer to their website both in my professional capacity as a strategic urban planner, and in my leisure time as a place making aficionado.
Based on its long history, Project for Public Spaces has developed its own eleven principles for creating great community places, which I really like. Check them out here
I believe that they can be useful in helping to re-establish Fremantle as a city that we are all proud of – a city with better, safer community places.
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