By Stuart Johnson
Thoughtful placemaking executed with the proper design strategies creates a vibrant, authentic sense of place offering value through rental and occupancy premiums and allows for real estate to evolve and meet current sustainable lifestyles. More than just mixed-use developments, successful placemaking projects seek to attract people, make them feel comfortable and activate the built environment in ways that encourage them to stay or return. Today’s residents, office tenants, retail patrons and pedestrians desire an integrated living, working, learning and shopping environment that is intentionally planned to create places that foster community and neighborhood growth.
Placemaking requires a cohesive planning and design process from the beginning that engages the community, municipal representatives and the needs of prospective residents or tenants. Exterior architecture designed with human-scale elements at the base of a building act to engage with the streetscape and define a comfortable sense of place around it. The spaces between buildings such as plazas, parks, courtyards, passageways and sidewalks are where people gather and experience community through social interaction. Live-work-play communities prioritize human experience and allow for better social sustainability.
Creative placemaking reinforces the connection between people and the built environment they share.
