The Premier Placemakers Party in DC, Plus All the Placemaking News You Need. 📰🥳

Face it. The planet is warming at an alarming rate, and cities need to get creative with their infrastructure and countermeasures to combat sultry streets and the adverse health effects of warmer weather. According to FastCompany, we “designed shade out of our cities” and in many places, replacing tree canopy alone can have cooling effects of as much as 15-20° Fahrenheit, and cool surfaces as much as 45 degrees! In hotter parts of the planet, designers are getting freakin’ creative with environmental infrastructure, like these jawdroppingly gorgeous umbrellas in Saudi Arabia that not only cool public plazas, they collect rainwater and run on sustainable solar. And speaking of solar, we may soon see our sidewalks replaced with photovoltaic pavement that can charge EVs from below, and so much more. While our future is guaranteed to become hotter, we as clever humans can turn a negative into a positive that may just save us all in the long run. But tech and infrastructure aside, we really loved this piece on analog approaches urban infill that don’t require much more than some paint, brushes, and rallying the neighborhood around a common cause.

Photo credit: Envato By south_nostalgia

We’re squarely Team Dunkin in this neck of the woods, and while many people have their opinions and preferences on the caffeinated beverage side of things, we’ve never seen a place embrace a brand like this before. Or, is the brand embracing the place? We were tickled by the passion, enthusiasm, and groundswell movement that turned the town of Stow, Mass, into the town of Dunkin’ — even if just for one day. So grab your fave iced bevvie, sit back, relax, and warm your heart with this endearing story from the ‘gram.

Photo credit: Envato By wayhomestudioo

 

… that we’re merely 12 weeks out from Halloween (our fave high holiday), and there’s still time to program that spoopy boneyard in your district. This intriguing piece from The Guardian got us all excited for witches and ghosties, pumpkins, ghouls and … punk rock?!?  Dig deep with us on a tour of several cities to see how they’re activating their “dead space” with everything from horticulture classes to beekeeping to death cafes, tours, and more.

Photo credit: Envato By azgek

Your social marketing manager’s head could be “reeling” from the multitude of types of content jostling for your followers’ attention these days, so to stop the spin and get a firm handle on the best approaches to social by media type, we’re sharing this hella good run down of the best social media formats by platform, courtesy of those data-driven dilettants at Buffer.

Photo credit: Envato By xapdemolle

A few editions back we took a look at a fun, whimsical public realm activation out of the City Ave District in Philadelphia, and today we bring you the latest updates. The district deployed a menagerie of loveable woodland creatures in topiary form, with the help of Bacho Factory. The district held a clever competition to name each animal augmenting their streetscape. We loved the public engagement on this one, and we’re thrilled to introduce you to the newest residents of City Ave, including Fern (the fawn), Peanut (the elephant), Nibbles (the bunny), Kodi (the mama bear), Rolo (the baby rhino), Rosa (Rolo’s mama) and Ollie (the standing bear). We say all the time that if a placemaking activation falls in the wild and there’s no one there to hear it, did it actually happen? By building an awareness campaign around the installations, including a self-guided map, and a readers’ poll to name the squee-inducing creatures, City Ave scored BIG with their latest endeavor. Well done, say we!

Photo credit: City Ave District

“Now we talk about “activating” public space, “reclaiming” streets, “greening” infrastructure like these are radical concepts. They’re not. They’re ancient. We’re just getting back to where we were before we lost the plot.” —Mikael Colville-Andersen, Urban Designer. Speaker. Filmmaker. TV host. Photographer. Dad.