The Project for Public Spaces
Specializes in Place Making
Part Two
by Susan Hines
I am introduced to "The Place Performance Evaluation Game"
and learn to work and play well with others As we gathered for our second and final day of the program, it was clear most participants, myself included, were enthusiastic about the seminar and all we were learning. Some, such as Linda Moery, ASLA, were already familiar with the Project for Public Spaces. Others, like Peter Kenny, a Supervising Engineer with the New Jersey Department of Transportation, were fairly new to place making. Kenny bubbled over with all the enthusiasm of a freshly minted convert and made it clear he was a very different engineer after his initial training with PPS.
The focus of day two was really the Place Performance Evaluation Game (PPE), or "The Game" as we learned to call it. PPS has been developing this evaluation method since a 1993 project required working with a very diverse group of Texans. According to PPS vice president Kathy Madden, the assumption behind The Game is that "people are at their best looking at places they know best." In short, this process assumes the public knows what it likes and puts it to work. According to PPS, the PPE is "a place oriented approach to community improvement, rather than the project oriented one generally used by planners and other professionals." Instead of designing first and seeking public comments later, the Place Performance Evaluation Game asks people to articulate their needs from the outset. Most importantly, this method facilitates the exchange among and between practitioners and the public. It has the potential to make arriving at consensus easier on everyone--landscape architects and laypeople.
With our Place Game sheets in hand, we split into groups of four or five and set off to evaluate small sections of Union Square. Located in the neighborhood of 4th Avenue and Broadway between 14th and 17th Streets, Union Square Park has a long and proud history as a gathering place for advocates of various political and social movements. Designed by Olmsted, it was the site of the first Labor Day parade in the 1880s. Most recently, it served as a place of shared mourning for World Trade Center victims, although the ephemeral content of those spontaneous memorials was quickly swept away. My group focused on two very small sections of the park--the 16th Street entrance at the northwest corner of the square and an adjacent area that features benches, a statue of Lincoln, and a small but elaborate building meant to mark the formal entrance to the park.
For an hour and a half, we spread out and used our individual printed forms to analyze the assigned areas. We rated the spaces from 1-5 in the categories of "Comfort and Image," "Access and Linkages," "Uses and Activities" and "Sociability." An overall category rating was calculated by evaluating more specific features of our plots. Under "Comfort and Image," for example, we judged attractiveness and safety, while adequate information and signage was addressed under "Access and Linkages." Essentially, the game breaks down a potentially overwhelming process into bite-size pieces.
The next part of the Place Performance Evaluation asked us to "Identify Opportunities" by interviewing another visitor to the space. Suggesting three long and short-term fixes was another task, as was specifying potential partnerships or local talent.
Project for Public Spaces, Inc. After regrouping at a nearby picnic table, the four of us tallied our scores, shared our interview experiences, and refined our suggestions. We rejoined the larger group bursting with ideas on how to make the space better by placing more benches near the entrance (short-term fix) and attracting a year-round food vendor to the small building (long-term fix).
Despite everyone's enthusiasm, however, information sharing within the larger group was an orderly process in which all the small groups had an opportunity to share their insights with the rest. "The Game" guided our discussion and allowed our initial findings to be consolidated quickly. Perhaps even more importantly, both the paper form and the PPS staff encouraged relating each finding to a recommendation, each problem to a solution.
The next step calls on players to develop a vision. Because every place is unique, and communities differ with regard to needs and resources, the vision can take many forms. Often the outcome simply will be a list of priorities that PPS claims is worth ten expensive reports. If PPS is asked to generate a formal report, it is seldom more than a few pages long. The list also can be used to make a summary drawing of issues and recommendations or a formal conceptual drawing. When the Providence Rhode Island Park Department staff played the game, for example, they generated such an impressive list of feasible recommendations that a new staff person was added just to implement the list.
According to Philip Myrick, PPS's Assistant Vice President for Technical Assistance, "In spite of the fact that it seems to be a very cursory look, if you have the right people in the room, the game gets people excited about working on the space. In the end you have from a dozen to two dozen people who are really committed to the project. Often you come away with volunteers and phone numbers, pledges from stake holders, etc."
Given the relatively serious nature of The Game and its impressive efficacy as mechanism for group discussion, why is it called a "game?" I asked. Since it's consensus oriented, it's fun for everyone, Myrick pointed out. When four or five people are huddled over one Place Game sheet it feels like a game.
Just the fact that it can transform a public meeting into something more than a shouting match about parking and trash collection is an accomplishment. The Game creates a new discourse that moves players away from the usual agendas and towards the common goal of transforming a particular space or spaces. Interestingly, PPS has never had a negative experience with this approach. "We are never scared of public meetings anymore because they are fun," Myrick says.
ASLA members and other attendees came away from the PPS workshop feeling very positive about the message and the method. Questioned a few weeks after the seminar's conclusion, John Jackson, ASLA, of Ratio Architects in Indianapolis said, "I thought it was great. It got me excited about public spaces generally and public involvement and made me realize how much more the public has vested in a space." Ratio has three or four projects Jackson thinks the game can apply to. In addition, Jackson noted, "The workshop made me think about how often we design, plan, and develop ideas based on how they look in plan. We too often create spaces that just photograph well. The seminar renewed my interest in getting away from that. The success of a place depends so much less on how it looks graphically than how it functions on the ground."
Jackson already has used the game as a basis for conversation with clients, and tells them that 80 percent of a project's success depends on continued programming and management. "You want people to love and assume ownership of a place. It has nothing to do with money; it has to do with how a space is activated."
According to Moery, an assistant director at the National Park Service's Denver office, the PPS approach is "a focused assessment" that bears on issues that are very pertinent to the developed areas of the national park system. The game refreshes employees' perspective and allows them to see places from the point of view of the visitor. In addition, it addresses the siting of structures, circulation, amenities, and signage. The game results in "a good first cut read." She also feels the PPS method can facilitate her work with the park's gateway communities. "You don't have to go to grad school to do this. People want to participate. Renewed affinity comes to my mind all the time when I do work like this."
Raj Mohabeer, ASLA, enjoyed the workshop, but he was surprised at how many participants were unfamiliar with William Whyte's Social Life of Small Spaces, which was required reading at his alma mater, the University of Guelph. Mohabeer's work as an associate landscape architect at Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez Rinehart, Inc., in Orlando, puts him in constant contact with the public. However, his multidisciplinary public planning and design firm already places a high priority on community participation. Frequently, they provide stakeholders with disposable cameras and encourage residents to take picture of spaces they want to change. The firm also uses images of other places to communicate with constituents and draw out likes, dislikes, needs, and desires. Like PPS, Glatting Jackson takes a consensus-building approach to collaborative design.
"For me, the best thing about the PPS workshop was to be with so many people who thought about the same things," said Gene Threndyle, a community gardener from Toronto, Canada. Threndyle is involved with a community project that involves conversion of
a industrial building into a community greenhouse. It is an ambitious project to undertake in a diverse area that is a "mixed-middle class
neighborhood with lots of Jamaicans and Italians and a small enclave
of arts and crafts mansions." Threndyle treads a fine line between two well-intentioned nonprofit groups who "talk about community consultation as though it is a
massive problem. They seem as remote from the Jamaicans as they are from
the people in the mansions."
A few weeks after the seminar Threndyle told me, "The workshop helped me articulate things that I felt, and it made me realize things that I suspected. Not
ignoring human dynamics in favor of traffic or design or politics or
whatever other factors is the important thing."
My introduction to PPS's philosophy of place making inspired me to reconsider the spaces in my immediate neighborhood and town--the successful farmer's market and the recent addition of a veteran's memorial that is used only once a year. Why not add amenities that attract people to the spot year round? Perhaps a bandstand, more shade, additional benches . . .
How can LAs best engage in collaborative design? The Project for Public Spaces convinced me that a crash course in group psychology is far less important than a big dose of common sense.
The first step is simply looking at how the public currently uses a space and asking people how they would like to use a space in the future. Then landscape architects can call on their professional experience and their finely honed visual and design skills to suggest options. Thinking of the project as a consensus-building process just might make public meetings fun.
As for the public meetings that spurred my interest in the subject of collaborative design and the issue of how to connect Washingtonians to the waterfront--I've decided that's a problem best solved by the people who already populate and use the riverfront. These are not wealthy people, and may not be particularly environmentally aware, but I'm convinced that the residents know the river best and the rest of Washington will only connect with the waterfront at their invitation and by drawing upon their knowledge.
|
636 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001-3736 • Telephone: 202-898-2444 • Fax: 202-898-1185 ©2001 American Society of Landscape Architects. All Rights Reserved. |