Critically for our inquiry, design can also better connect planning to place and place- making. This is where planning by design “lands”.
THE SPACE/PLACE RELATIONSHIP
Places are not just spaces, or uses, or facili- ties to be arranged or allocated or regulated. At their best they are great places that are made by all who inhabit them, who call them home, who give them meaning, who long for them, who belong to them. They serve needs, feed souls, lift spirits, embody humanity. They reflect the outcome of space-place transformation. Places are intrinsically good, and on many levels (there are no “not good” places—there are only not good “non-places”). Integrally, places are good for the body,
the mind and the soul, individually and collectively. Places effectively integrate our key worlds: i) the exterior world outside us—the “its” that we mostly plan for and from, most comfortably; ii) the world of relationships, that underpin our process
THE PLANNING/PLACE-MAKING RELATIONSHIP
This relationship is rooted in a particular conception of place, and of planning. Place represents the integration of physi- cality and functionality (the exterior realms) and community and spirituality (the interior realms), involving collective bodies, minds and souls. Planning in a design context represents the “making”: meshing perception and intention, in a move beyond conventional “action”. It entails “enaction”; it becomes a form of collective enaction, challenging conven- tional limited notions of “design”. Taken literally, design represents a “de-sign-ing” gesture: obviating the need for significa- tion, making for greater transparency, “by design”. Mostly the gesture is associated with an individual—one guiding hand and mind; it is a form of “I-design”. However, might we be able to move from I-design to “we-design”? The making of places invokes a special form of co-design or we-design (as compared to expert- design or I-design). This becomes the
contribution. “Place-making” is privileged over a focus on place per se; what is key is the making, and re-making, by the people in and of a place—whatever the context/ scale. But the root notion of “place” is also considered to represent much more than space, or space/time; it is much more than geography. As suggested above, it simultaneously engages the physical, the functional, the communal and the spiritual; and it is a dynamically evolving notion. This more integral sense of place—and its making—transcends, while including, the best aspects of pre-modern, modern and post-modern “senses” of place. The making includes common-meaning-making, and much more. It is mostly about collective action on common concerns in a concerted fashion. The emphasis is on the making, and the re-making—taking action together, building momentum… always complete, but never finished. It involves a positive trajectory, towards ever-greater realizations of the good, the true and the beautiful—healing as it goes, in the sense of “wholing”. Such “whole-making” pro- vides the overlap with well-being—implicating perhaps the most fundamental rationale for planning.
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Places are not just spaces, or uses, or facilities to be arranged or allocated or regulated. At their best they are great places that are made by all who inhabit them, who call them home, who give them meaning, who long for them, who belong to them. They serve needs, feed souls, lift spirits, embody humanity. They reflect the outcome of space-place transformation. Places are intrinsically good, and on many levels (there are no “not good” places—there are only not good “non-places”).
and our point—the world of “we”; and iii) the other trickier inner world terrain, where our individuality is expressed and honoured—the world of “I”, a subjective world often left alone, or left behind, by planners in our comparative reverence for the rational and the objective. Places are where these worlds are integrated, to serve all of us, and all of our (many) selves. Spaces are planned by professional experts; places are made by the people who are in, and of, the place.
operative context for the planning/place- making relationship. Place-making is a human art that has
been practiced through time immemorial; it is in our genes; it is primal. It should be the foundation for our planning. Place- making generally begins with the design of a space for dialogue that might become a place (to confirm shared meanings and to clarify points of departure) where we might act together on our common understand- ings, based on our collective perception, our collective intention, our collective
CODA
The thinking, and associated advocacy, reflected here—to re-frame planning as place-making, to break its space-fixation, to move well beyond a concern with sim- ply land and its use—were largely a product of efforts to program a major national planning conference (cip 2008), on the theme of “Planning by Design in Community—Making Great Places”. It entailed an effort to better integrate plan- ning and design, through place-making, and through a grounding in community. Much of the content was part of a work- shop offering used to promote the conference. The experiences from these workshops have also inspired much of the new content offered here. ■
IAN WIGHT, PHD, MCIP, is an Associate Professor of City Planning at the University of Manitoba. His current research focuses on “Evolving Professionalism—Beyond the Status Quo: Contemplating the education of the agents of the Next Enlightenment”. He can be reached at:
jwight@cc.umanitoba.ca
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