NSC Placemaking
Participatory Design
Above: The Place Diagram (adapted from Project for Public Spaces).
EWU URP Director: Dr. Kerry Brooks
Student research assistants: Teal Delys, Kylee Jones, Garrett Kenney, Tyler Kimbrell-Knutson, Aren Murcar, & Danielle Olson
While a more comprehensive (and very large) summary document exists for this project, I am working to digest its content on this site and more succinctly flesh out the project’s story.
In early 2018, I served as the lead researcher and public facilitator for the Washington State Department of Transportation's (WSDOT) North Spokane Corridor Placemaking process. In collaboration with faculty and students of Eastern Washington University's Urban and Regional Planning program (EWU URP), I was responsible for developing and facilitating a first-of-its-kind participatory planning process for WSDOT. I coordinated with lead representatives of public agencies and neighborhood leadership, trained support staff in facilitation of group planning exercises, provided oversight for a team of student assistant planners, guided the production of supporting materials, synthesized results into a summary of findings and presented those findings to stakeholders.
This process adapted placemaking strategies from Project for Public Spaces (PPS), to give community members affected by the North Spokane Corridor a voice in the design of its architectural features, public space improvements, and a 10.5 mile shared-use trail extension.
Above left: Aerial photograph by Joe Mabel (CC BY-SA 3.0), labels added.
Above right: Map of project extent. Completed section of the corridor spans between points a and b, while portions of the corridor subject to this planning effort lie between points b and c. Original map by Wikipedia user, Jdubman, additional labels added.
Placemaking is defined as:
...a people-centered approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces...Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover needs and aspirations...This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. — Project for Public Spaces and The Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council, from "What is placemaking?" in A Guide to Neighborhood Placemaking in Chicago
The "NSC Place" Project attempted to give power to those neighborhoods through which the NSC traverses. WSDOT intends the outcomes of the project to reflect distinct perspectives, unique ideas, and collective needs of the communities affected by the NSC. Guided by the EWU Urban and Regional Planning program, a public input process was conducted including three neighborhood placemaking charrettes, and a charrette dedicated to the Children of the Sun Trail. The results of these charrettes was summarized, published to the project website, and presented to the NSC Collaboration Team, a citizen group tasked with distilling the results into a common vision for development.
Placemaking involves discovering the needs and aspirations of a community by looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play there. This information is used to create a common vision for place.
The Lexicon of Placemaking
The Project for Public Spaces provides a detailed overview of the four primary placemaking attributes that "make great places," a summary of which is provided below:
The Place diagram. (C) Project for Public Spaces
In evaluating thousands of public spaces around the world, PPS has found that to be successful, they generally share the following four qualities: they are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; the space is comfortable and has a good image; and finally, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit. PPS developed The Place Diagram below as a tool to help people in judging any place, good or bad. — Project for Public Spaces. "What Makes a Successful Place?"
Three placemaking charrettes were conducted for the neighborhoods of Bemiss-Whitman (combined), Minnehaha, and Hillyard. The Bemiss-Whitman charrette constituted three tables of approximately 6-8 people per table, whereas both Minnehaha and Hillyard necessitated approximately six tables each. Each charrette featured a mix of neighborhood residents, residents from adjacent neighborhoods, and other interested parties, in addition to staff. The charrettes were conducted at the Northeast Community Center (Bemiss-Whitman and Minnehaha Charrettes) and Shaw Middle School (Hillyard Charrette).
Attendees signed in at the front desk and were assigned a Table Group. Tables groups were limited to 6-8 people. A brief staff huddle was conducted to ensure all facilitators were prepared for the event. A safety announcement was provided at the beginning of each meeting in case of emergency.
Staff introductions were made, and an overview of the NSC project's history, status and timeline was presented by Bob Hilmes of WSDOT. The concept of placemaking was introduced and the charrette process was explained. An overview of the agenda was presented in order to prepare participants for the activities.
Example charrette agenda.
Each charrette was divided into two phases: (1) Special Place Evaluations, conducted in the morning and (2) Sticker Mapping, conducted in the afternoon. These two phases were divided with a lunch break between. Each phases was comprised of separate activites, with each activity building up to and supporting the next.
After each activity Table Groups were asked to share their ideas or findings. Usually, a participant or facilitator was nominated by each group to present. Due to time constraints, groups were asked to limit their presentation to the most important ideas or findings that emerged from the activities. Morning activity presentations were provided at individual tables during a lunch break. Final presentations involved pinning up maps around the room and presenting in front of that work.
Morning Phase: Special Place Evaluations
The primary purpose of the morning activity was to immerse charrette participants in the concepts of Placemaking, think critically about the issues and opportunities pertinent to their neighborhood’s Special Places, and then identify preliminary solutions for Placemaking in and around those Special Places. This process was termed a Special Place Evaluation and was specifically designed to help participants think in terms of Placemaking. The collated results of these evaluations are presented in Appendix B.
Due to charrette time limitations, and a large number of sites, a "priority place" scoring system was developed to help maximize the impact of participant feedback as it relates to the NSC. Scores from 1-to-5 were generated from three measures:
Popularity: How many times was this place mentioned by community members?
Distance: How far is this place from the NSC?
Visibility: Can you see the NSC from this place?
These descriptions were included on each Special Place Evaluation worksheet, along with the score the Special Place received and a map and images of the location.
Above: Special Place Evaluation Worksheet. Worksheets like this one were provided to charrette participants.
The Place Diagram provided the foundation for performing the Special Place Evaluations. Informational sheets were provided to table groups which described each attribute in detail, including a selection of its qualities, descriptions, specific techniques for addressing those attributes, and a range of potential placemaking activities organized by technique.
Placemaking attributes cheatsheet developed for charrettes participants. Theses graphics dissected the four attributes of placemaking to describe their essential qualities, provide questions to ask about a place’s expression of each attribute, explore techniques for realizing each attribute, and show examples of places that successfully implement these techniques.
Above: All placemaking attribute cheatsheets.
Above: Ideas for Placemaking Goals by Technique for each placemaking attribute.
Afternoon Phase: Placemaking Maps
The purpose of the afternoon placemaking activity was to identify a range of placemaking options that answered the question: What should happen in and around the NSC? Ideally, the participants would build upon their Special Place Evaluations by identifying place-based and NSC-based solutions that supported the placemaking goals or activities identified in those Evaluations.
Skyway category placemaking options.
Charrette participants used large-format neighborhood maps and color-coded stickers to locate placemaking options. Groups selected a lead presenters to share their results.
Placemaking charrette participants evaluated approximately 30 different Special Places. Each of the 15 Tables produced placemaking maps constituting a total of over 700 placemaking option data points. The following describes how these products were analyzed.
Analysis 1: Special Place Evaluations
This analysis collated all responses regarding specific Special Places into a summary evaluation for each place. By studying all of the Place Evaluations generated during the charrettes, a dataset was developed which summarized the ratings each place received. The mean (average) and mode (the value that occurs most frequently) of the place ratings are included to assess participant attitudes about place quality relative to the four attributes established by PPS.
A second dataset was developed by studying the "Goals and Activities" portion of the Special Place Evaluations. It collates all of the suggestions regarding the choices to connect, enhance, protect, or remake. These two dataset were consolidated into a summary graphic for each Special Place.
Example results summary for a special place.
Analysis 2: Placemaking Maps & Focus Areas
Each sticker placed on a map was geo-coded in a Geographic Information System. For each sticker, its point location, the Placemaking Option (PO) Category (e.g., Trail Crossing, Streetscape), the PO number, and the Charrette Group number were recorded. Any lines drawn on the maps or additional written comments were also captured. Linework was correlated with segments of the existing street or trail network.
From this data, we developed visualizations to better understand patterns in the data set. We were most interested in how the location and density of placemaking options aligned with the previously identified Special Places. We also sought patterns of popularity between all Placemaking Options.
Akernel density analysis was conducted to calculate the Placemaking Options sticker density across all neighborhoods. By using a threshold of 1.75 points per acre, we were able to visualize hotspots where charrette participants had placed the most stickers. The resulting density maps helped us determine which parts of the study area were high opportunity sites for placemaking interventions. These came to be known as Placemaking Focus Areas.
Placemaking Focus Areas Legends
Hot spot map displaying density of Placemaking Options stickers placed north of the Spokane River.
Using a density threshold of 1.75 points per acre, we eliminated sites with only one sticker or with substantially low affinity between stickers.
We further narrowed the scope of Placemaking by correlating the proximity of Special Places and the NSC to the minimum threshold area.
The high concentration of Placemaking Options revealed by the Focus Areas, afforded us the following insights:
shared affinity for those places by the broader communities involved in the charrettes,
opportunities for minimizing construction costs and maximizing design impact by consolidating placemaking features, and
locating placemaking interventions in coordination with the Children of the Sun Trail.
Focus areas in combination with the geo-coded Placemaking Options and aggregated Children of the Sun Trail paths help to show reveal opportunity sites for placemaking interventions.
To understand the data at a more granular level, pivot tables helped us visualize relationships between variables in the data set. The process began with condensing all of the raw data into an Excel workbook and selecting the data range. Once the data range is selected, a pivot table is inserted by selecting "Insert > Pivot Table." This is then exported to a new worksheet. There are many options to develop tables which show relationships between variables. We selected the following relationships:
Counts of each color from all charrettes
Charrette > All colors > Table number > Option number
All charrettes > Individual colors > Option number
Top 3 option numbers for each color from all charrettes
Top 3 option numbers for each color and from each charrette
Counts for each category from all charrettes. The pivot tables were formatted by applying the correct variable to the correct field. For example, in order to get the counts of each color from all charrettes we put the “Nhood” variable (the variable that depicts which charrette the data was recorded from) and the “ColorCode” variable (the color of the sticker on the map) into the “Axis (categories)” field and put “ColorCode” in the “Values” field to get the total count of the data. Colors stand in for their respective placemaking categories.
The resulting visualizations helped us determine which placemaking options were most suitable for each place. For example, in the following graphic we see that kernel analysis group 8 has the highest sticker count, particularly in the yellow placemaking option category. The yellow category refers to placemaking “Edge” strategies. From this observation, we could infer that the community is interested in landscaping, noise walls, or habitat restoration which establish the physical boundaries of a that place.
Counts for each placemaking option category by color relative to their kernal group (i.e. Focus Area).
In another example, considering the popularity of the red, "Crossing" strategies, code in kernel group 10, objects like pedestrian bridges, underpass lighting, murals, and other structural and artistic options for crossing the North Spokane corridor might be prioritized. Inferences like these were to be vetted with the community through the Collaboration Team—an ad hoc citizen and intergovernmental committee tasked with processing the findings of the charretttes and developing design programs for placemaking sites.
To support the Collaboration Team, a graphic representations of the data were developed for each Focus Area. One sheet displayed the locations of each placemaking options sticker, as well as the kernel group boundary, overlaid on key features of the neighborhood and the proposed NSC.
A Focus Area Summary representing geocoded data obtained from the placemaking sticker exercises.
Another sheet included the total count for each placemaking option identified within the Focus Area boundary, example images of the most popular placemaking options, and a collection of comments associated with those data points.
The Focus Area Summary maps are supplemented by an analysis of stickers place by category and type. All related written comments provided by charrette participants are included.
After completing the north phase of this project, and presenting our findings to the Collaboration Team, I chose to resign on the grounds that the project would become a detriment to the community. Later, many of my concerns about the project proved themselves out as citizen participants complained that their input had not been incorporated into the highway design (see this article from the Spokesman Review). I attribute this to a contradiction "baked into the cake" of WSDOT's planning approach, namely that WSDOT had imposed a top-down, project-drived process upon the community while espousing a grassroots planning methodology organized from the bottom up.
The opinions of the professionals involved, as well as a spokesperson for Project for Public Spaces, vary greatly from one another. I continued to process these events for the next few years. Eventually, I prepared a presentation to articulate why I left the project and how I believe planners and designers should approach placemaking to prevent placation and tokenization of communities. I provide the slides for that presentation here for your review.
Slidedeck presented at the American Society of Landscape Architects, 2022 Washington Chapter Conference: Emergence.
