What We Talk About When We Talk About Placemaking

London is creating and redeveloping spaces with strong cultural offerings. Image © Mike Stezycki.

As we wait to see the full effects of Brexit take hold, London keeps growing, and over recent decades, the capital’s population has reached uncharted levels. Birth rates continue to accelerate, citizens are living longer, and more and more people still look to move to the capital for work. If we continue to grow at this pace, we’ll hit 10 million people before 2030—a figure that brings many challenges.

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A Place for a Mission: The San Francisco AIDS Foundation Center on Castro Street

Image © Gensler/Jasper Sanidad

This post is part of a blog series related to Dialogue 30, "The Livability Issue.”

The importance of place is often discussed in terms of one’s place in a family or society, and even of one’s place in the universe. How we relate to geography and find our way in either the natural or the built world all deals with our sense of a place and where we belong in it. Place informs us on the nuanced details of how we might find rest, support, supplies and shelter. For humans as well as for other animals, place is incredibly important to our sense of belonging, safety and well-being. It is the importance of place in human lives that led to Strut, the newest site for San Francisco AIDS Foundation, on Castro Street in San Francisco.

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Creating a Place to Gain Human Ability

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. The project was designed as a collaboration between HDR and Gensler, in association with Clive Wilkinson Architects and EGG Office. Image © Michael Moran.

Innovative companies that collaborate across disciplines are the organizations with the newest ideas. Until recently, it was a rarity to see this kind of behavior as a healthcare consumer or patient. Six years ago, the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab waved goodbye to “the usual” and set out instead to redefine the patient experience. The result is a unique model of care and a direct reflection of a truly visionary client.

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Healthcare’s Digital Evolution

JLABS @ TMC, part of a network of life science incubators meant to catalyze discovery in the field. Photo: Shau Lin Hon, Slyworks Photography .

This post is part of a blog series related to Dialogue 30, "The Livability Issue.”

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How Urban Design Can Save Lives

Image courtesy Matt Quinn

This post is part of a blog series related to Dialogue 30, "The Livability Issue.”

As Designers and Planners, we base our design concepts on a variety of inputs: site program, client preferences, industry practices, etc. But we still build parts of our cities the same way we have for nearly a century. This failure to consider our evolving needs and adapt to them may be killing us!

Urban Design can help. Here are three ideas – local, neighborhood and citywide.

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