Placemaking within Urban Planning: Open Public Space between Regulations, Design and Digitalization

Abstract

Placemaking is generally considered as a multi-layer and multi-aspect approach in urban studies focused on public open spaces, such as streets, parks, town squares or quays. These places are the core of local community identity. In research and practice, placemaking is more related to concrete open spaces and their urban design. This means that they have been planned without regard to urban relationships and urban planning connections. However, these elements cannot be omitted even though they are less prominent and exploited within placemaking. Therefore, the main topic of this chapter is to explore the possibilities of the placemaking approach in the urban planning process, which is a process to embrace creative and flexible strategies to design and manage public open spaces, with the ultimate aim to contribute to the development of both urban environments and local communities. From this perspective, placemaking-driven urban planning is close to community planning as a wider concept. In addition, urban planning is becoming more complex in the present-day digital age, which embraces digitalization as a tool to enhance the whole process. The practical aim of this chapter is to examine this complex relation by utilizing the eleven key principles of successful placemaking, which are critical for its in situ implementation, and to determine which part of these principles need to be adjusted to this perspective of the urban planning process in the digital age. The principles that properly address this aim are used as criteria to examine five case studies – the master plans and other planning strategies of five secondary cities from four Southern European countries: Bari in Italy, Chania and Trikala in Greece, Estepona in Spain and Smederevo in Serbia. All of the case cities share the Southern European experience of having traditionally lively and vibrant public open spaces, which is important for placemaking. Furthermore, the common scale of the cities versus different national regulatory frameworks enables the main purpose of this multi-case study – to identify the scope and local variations of the (potential) applicability of placemaking within the urban planning process. Also to be questioned is how their master plans as key planning documents support public open spaces and their importance for local communities. This challenge requires a comparative analysis, where both the selected cities and their main master plans will be compared according to selected principles of successful placemaking. The findings of this comparison are inputs for three sets of recommendations related to: (1) how to complement the current knowledge in the placemaking approach in the future to develop more integrated urban planning methods; (2) how to improve local urban planning to be more responsive to the local community, making them more liveable and distinctive places; and (3) how to apply digital tools, in the context of their current roles and perspectives, in order to facilitate the implementation of placemaking principles within the urban planning process.