Guideline Principles to Accomplish Social Inclusiveness in Placemaking

Abstract

Placemaking is a collaborative process to design urban spaces through creatively sharing interests, needs, activities and ideas. The literature on urban planning, design, HCI, geography, sociology, and anthropology is rich in methods examples that can be used in placemaking. However, from the beginning, the rationality that defines the methodological approach is essential to acquire a common view for places, ensuring an inclusive and open process. Before or in parallel defining why, how and what to do in placemaking, it is relevant to consider four pillars of the methodological approach. First, providing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge on the context (e.g.: on the social, cultural, morphological attributes and urban context evolution). In this sense, and also to include and improving the people and different stakeholders early engagement, has interest identifying peculiarities, resources, needs and risks in accordance with the community, and relating a common priorities for the transformation of space into a living place. Second, responding to the common view, needs and priorities to the space transformation, regeneration and urban management, the guidelines of the methodological approach are outlined. This presupposes the identification of methods, techniques and tools, more friendly to non-technicians, and for different stakeholders, that are more suitable to the placemaking. Third, experimenting the inclusion capacity of the methodological approach outlined, considered as a basic criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of the solutions adopted. This contributes to improve the communities capacity to do effective placemaking at the present time. But also contribute do improve ways to do become more effective in the future time. So, it is important the realization of an ongoing evaluation of placemaking process, it be jointly with the different social actors. In this sense, the fourth pillar is improving the methodology efficiency, and effectiveness, adhesion of the social actors and stakeholders, detecting difficulties, correcting and improving placemaking process from an inclusive perspective. Based on these four pillars, from the literature and the authors' experience, some methodological procedures will be analysed. First an overview on the subject is provided. Second, some methodological approaches will be presented, considering: (1) from the co-creation of knowledge to tacit context recognition – to identify the critical skills needed to deliver on project goals and outcomes; (2) to outlining the methodological guidelines; (3) to experiment the methodological outlined in a dynamic perspective, and (4) to evaluate the inclusion capacity as a tool. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the methodologies, procedures and processes. Considering that the issue of placemaking is dynamic and collaborative process, this chapter explores how the role of the methodological approach impacts on inclusiveness.