Webcast:

Placemaking on Campuses:
Creating Destinations That Build Community

Original Broadcast: March 11, 2009

Cost

Members: Free
Nonmember: $10 USD

Program Content

Strategies for Creating Outdoor Gathering Places!

Small improvements to a campus can bring about dramatic changes--even improve your institution's chances of attracting and retaining students and faculty!

This presentation was rated highly by the participants who heard it at SCUP–43, SCUP's annual, international conference, and is part of SCUP's "best of" series that brings highly rated programs from our conferences to members who were unable to attend.

Placemaking is often a forgotten element in campus planning. However, campus atmosphere is as important to its appeal as famous professors, alumni and sports teams. Directing a tiny portion of a campus building program to the outside makes a vast difference in people's experience. It only takes a slight reorientation of strategy to incorporate placemaking ideas into any campus redevelopment plans—and the pay-off, in terms of image and livability, is incalculable. It's simply a matter of being intentional about creating great places as part of any project undertaken. Placemaking relates to master planning, project planning, sustainability, pedestrian friendliness, community building, student and residential life, branding, and admissions.

Discussion Points

• Understand the concept of placemaking—a way to organize and improve a campus
• Learn how to ...
  • make short-term, low-cost campus improvements that have big impact;
  • bring people and ideas together for cross-fertilization and collaboration that creates synergy and a productive environment;
  • create places, not just facilities. Attention to the outside environment makes a vast difference in people's experience of the campus;
  • balance concerns about flexibility versus control on campus. Success of a space depends on sensible management of public uses and a willingness to be open to some nontraditional or creative elements to a campus; and
  • improve the town/gown relationship through cooperative planning of outdoor spaces with your surrounding community. Results include: strong local economy, highly skilled workforce and cutting edge businesses fostered by professors and graduate students who are engaged in the community.

Who should watch this Webcast

This webcast is aimed at: college and university planners, architects, administrators, landscape architects, facilities management personnel, university marketers, and others interested in capitalizing on the opportunities presented during development or re-development to create outdoor places that create community.

There will be time for questions during the program, and you will be able to ask them via text or phone.

Moderator

Ann K. Newman, Associate Principal, Shepley Bulfinch

Ann K. Newman has over 16 years of experience in planning and programming in higher education, and 12 of those years at universities. She leads the planning group at Shepley, which focuses on campus master planning for liberal arts colleges and universities and private secondary schools. Her clients have included Middlebury College, Amherst College, Bucknell University, Emory & Henry College, Young Harris College, and Grinnell College. She has wide experience in space utilization analyses as well as development and implementation of space standards, guidelines, and space change processes. She is active in SCUP and was a member of the North Atlantic Regional Council and the national membership committee. She is also a professional affiliate of the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) and a member of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Newman has a BA in Psychology from Providence College, an MS in Developmental Psychology from Penn State, and she is a LEED AP.

Presenter

Philip Myrick, Vice President, Project for Public Places (PPS)

Philip Myrick is also director of PPS’s work in parks and plazas, and campuses. He is a certified planner whose expertise encompasses public space planning, downtown revitalization, and facilitation. Myrick joined PPS in 1995 and has led many of PPS’ major projects and programs including projects at Harvard; Times Square; Tempe, AZ; and the city of Houston.

Myrick has managed and participated in many of PPS’ international projects and training programs in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, Scotland, Georgia, and Armenia. He has presented across the U.S and Europe to audiences including the Society for College and University Planning, American Library Association, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Training Institute, the YongSan Park Symposium in Korea, and the Annual International Forum on Urban Parks in Bogotá Colombia, in addition to hundreds of neighborhood and community-based associations.

To learn more about the webcast sponsors

Project for Public Spaces: www.pps.org
Society for College and University Planning: www.scup.org

Questions

Please contact Kathy Benton at kathy.benton@scup.org, or call 734.998.6966.