Place Performance Game - WORKING

This workshop is designed for professionals and non-professionals alike who help plan towns and cities — from highway engineers and real estate developers to community garden advocates and housing specialists. Based on PPS’s 30 years of experience in placemaking, and inspired by our popular book, How to Turn a Place Around, the course shows participants our unique approach to revitalization.Enrollment is limited to 40 participants, in order to promote a close-knit environment that fosters a deep understanding of what makes public spaces function and of PPS’s innovative methods for analyzing them. During the course, participants work in small teams to observe and analyze places in Greenwich Village that illustrate pertinent issues, give insights and encourage them to see the sites from a user’s point of view.

The Place

This course puts us in the heart of Greenwich Village, a thriving historic neighborhood that’s evolved enormously in recent years. It provides ample examples of mixed-use buildings, residences and offices, historic brownstones next to new developments, on varying scales. We’ll visit Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, and Midtown Manhattan, among other public spaces.

We will spend two days exploring the principles of making places through walking tours, presentations, case studies, PPS’s Place Performance Evaluation Game, and the close examination of two contrasting neighborhoods. We will focus our observations and placemaking techniques in Greenwich Village and Midtown South.