From the editors,

There is no doubt that in urban circles, and wider, placemaking is having its moment. It is talked about and delivered by planners and policy makers, artists, architects, activists and communities across the globe. We have Project for Public Spaces’ international cohort of placemakers, Placemaking Leadership Council. We have conferences the world over taking placemaking as their theme. We have multiple academic papers and media articles on placemaking. We have city authority’s worldwide naming and adopting placemaking approaches in their strategic plans. 

Placemaking is grounded specifically in the work of such urban heavyweights as Jan Gehl[i], Holly Whyte[ii], Jane Jacobs[iii], Kevin Lynch[iv] and Gordon Cullen[v], and theorists such as Lefebvre[vi], de Certeau[vii] and Bourriaud[viii], all of whom are referenced frequently in contemporary texts (and in this issue) and projects. A read of placemaking pedagogy and project descriptions, it would seem sometimes that there as many different definitions of placemaking as there are placemakers. 

Now then is the time – with longevity, depth, breadth and variety of placemakings - to take a critical look at what placemaking is, what it does, and what economic, social, cultural and environmental claims are made of it.

This issue of EDGEcondition aims to be part of that critical placemaking discourse. Reflecting the global nature of the placemaking sector, this issue is international, with articles from Japan, USA, China, UK, Israel, Canada, Australia and Germany. The issue starts with conversations on the definition, ethos and practices of placemaking and then moves on to show various forms of placemaking, from the ‘top-down’ to the ‘bottom-up’, to explore just how many different placemaking practices there are and the diverse actors involved in them and resulting outcomes.

This issue is by no means a definitive answer to ‘the placemaking question’, but it is a part of a conversation the placemaking sector, its ‘professional’ and ‘non-professional’ constituents need to be having, to understand placemaking better and to communicate it more effectively outside of our sector. 

Cara and Gem

[i] Gehl, J., 1971, Life between Buildings: Using Public Space, Van Nostrand Forlag, New York. 
[ii] Whyte, W. H., 1980, The Social Life of Small Public Space, Conservation Foundation, Washington DC. 
[iii] Jacobs, J., 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities: The Failure of Modern Town Planning, Peregrine Books, London.
[iv] Lynch, K., 1960, The image of the city, MIT Press, Cambrdge, MA. 
[v] Cullen, G., 1961, Townscape, Architectural Press, London.
[vi] Lefebvre, H., 1991, The Production of Space, Basil Blackwell, London. 
[vii] de Certeau, M., 1984, The practice of everyday life, University of California Press, California. 
[viii] Bourriaud, N., 1998, Relational Aesthetics, in Participation, Bishop, C. (ed), Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, London, 2006. 

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