On Wednesday 30 August, we will host an open session, together with Hanna Harris and Salla Ahokas from the City of Helsinki’s Urban Environment Division, on the value of placemaking as an approach to city strategy.  We are very excited to participate in this event for city officials, which aims to showcase the power of placemaking as an approach to creating healthy, inclusive and lovable communities in cities. During the session we will discuss the strategic aspect of placemaking, the elements of place-led development, as well as the case study of Rotterdam and Helsinki and their journeys of implementing placemaking into the city-wide strategic. We will look at how placemaking can be a bridge between different fields and departments, bringing us together to co-create better cities for all.

The session will consist of 4 sections:

Introduction to placemaking

In the first session of the day, we will explore the concept of Placemaking – a practical approach to creating healthy, inclusive and lovable communities around places. We will discuss how it can inspire people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community and facilitate creative patterns of use, with particular attention to the physical, cultural and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

Presented by: Ramon Marrades, Placemaking Europe

Key principles of placemaking and the value of place-led development

This session will start by exploring examples of successful public spaces and discussing what

elements and characteristics make them great places. But as we think about public spaces

and how to create vibrant areas, we also need to consider who has the resources and tools to

develop them, from both the private and public sectors. To do this, we will look at placemaking and culture in urban development and how a place-led approach can improve the ability of urban areas to thrive and create the conditions to align the goals of different stakeholders to create a better city for all.

Presented by: Hans Karssenberg, STIPO, Placemaking Europe

International benchmark: 15 years of placemaking in Rotterdam

In the later part of the seminar, we will hear from Emiel Arends – Senior Advisor and Urban

Planner, working at the Municipality of Rotterdam, which will show us how the city of Rotterdam has been integrating the placemaking approach in the planning system. Based on Rotterdam’s 15 years of placemaking experience, we will explore how placemaking can work as a tool to its role to address different urban challenges such as climate adaptation.

Presented by: Emiel Arends, Municipality of Rotterdam

Co-creating cities – connecting people, places and planning – Case study of Helsinki

We will conclude the seminar part by delving deeper into the local placemaking actions that have taken place in Helsinki. We will hear from Helsinki’s local placemaking leader Päivi Raivio who has used the placemaking approach in different projects. We will reflect on the goals, challenges and lessons learned from recent placemaking projects in terms of how they can be scaled up to have an impact not only at the street level, but also at the neighbourhood and city level.

Presented by: Päivi Raivio, RaivioBumann

In case of any questions about this event, contact us at marta.popiolek@placemaking-europe.eu