The Communication working group at Placemaking Europe over the past months has worked to establish a new section in The Journal of Public Space dedicated to Placemaking, upon the invitation of the Editor in Chief and Placemaking Europe Leader Luisa Bravo during the Placemaking Week in Valencia in 2019. This collaboration takes place in the backdrop of growing knowledge and interest in placemaking both in academia and in practice. The section on ‘Placemaking: theory, practice, and tools’ is intended to include the mix of theoretical and practical examples in order to explore both how academic researchers are dealing with defining and contextualizing placemaking research and how the existing theoretical knowledge can be embodied in practical projects.

Placemaking can be goal-oriented, aimed at creating an impact on issues such as climate adaptation, healthy cities, conflict, inclusivity. Placemaking can also be process-oriented, aimed at participation, self-organization, self-management, formality-informality interaction, temporality, exploration, and experimentation. Contribution to this dedicated section can address the definition and theory of placemaking, goals, and impact, governance, different forms and contexts of placemaking, and methods and (analog and technological) tools for placemaking. Academic contributions will undergo a process of double-blind peer review, while practice-based articles, reflecting projects on the ground and sourced from practitioners, will undergo an editorial review and will be published as viewpoints.

For questions or information, please write an email to the Section Editor Beitske Boonstra at boonstra@essb.eur.nl