Critical placemaking is the crafting, re-crafting, and redefinition the spaces and places of everyday life. Drawing on ideas from information and library science, cultural studies, urban theory, rhetoric, architecture (both landscape and otherwise), civil engineering, and design, the concept has two main goals. On one hand, it allows people to reassess the places they find themselves living and working in, and on the other it lets them actively redefine those places and spaces.
In all kinds of ways! Starting a compost heap, setting out a bin for aluminum cans, building a weather station to check humidity levels, or even mowing a lawn are all examples that can have immediate outcomes. Yet not all critical placemaking practices are as "big" a deal; simply walking across a room is an example of critical placemaking, since you are "making" your own relationship with a place by moving through it. This applies to actions that have negative results as well; a riot is a critical placemaking concept as much as building a house is.
Yes, and it re-centers the spatial part of that. The bigger point is to think about how you are somewhere as much as where you are. If you are not considering that, then you can't design, you can't build things, you can't politically activate yourself, you can't protest, and you can't engage with the world around you beyond just "being there." Turns out, being there is a lot of work in and of itself!
At some point I intend to put together a reading list of spatial scholarship, links, etc., but my dissertation deals with the topic in terms of reconditioning used shipping containers... so you could start there if you want.
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