Western Australian Projects and Sites
www.placesforme.info
intro / overview / images / projects
Landscape Architects: HASSELL Ltd, Perth
CLIENT: Young Designers Group (design based think-tank of young HASSELL designers)
OVERVIEW
www.placesforme.info is a free and open web forum developed to seek public opinion on the places that make up our cities. It is a tool which individuals and communities can use to contribute to the planning and development decisions affecting the places in which they live, work and play. Armed with a powerful web based interface the website is interactive encouraging people to post opinions, suggestions and solutions to the urban grittiness of the places they love and those they think could be better….
The strength of the website is the inbuilt data base that can extrapolate place making data to give a real-time public opinion on the qualities of ‘place’ based on the place making values developed by PPS – used in this website under exclusive agreement.
www.placesforme.info is a powerful community tool used by a number of local government agencies to assist them in understanding the quality of the public realm. For the first time a place making tool is making it easier for decision makers to appreciate the value placed on the public realm by residents, users and communities.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
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A powerful place making tool for communities and governments
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Easy-to use and visually familiar
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Reaches people who might not normally get involved in public comment processes
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A Free and open forum for users to upload and discuss their ideas
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Allows users to rate a place and compare it to others
BUDGET:
$15,000
DESCRIPTION:
www.placesforme.info is a communication and research tool focussed on the value of place making. It was conceived and developed by a team of landscape architects and young designers to gather real ‘data’ on the value and rating of places by the very people who use them – the public. Its value to date is not so much on the ‘craft of landscape architecture’ but rather how to craft landscape architecture around a foundation of sound place making theory. The website has unlimited potential as the value, knowledge and application of place making develops around the world.
The idea and structure of www.placesforme.info is simple; it links a blog and a place based data program with Google maps. Linking these three components together has established a quick and easy ‘place’ based rating and commentary tool in which city locations can be assessed and rated statistically. The community now have the ability to rate ‘places’ based on the place making insights of William (Holly) Whyte, a pioneer in understanding the way people use public spaces and the recent works of Project for Public Spaces (PPS) in New York. www.placesforme.info takes this established and respected approach to a contemporary and accessible frontier. With the ability to extract raw data and comments as statistical outputs, developers, councils and government agencies can use this public forum to guide and/or influence policy and development options. This is the first community based web tool available and challenges the fundamental way we rank and rate the public realm.
www.placesforme.info is a website that is constantly being refined to ensure the user experience is clear, concise and relevant.
At a glance, a visitor can get a clear indication of the websites purpose and is able to quickly navigate by tabs to various areas of the site. Although registration is required in order to post ideas and comments, visitors can still participate in the chat forum by reading all comments with the ability to see statistical overviews of places and sites of interest.
www.placesforme.info collates public opinion and statistical data. In this regard it is acknowledged that there are 2 main audience types; the active participant, and the passive participant. The websites content is displayed and accessed in a variety of ways to suit.
Active Participant – There are two types of active participants; those who upload ideas, rate places and discuss places; and those who use the information to assist their own various interests or research analysis. All users require their particular data sets to be easily found and accessed in a logical format. The website has therefore been designed to be engaged with active participants on a number of levels. At the primary level, users are prompted through a process which allows them to upload their ideas / comments in a number of different visual and text-based formats. Once complete, their idea is loaded up onto the website as part of the public forum viewed by all visitors. In this way, a user can see other ideas, comments and ratings, depending on their particular place of interest and engage at the desired level by navigating through the website in a step-by-step process to share and discuss their idea. At the other end of the scale, if a policy maker or landscape architect requires raw data and concepts to assist in place making policies, these can be easily extracted and used in statistical analysis.
Passive Participant – It was an important consideration to design the website for users who use it as a reference or catalogue of ideas, and are involved in discussion ‘at arms length’. Interacting in this way allows anyone to view and read the place making ideas on the website and be involved in the dialogue. It is hoped that by doing this, passive users will eventually become active participants with their own interactions with people and place.
The website is an important first step in the community consultation and interaction process but gives a clear indication of current issues and trends.
The website has been successful to date in regards to the quality of content being uploaded, and of it’s ’self-policing’ honesty system. Registration ensures a level of ownership and accountability for the ideas and comments a user will upload. The system relies on the community aspect of web contribution with registered users being able to take off-line anyone who abuses the public forum.
Addresses the Australian Landscape Principles
Value the existing environment
www.placesforme.info brings value to the existing web environment by promoting place making discussion in a global community. In order for the website to have purpose, there needs to be level of public participation, comments, ideas and place ratings. For these to be uploaded users must have a degree of passion for their place; they need to dedicate their own thoughts and creativity to their ideas, and therefore demonstrate an intimate connection with place. All ideas are based on their individual responses to something that they want their place to become, something it’s lost, or to something that they want to protect and enhance.
Intervene with respect for the present
The website is a constantly evolving with online content reviewed to determine issues and trends influencing a community. The website provides a searchable database of place content, and in the future will offer an insight into how these issues and trends change over time. Currently however it shows that positive change can occur as a result of community sentiment gathering enough momentum to create a tipping point – on www.placesforme.info, this is represented by a design response or comment, or by a council choosing to capture this energy to use in the visioning and planning stages of a new development. In this way, any of the ideas or issues on the website can become real initiatives if they are in tune with the present concerns and motives of a community.
The most important aspect of ‘places for me’ is that it facilitates a link between the user of a place, a change agent (developer or local authority) and ultimately the policy makers who are involved in moulding the frameworks in which places manifest themselves. Clients choosing to use www.placesforme.info to garner community sentiment in relation to development options and/or policy changes have successfully been able to gauge an understanding of their place. In many instances the community have been invited to participate in the process and therefore assist in development direction. The website aims to influence place making decisions based on capturing community sentiment – a tool ultimately used by the profession of landscape architecture to design resilient and adaptable people places.
intro / overview / images / projects
2010
