This is a first of a series of blogs that I want to write about something that I feel very passionate about and have spent a good part of my life trying to understand. Why do I like a certain location? What makes me comeback? How does it work?
I want to organize my ideas, discover and document connections and concepts that I intuitively know and learned through my professional career, and publish it all in a book later.
What's a Place? According to dictionary.com, there are 29 different meanings to the word Place. For the proposes of our discussion and in an architectural sense a Place is a designed environment with components that make it a destination, a location of interest, where people like to go to and visit.
Architects use the word Place to denote something that's more than a building. A Place may include a building (or buildings) and their surrounding environment or it may not. Some architects go as far as using the term Placemaking to describe the brand of work that they do.
Jon Jerde , President of the Jerde Partnership and one of the pioneers of placemaking, coined the phrase "Experience makes the place" which they proudly print on their business cards to communicate what they do to their clients.
Walt Disney understood how to create a Place very well, by creating a transformational environment. A magical world.
Ustad Ahmad Lahauri created one of the most visited monuments on earth. The Taj Mahal is not just the mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal; people go there to experience Taj Mahal the Place; the mausoleum is only a part of it.
It's clear that the definition of Place is loose, fluid and hard to put in a container. Precisely why I am writing this series of blogs/articles to analyze, document the ideas, components and methodology of the Art of Placemaking and (hopefully) make a science out of it in the process.
My intention is to keep this series of blogs interactive and look forward to your input in the comments area. Your comments will definitely improve and enhance the discussion as well as our understanding of the topic.
