THE SCENIC ROUTE

Getting Started with Creative Placemaking

Our Eight Approaches

Great places rely on good infrastructure combined with a meaningful mix of programming, public spaces and diverse economic opportunity for the people who then inhabit and bring them to life. The eight approaches outlined below represent proven avenues to improve partnerships while better knitting together all of the above.

By using these approaches for tapping into the social networks built around arts and culture, you can earn the trust of your community. By identifying sites of cultural significance, you can be mindful and inclusive of them in planning infrastructure and redevelopment projects.

In The Scenic Route, we outline eight basic approaches to creative placemaking to help you get started. Each approach consists of three things: an intro page with some basic information about the approach, a section called “Get Inspired: Local Examples” that typically provides at least one local, concrete example to provide some inspiration, and a section called “Go Deeper” which provides more detailed resources. The eight approaches we unpack in this resource below are not a linear list, nor do they represent the limit of what’s possible for you and your region or community.

Click on any approach below to jump right in.

 

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Get Inspired: Local Examples

Seattle integrates arts and culture across departments

Seattle, WA

Seattle was one of the first cities in the country to pass a public arts ordinance (in 1973) and to make one percent of the budget for any eligible capital project available for the commission, purchase and installation of artworks in a variety of settings. Now, artists not only develop public art plans, but also integrate art into the city department’s routine work and infrastructure, while the regional transit agency partners on a suite of arts engagement programs.

Artist in the DOT

In 2013, Seattle DOT’s hired an artist to develop an art plan which “is focused as a plan of action,” according to an online introduction, “comprehensively detailing how Seattle can become a national leader in creating a more humane, layered, beautiful and relevant transportation system.” The introduction continues:

“It offers a completely new methodology for rethinking the practicality and use of our shared right-of-way. By employing the work of artists, the creativity of citizens and the ingenuity of SDOT employees, the gradual implementation of this plan will contribute significantly to a Seattle whose streets and sidewalks celebrate life, discovery and creativity.”

The plan, available in three parts, provides an overview and visual encyclopedia of art in the right-of-way as well as a toolkit for project managers with handy one-page examples of various project types.

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The Architecture of Endlessness designed and painted by NKO, a mural on the Red Wall surrounding the Link Capitol Hill Station. Flickr photo by Sound Transit https://www.flickr.com/photos/soundtransit/7950801038

Vaughn Bell, while employed as an artist at the Seattle DOT, spoke of her common ground with her colleagues in an interview with Americans for the Arts.

“For me, it resides in a fascination with how people experience places. Adding a subtle finish to a concrete wall or an imprint to a sidewalk, on a project which would otherwise be concerned almost entirely with ‘moving goods and people’ through the city, I am hoping that we can create a moment for a higher degree of attention and connection to the place.”

Regional and local programming

“Community members have come to expect arts engagement as part of the transit project development process” Sound Transit Art Program Manager Barb Luecke told us in an interview. Among the collaborations, Metro Transit in King County has involved youth and other members of the community in designing and painting murals at local stops since 1989. Metro contributes panels and paint, and members of the community donate their artistic talent.

More recently, Metro expanded the scope and depth of its programming in partnership with King County’s cultural services agency, 4Culture. Since 1992, Metro Transit and 4Culture have presented poetry from community members on placards placed above the bus seats. In 2015, the Poetry on Buses program expanded to include poetry workshops in five languages, an online poetry portal, and digital artworks designed for mobile devices meant to be accessed on (and call attention to) the region’s new Wi-Fi-enabled rapid bus service, RapidRide.

Supporting local culture

The City of Seattle also provides grants for facility renovation or new construction to nonprofits that can demonstrate a record of ongoing artistic or cultural accomplishments.

Next: Go Deeper with Integrating the Arts Into Design, Construction and Engineering

About Us

Transportation for America

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

t4america.org

Thank You

This report was made possible through the generous support of the Kresge Foundation.

The Kresge Foundation “focuses on the role arts and culture play in re-energizing the communities that have long been central to America’s social and economic life,” believing that “arts and culture are an integral part of life and, when embedded in cross-sector revitalization activity, can contribute to positive and enduring economic, physical, social and cultural change in communities.” Kresge also supported projects detailed in this report in Nashville, Portland, San Diego and Detroit.