SCHNEEKLOTHand SHIBLEY
SCHNEEKLOTHand SHIBLEY
SCHNEEKLOTHand SHIBLEY
121-144 (1993)
Summary
The professional and academic pratice of architects, landscape architects, planners,
and facility managers is presented as sharing the fundamental aim of placemaking. This
article presents two stories of placemaking, one in community development and
another about an intervention into an office environment. Both stories demonstrate that
our collective practice can be inclusive, creating places that are sustained over time
with the cooperation of occupants and managers, and neighbourhoods and
;ommunities. A primary task of the placemaking practitioner, as we have come to
understand it through practice, is the creation of a special space for dialogue about the
purposes of places and the implications for actions. Within the dialogic space,
professionnals and inhabitants collectively confirm, interrogate, and frame action
through including and excluding people, outlining the boundaries of action, and
selecting methods which privilege various forms of knowledge. Through this process,
the abstractions of general knowledge from building research and other sources
becomes situated in specific places. These tasks in the practice of placemaking
structure relationships between people and their world, and must therefore be considered
inherently political and moral acts which have the possibility of creating beloved
places.
1 . Introduction
Those of us engaged in researching, planning, designing, constructing, and man-
aging places can be said to share a practice of placemaking, that is, the continual pro-
cess of making, transforming, and owning the world. Placemaking, like any practice,
is distinguished by its collective aim and ways of working to achieve that aim
(Ruddick, 1989, 13-14). This practice is inclusive of a wide range of activities for
which we assume responsibility including design, construction, research, management,
etc. Further, it includes those of us who call ourselves architects, engineers, planners,
researchers, professors, facility managers, or product designers, wherever we may be
located -in public service, the university, industry or professional practice.
In most industrialized countries, placemaking has been assigned to, or perhaps
even been appropriated by, professionals and academics. Professional placemakers are
given expert status regarding various knowledge and practice domains, and offer their
services according to the dictates of "professionalism" -attempting to meet the needs
of those who have requested our services. In another value framework, however, and
the one we are exploring here, the work of professional placemakers might be
understood as enabling and facilitating others in the various acts of placemaking. This
enabling and facilitation is performed as part of the process of offering expertise in
discreet acts of planning, design, scientific inquiry, representation, construction,
destruction and maintenance.
In this article we tell two placemaking stories in which we worked as profes-
sional placemakersl with the constituencies of the places. Placemaking in our stories
is understood as a form of inclusive and enabling practice which can establish a way to
sustain a place over time with the full cooperation of occupants, facility managers, in-
stitutional leadership, community groups, and others affected by place according to
their aspirations and requirements. In addition, it allows us to use buildings and their
landscape settings as opportunities for organizational development, thus adding value
to institutional investments in places. An element of the contribution of placemaking
as a form of practice is the way it reveals how building research knowledge becomes
situated in a place, thus helping to both sustain a place over time and facilitate occu-
The authors practice both in the academy, holding positions at the School of Architecture and
Planning, State University of New York at Buffalo, and as partners in The Caucus Partnership, Consultants
on Environmental and Organizational Change. The firm was founded in 1973 and is used as a vehicle for
inquiry on the idea of placemaking. Caucus has been awarded over 200 commissions for public and
private clients in four countries and 12 states.
The firm name, The Caucus Partnership, comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the
story of the caucus race in which the Dodo Bird facilitates the drying of all the creatures wet from Alice's
tears. There is an aim to the caucus race - getting dry - but there are no rules, no official beginning and no
official end. In response to Alice's question about who won, the Dodo Bird says. "Everybody has won, and
all must have prizes" (Carroll, 1972, 31). We have found this to be an apt metaphor for our own practice in
which we share the aim of placemaking and everybody winning, but all else is open to the work of all.
The Practice of Placemaking 123
Foucault's (1970) archeology of knowledge demonstrates the process by which one form of
knowing becomes subjugated or marginalized in favour of others. "By subjugated knowledges I mean two
things: on one hand, I am referring to the historical contents that have been buried and disguised...blocks
of historical knowledge which were present but disguised within the body of functionalist and systematizing
theory and which criticisms draws upon and reveals...On the other hand, I believe that by subjugated
knowledges one should understand something else, something which in a sense is altogether different,
namely a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently
elaborated: naive knowledges...(p opular knowledge)...a particular, local regional knowledge...which is
opposed by everything around it - that through the re-appearance of this knowledge, of these local popular
knowledges, these disqualified knowledges, that criticism performs its work" (Foucault quoted in Giroux
1988, 99-100).
124 Lynda Schneekloth & Robert Shibley
rion through decisions about who should be included and what boundaries should be
applied to any given problem or opportunity. After telling the stories, we will offer
some comments on the tasks we have come to see as fundamental to professional
placemaking in support of the goal of making places for and with people.
2. The Stories
The Planning Process: Although the vision was clear, the course of action to in-
form, involve, organize and mediate all the subjects of this project was not. At the
same time as the City Manager was working administratively to facilitate the initia-
tion of a new planning process and the mayor was creating a vision of what might
happen, Earl Reynolds, as Chief of Community Development, began meeting with lo-
cal leaders to discuss what this partnership might be, gaining insights and suggestions
from which he framed a skeleton scope of work for the consultants. This scope was
fleshed out through an on-going dialogue among what we are referring to as The
Collaborative Group -city officials, the consultants, and representatives from various
organizations and neighbourhoods across the city. Because of our proximity with
Roanoke and previous work with the city, we were involved in the earliest stages of
Reynold's investigations, thinking through with him how general ideas of
neighbourhood planning might be specifically suited to the context of Roanoke,
Virginia.
The consultant team was headed by Buckhurst Fish Hutton & Katz and included
Thomas Means Associates, Margaret Grieve, and The Caucus Partnership. We were
brought into the city to design and facilitate a planning process, and to assist the city
in structuring a neighbourhood process through confirming and interrogating their
work and our intervention. Our tasks included how to locate this project in relation to
the city's on-going responsibilities, and to design an intervention strategy which
decides who plays, when, and how. Because a dialogue about neighbourhoods depends
on engaging the residents of the city in a critical reflection on their own communities,
a significant effort was spent to develop methods of communication to inform and en-
:age the people of Roanoke.
As a beginning, a major public issue forum, The Partnership Forum (November,
1980) was designed to introduce the idea of the Partnership to the over 700 people who
came to hear each other talk about what they loved about their neighbourhoods, and
what they were afraid of. This was the first time many public officials and business
leaders heard neighbourhood people talk about their communities - why they lived
there and what they hoped for their children. An especially poignant moment occurred
when Ms. Florence Thornhill of the Gilmer Avenue neighbourhood spoke. She had
never spoken to such a large group, but was determined to tell other people in the city,
business and civic leaders, and City Hall about her area of the city. She took the stage
and although her voice shook, she calmly told the group:
"I love my neighbourhood, but it isn't a good place for children to live. I
want to talk to you about rats. I want to tell you about houses that bum down,
killing young people, because the house is so drafty and the wood stove faulty."
Stories were told about many places in the small city, about their parent's com-
mitment to the neighbourhoods in which they now lived, about the beautiful views of
the valley, about special friends. This was a beginning of a new relationship between
the people of City Hall and the people of the neighbourhoods, a space of dialogue to
displace assumptions, misunderstandings, and silence.
The consultants and city official decided to begin the city-wide intervention by
designing and implementing a neighbourhood planning process in four racially and so-
cio-economically diverse neighbourhoods as a way to test the robustness of the
intervention strategy. It was assumed that this partnership process must be able to
work for the whole city, not just some sectors. A generalized profile of the four
126 Lynda Schneekloth B Robert Shibley
consultants in preparation, in debriefing after each meeting, and on-going meetings in-
between with neighbourhoods to assist them in doing their "homework." Our work
was particular and targeted to the different groups as each neighbourhood framed their
own concerns and ways of working, some emphasizing visual presentation of material,
others using more aural forms of interaction. Some groups needed much more
assistance than others to learn how to access City Hall, how to frame questions so that
city staff could respond, how to prepare a plan, etc. The action plans which emerged
from the on-going homework assignments and presented and confirmed at the last
workshop truly belonged to the people of the neighbourhoods, enabled and facilitated
by members of The Collaborative Group.
The structure and intervention of this professional consulting was not unlike
community development work characteristic of the late 1960s and the 1970s in which
local governments, mandated through community development legislation, were re-
quired to hold a meeting to ask residents what they wanted. What was uncharacteristic,
however, was the openness of the space within which we, the city, neighbourhood and
community leaders, worked together in creating the planning process and in learning
from each other. Within this space, the process was generated, experimented with, cri-
tiqued, and learned intimately by all participants. A planning process was situated in
the city of Roanoke and specifically tailored for each neighbourhood. What finally
emerged was a homegrown version of neighbourhood participatory action planning that
has been sustained for over 12 years.
It was evident from the level of excitement and the number of people who com-
mitted their time and energy, that the Roanoke Neighbourhood Partnership had suc-
ceeded in capturing the imagination of the people of the city - people in individual
neighbourhoods, people who worked in City Hall, people active in the non-profit sec-
tor, and people in business who wanted to be contributing members of the commu-
nity. The placemaking practice had created an energetic conversation among the many
sectors of the city who had come together to think about and envision their
neighbourhood and their city.
However, the maintenance of that dialogic space would have to be transferred
when the work of the consultants was completed. The experience, energy and compas-
sion that the consultants had brought to the emergence of the Roanoke Neighbourhood
Partnership had been indispensable, especially in the creation of the space for critical
discourse about our collective work. Yet, professional placemakers leave when their
contracts are finished - they are often "out-of-town consultants" and almost always
"out-of-place." This is always a period of critical transition and the place where many
projects become simply a "feel-good" experience for participants. How could Roanoke
maintain the energy and structure of dialogue? How could the city government institu-
tionalize the activities sufficiently to make it possible to continue, but loosely enough
that the fragile process might grow and change?
Part of our intervention as professionals was addressed specifically to the issue of
institutionalizing the Partnership. We helped the City develop a strategy that would
serve to maintain the special space for the conversation about placemaking in the
neighbourhoods. The City Council created a position of Neighbourhood Coordinator as
part of the Office of Community Development. The Council also named a Steering
Committee made up of diverse community representation to guide the Roanoke
Neighbourhood Partnership. Programs were instituted, such as the "Mini-Grant"
program which gave small grants to neighbourhoods for projects; Eyesore Alert gave
128 Lynda Schneekloth & Robert Shibley
residents direct access to the building inspectors office; Operation Paintbrush found
volunteeqs to assist in rehabilitation work. And the office of the Roanoke
Neighbourhood Partnership, situated inside City Hall, gave the community access to
the City that they had not had. These initiatives were created to facilitate and enable the
continued work of placemaking in Roanoke.
Removing Demotivators as Critical Practice: Neighbourhood planning processes
are usually begun with great excitement, but often fail to sustain themselves because
they are added to already existing city programs and to the workload of city staff who
feel that they are already fully employed. If we wanted this placemaking effort to con-
tinue to make a difference in people's lives, we realized that we would have to under-
stand how the Roanoke Neighbourhood Partnership fit into and/or could transform the
current organizational structure and standard operating procedures of City Hall, and how
it could belong to many people, not just the Office of Community Development.
This critical practice involved the confirmation and interrogation of the work of
the city in neighbourhood issues. We identified and suggested ways to reinforce the re-
wards city staff currently got from meeting the needs of neighbourhoods groups, and
identified and attempted to remove the demotivators, - those structural and institu-
tional impediments to creative placemaking in the city and neighbourhoods. The
Partnership, although couched in the language of utopian possibilities, was neverthe-
less realistic and critical. The work around the idea of demotivators to neighbourhood
work was one of the most important tasks of the project and many hours were spent
uncovering and reframing the work of City Hall in relationship to the neighbourhoods
and conversely, the relationship of the neighbourhoods to City Hall.
It was often repeated at neighbourhood meetings that one of the major obstacles
to getting things done in the neighbourhoods was "City Hall." Like all institutions,
the local government had, over time, organized itself to be accountable and efficient.
As with many bureaucratic structures, people were rewarded for getting their routine
work done efficiently - not by complicating their work and creating new problems. In
this context, the idiosyncratic demands of neighbourhoods are often interpreted as
interruptions and complications that keep one from doing a good job. It is easier to
develop structures and a manner of work that "demotivate" community people from
making demands.
It would have been a convenient organizing device to declare that City Hall was
truly the "bad guy" and that the reason that your neighbourhood wasn't everything you
wanted it to be was because of "those people" who work there. This scapegoat strategy
is often used as a community organizing mechanism in advocacy planning and is very
effective as a short-term strategy. But we had started with the assumption that people
are competent placemakers - people in neighbourhoods and people in City Hall. The
Collaborative Group involved in the intervention refused to use this process as the way
to unify neighbourhoods, recognizing the liabilities of such a method. If the Roanoke
Neighbourhood Partnership were going to work, it needed the people in the
neighbourhoods and all of City Hall. We had to find the demotivators which prevented
engineers, social workers, administrators, secretaries - everybody - from engaging
community people, and to create rewards for working with the neighbourhoods.
We engaged in careful and specific work in deconstructing current processes and
procedures to understand the existing reward system which inadvertently resulted in
demotivators to working with neighbourhoods. This work was not always easy; it de-
manded an honesty and openness on the part of all participants. But framing it within a
The Practice of Placemaking 129
discourse that affirmed people's good intentions made difficult conversations easier and
facilitated a willingness to explore other forms of working. Further, through the
various planning projects representing the Action Plans of the four beginning
neighbourhoods, we were able to demonstrate to city staff that neighbourhood people
could be allies to getting things done that they knew had to be done, and in even
gathering data for certain efforts such as was done in the Williamsom Road area on the
unremitting flooding problem.
The removal of demotivators started at the top. When the Mayor, City Manager,
and Chief of Community Development focused their attention on neighbourhoods and
were willing to spend their own evenings at community meetings, this signaled a
change in business as usual. City staff were publically recognized and rewarded for
their efforts on behalf of individual neighbourhoods, encouraged to engage
neighbourhood folks and spend time helping them resolve identified problems. This
changed reward system enabled employees to conceive of their work differently: many
began to see themselves as educators and communicators, not just hassled employees.
And through the newly created space for dialogue in which conversations between city
officials and neighbourhood folks occurred, the workings of City Hall became more
transparent to the citizens, removing a major demotivator to calling on the city as new
understanding and competence developed.
"The real story of the Partnership centres around the new spirit of hope
and optimism in Roanoke's neighbourhoods. We think that people have begun
to believe that they can shape their neighbourhood's destiny if they are willing
to invest their time and energy. Every newly mowed vacant lot in the
Northwest, every recently painted house in Southeast, every monthly edition of
the Forum in Northeast, and every tree planted in Southwest is a testimony to
people's faith in themselves, their neighbourhood, their city. This faith is what
makes complex projects possible and helps people find the courage to form new
groups." (Lewis W. Peery, Chair, RNP Steering Committee, 1984)
Such activity reveals the power of placemaking as a democratic project when the
commitqent to an on-going dialogue about the never-ending creation of place is made
and continually remade by people in places.
anticipating full PC automation and networking five years hence. The Facilities
Management Section had to establish the infrastructure for the systems including ev-
erything from office automation furniture, telephoneldata communications, and local
area network system support. The caller was clear that the staff in the department was
very competent and capable of making the correct technical decisions. But they needed
to develop a way to do it so the relationship with the rest of the Institute staff was ac-
tually better after they finished rather that repeat the phone "fiasco." In short, the caller
requested help in using the technical decision process they were about to undertake to
address the organizational development goal of restoring trust between her section, her
superiors, and the large majority of Institute personnel who were to be affected by the
automation project.
The User Perspective on Office Automation: A variety of circumstances in the
modern office work environment argue for working in a way that facilitates trust be-
tween organizational elements. Without such trust there is no clear communication and
decision-making is based on damage control thinking rather than the creative advance
of the organization (Gibb, 1963). A process of working through "so-called" technical
decisions which have broad impact is an excellent opportunity to establish both
competent technical decisions and organizational development as management goals for
a project.
One central strategy we employ in pursuing the dual goals is to include users of
all ranks affected by decisions in a process which facilitates repair and change rather
than working toward fixed, unbreakable or more "permanent" solutions. Rapidly
changing computing and communications technology and the continuing rise in per-
sonnel costs make for constantly changing equipment, new organizational designs, and
changes in personnel assignments. Such dynamics inevitably mean new people on the
job, new insights on how the job might be done, and even why it might be done. It
can also mean increased error rates and a loss of learning curve efficiencies. All of these
circumstances suggest a process of engaging people in decisions affecting how they do
their work so that both new and existing staff "own" their work tasks. Involving them
in decisions about the on-going repair of their work place is a form of on-the-job
training as well as on-the-job work designing.
An approach which consciously focuses on the facilitation of repair creates the
conditions for continued reflection on the appropriateness of work place design, new
hardware requirements, and current work procedures. If the ability to repair or improve
all of these and other dynamics of the work place is perceived as accessible to all, if the
process of repair is comprehensible and encouraged, then physical solutions to man-
agement and job design problems are considered in tandem with the organizational so-
lutions, resulting in more integrated and informed organizational renewal. For exam-
ple, new office automation furniture means new inventory designations and procedures,
more complex processes of furniture delivery to the office work place, more complex
assembly and computer hook-up dynamics involving more than one facility or com-
puting specialization, a change in requisition procedures that more closely relates furni-
ture requirements to specific hardware requirements, etc. Further reflection on all of
this leads to a reconsideration of who should get which types of hardware and why. All
of which leads to repaired procedures to procure and deliver furniture systems and
repaired work procedure in the office receiving the computing and furniture systems.
We introduced the "facilitation of repair" theme to the Facilities Management
Section but did not impose it, encouraging them to open the dialogue with eventual
132 Lynda Schneekloth & Robert Shibley
users of the new computing systems and see if such a concept might emerge through
the collatoration. In the process of collaboration through workshops, surveys, and test
furniture1 computer hardware installations, there was a clear resistance from the users
to any wholesale change without several tests of appropriateness. They wanted to see
several options, test some of them in scattered sites throughout the building, and then
test a preferred set of options in whole departments of the Institute. There was a
general request for ways to adjust what was eventually to be acquired to meet new
demands as they occurred. In short, there was a very sophisticated call for the fa-
cilitation of repair that recognized that, for example, "printers might not always be this
big and noisy and someday they may require a lot more power to operate," "computers
seem to be getting smaller," and ". . . space for computer manuals is needed at first but
after a while I never refer to them any more." There was no assumption by the
Institute staff collaborating with the Facilities Management Section that things should
be maintained "like new." They wanted the ability to adjust to new organizational, in-
terpersonal, individual, and technological demands as they occurred.
The sequence of events after the initial telephone call involved first a small meet-
ing with the staff of the Facilities Management Section which was designed to list all
their aspirations for the office automation project and for the process it would employ.
Given that list and a beginning understanding of the organizational structure of the
Institute, we (the Facilities Management Section and Caucus) collaboratively devel-
oped a preliminary "proposed approach" to the project which would be an invitation for
comment. The first step was to prepare and conduct a series of briefings on the ap-
proach for a group of Administrative Officers who represent administrative support
functions for all of the operating divisions. These 22 Administrative Officers service
operating departments in the Institute by handling their procurement requests, facilities
and computing needs, routine personnel paperwork processing, training requests, etc.
They had the ear of both the boss and the rest of the unit. These were also the people
who complained the most vigorously about the telephone decisions. They were an
important group with which to start in the establishment of a new relationship be-
tween the Facilities Management Section and the rest of the Institute personnel.
The Administrative Officer briefing began with the honest expression of a desire
to avoid the dynamics of the telephone system procurement as the Institute moved
forward with its office automation project. In essence, the Facilities Management
Section and Caucus began by confirming what they perceived to be the experience of
the Administrative Officers in past work. The briefing was presented as an invitation
to the Adminhtrative Officers to interrogate that experience and influence how best to
proceed with staff and management consultations. We indicated that we were less in-
terested in consensus than on commitment to the actions necessary to make the office
automation project successful in the eyes of those who would be affected by it. The
briefing was approximately fifteen minutes long and left a full 45 minutes for ques-
tions, discussion, and summation. The questions and issues they raised were all
recorded on newsprint and all accounted for in a summation at the conclusion of the
session which involved suggested changes to the proposed approach.
The eventual approach resulting from the two rounds of collaboration, first with
the Facilities Management Section and then with the Administrative Officers, called
for a brief review of the literature on office automation and a tentative listing of fumi-
ture performance criteria. The review process employed the resident expertise of the in-
house design staff at the Institute, a literature review, and experience of personnel at
The Practice of Placemaking 133
Caucus. From these sources, a list of criteria were drafted to serve as the starting point
for a series of workshops drawing on a wide cross-section of the Institute staff that
would be the eventual end users of the furniture to be procured. Administrative Officers
decided to seek volunteers from among groups of representative user types for one-half
day workshop sessions that they also attended. In this fashion they were affirming the
value of the briefing-turned-workshop approach employed with them. They liked the
aspiration expressed by the Facilities Management Section for a fresh start and liked
the apparent openness of the discussion. They also felt that face-to-face discussions
like they had with the Facilities Management Section should also occur with users,
furthering the development of trust and ownership in the process. All of this was seen
as partially restoring some of the trust lost by the Facilities Management Section,
helping to fulfil the organizational development goal of the project.
The workshops were conducted in a way that allowed small groups to review the
tentative list of performance criteria, discuss their relative merits, and to add or subtract
criteria. The work sessions concluded with participants rank ordering the revised per-
formance criteria according to "importance," discussing proposed next steps, and ex-
pressing concerns on the further direction of the project.
One of the results of the workshops was the well received suggestion that the
project proceed slowly from performance specification to procurement so that some
small number of new office set-ups might be tested in-use prior to the large volume
buying that was anticipated. This suggestion, the test site program, became one of the
cornerstones of the office automation project, playing a major role in workspace
standards development, installation and inventory procedures development, a custom
furniture design modification project, and wire management studies.
Another return from the workshop was clarity on the furniture users' desires for
more horizontal work surface than they currently enjoyed and for more storage space to
accommodate computer manuals as well as other references related to the demands of
their newly emerging job descriptions. As already indicated, participants in the work-
shop also requested workstation flexibility so they could adjust to changing job de-
signs and computing equipment as it became available.
The clearly stated priorities combined with a number of other factors led the
Facilities Management Section to propose experimenting with renovations of the ex-
isting line of furniture at the Institute in addition to possible new vendor and furniture
line options. This "repair" of the existing furniture line appeared to accommodate the
user's perspective on the automation of their work environment while allowing the
Institute to maintain a 40 year relationship with a furniture manufacturer they had
come to know well and trust. The manufacturer was willing to re-tool to help with the
office automation modifications. Office automation and conventional furniture would
be "compatible," and there were real cost savings in that the existing inventory could
largely be reused.
In order to acquire feedback on this proposal to retool existing furniture, an open
house was scheduled for the entire Institute which attracted over 400 people. On dis-
play at the open house were some examples of the modified furniture as well as off-
the-shelf office automation furniture for staff to see and compare. The open house was
followed by another workshop with Administrative Officers and those designated to re-
ceive test furniture installations. This workshop was designed to review the proposed
"test-site" program. The users or "co-researchers" (Hirschorn, 1988) were invited to re-
view the entire test site protocol, challenging and in some cases modifying the
134 Lynda Schneekloth 8 Robert Shibley
approach in a way that would assure their creative contributions to what became a
month of on-site testing. For example, the participants in the test site wanted to add an
open log of their experiences to a structured set of essay type questions they were to
respond to at the end of each day. The log became a valuable tool recording
observations as they occurred for later reflection.
The process of inquiry, and the results of the inquiry, were always designed to re-
ceive different insights and to take advantage of them. It was never too late to influ-
ence. Even in the closing days of the automation project at the Institute, the office
standards, furniture inventory, and procedures for installation were still under revision.
The process and the product both facilitated repair and facilitated commitment to the
repair process.
Other Work at the Institute: Virtually every major commission we have since
received from the Institute involved the concept of facilitating repair. . .learning from
the act of implementing so future implementations could be still further improved or
reconfirmed. Often the work we would negotiate called for the delivery of a product and
an investigation into the way in which the product should be implemented. Workspace
Standards, Automated Procurement Systems Development, Local Area Network
Planning and other contracts all had a similar set of concerns for both the quality of the
new product and the modification of the product overtime to meet changing or newly
revealed needs. The experience of the office automation project helped to establish an
approach to contracting that was open ended, allowing the initial framing of the
problem to emerge through interviews and workshops intended to confirm and
interrogate the experience of those related to whatever problem was up for considera-
tion.
A clear intent of the Facility Management Section and Caucus in the facilitation
of repair was to involve enough members of the Institute in their facilities that they
might understand place as a strategic tool in the conduct of several aspects of their
work. The resulting, "aware client" makes better workstation requisitions and work
orders because they understand the rationale for why things are the way they are. The
procedures for improvement are accessible and not viewed as threatening to facilities
management staff when invoked. On the contrary, each request is analyzed for its im-
plications to the ongoing management of the rest of the facility. The facilities man-
agement staff and Institute personnel have, in effect, redefined error. Error is now seen
as both inevitable, given changing dynamics, and as part of the appropriate process of
repair. The Institute staff are co-researchers in the ongoing experimentation with facil-
ities management. This dynamic of enabling Institute personnel to help situate as well
as construct knowledge relevant to their workplace keeps them informed and committed
to the important tasks of sustaining the workplace.
One organizational development return to the Institute involved the evolution of
a very general approach to problem-solving which has been applicable well beyond the
scope of the facilities management mission. For example, even while the office au-
tomation project was in process, Caucus was requested to conduct a conflict resolution
process between two different organizational units with apparently conflicting agenda.
The request came to us when the units in conflict asked if it could be resolved "the way
we worked on the furniture project."
A potential conflict in the furniture project may serve to illustrate how tension
turns into creative solutions rather than a fight. Most of the staff of the Facilities
Management Section began the project with an assumption that new office automation
The Practice of Placemaking 135
furniture would be required to address the demands of the new technology. Renovating
the existing line thus saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, maintaining a compati-
ble system with the old line, and continuing a satisfying vendor relationship with the
old furniture manufacturer was not seen as a viable option because the users would ex-
pect "what they see in the magazines." It became easy to suggest this renovation ap-
proach, however, as the users described their performance criteria, including compati-
bility with existing furniture, including an ability to adjust such things as storage
shelves and work surface areas as hardware changes occurred, and as they expressed their
general satisfaction with the existing line for conventional office functions. It is pos-
sible that the Administrative Officers would have interpreted the modification of the
existing line as an attempt to cheat their people out of new office furniture if they had
not participated fully in that decision. The process of collaboration confirmed a set of
shared aspirations even while, through interrogation, some wholly new open office au-
tomation stations were also procured based on special performance needs. The potential
conflict never emerged.
The processes of placemaking in large institutions are special opportunities for
collaboration between professional placemakers and professional place users. These are
special spaces for conversations about how to renovate, manage, and maintain places,
and for an increased understanding of the power of employing environmental interven-
tions as an vehicle for organizational critique and change.
Within the dialogic space, we have found three activities, central to our work and
the work of others - a project of confirmation, interrogation3 and framing action
through processes of inclusion1 exclusion.
Confirmation is the act which looks at the context of work with an appreciative
attitude in order to understand what is and what has been historically taking place. It
involves focusing on the concrete experience of place as it has been made and taken
(experienced) over time by the various inhabitants. It is equally important to interro-
gate that context by asking questions, by problematizing the place through a disci-
plined and critical perspective. The on-going, iterative and dialectic actions of confir-
mation and interrogation sets the frame for the action. Framing action involves the
Freire (1988) has developed the language of confirmation and interrogation in his work. He
outlines his practice of educating campesinos in Latin America as a process of liberation in which he both
confirms and interrogates their lives to facilitate their own questioning of their existence.
136 Lynda Schneekloth 8 Robert Shibley
processes of shaping attention, of deciding what and who to include and exclude in
placemakpg.
In the Roanoke community development work and the facility management pro-
ject, we continually engaged in these tasks in our professional role as placemakers. We
structured a dialogic space within which groups of people joined us in these tasks. In
doing so we did not talk about "confirmation, interrogation, and action framing."
Rather we collectively confirmed, critically interrogated, and constantly framed action
in the shifting world of placemaking. The tasks of placemaking are not discrete or se-
quential functions; they occur simultaneously and iteratively throughout any profes-
sional intervention, facilitating action and non-action, framing and working through
conflicts, and incorporating new knowledges.
various intentions and motivations of the place dwellers and people affected by this
place, and our goals as interventionists. This confluence does not happen by chance; it
must be nurtured in dialogue and exchange. Part of the professional's role is to couch
their work -research and action -in the framework of the people who must live in,
manage, and maintain the environment which will be impacted by the work. This
complex task of situating knowledge from one discourse into another, places profes-
sional insights into the dialogic space where it can be transformed, appropriated as
needed, and reconstructed by the people living in places. This work depends on our
willingness to understand and fully "appreciate" the context of each professional inter-
vention (Vickers, 1965).
In our practice, the confirmation of the everyday experience of people occurs
through careful observation, and lots of talking and listening - in workshops,
meetings and interviews with carefully recorded participant perceptions and values.
These records are open, public, often displayed on newsprint, in newsletters, in the
press, or through other media. Such records confirm interpretations of everyday
experience and are part of the media with which we all work as we set about the
placemaking tasks.
To appreciate people and their place c o n f i s their experience of the world, and
recognizes that their lives and their place have meaning to them. It acknowledges that
the place in which they live has existed prior to a professional intervention, and will
continue long after our presence. It accepts and understands their interpretation of their
lives and place as their truth, and a f f m s that their knowledge and experience is critical
to the processes of environmental change and management.
The stories reveal a process of recording several voices together with their subju-
gated or privileged knowledges. In arraying each voice in relation to others, the
placemaking process employs state-of-the-art research, practitioner expertise, and the
structure of everyday life, each as a foil for the other. The result opens a dialogue on
the underlying agreements and perceptions of conflicts between participants in the pro-
cess. The same public record that confirms the everyday experience of those who oc-
cupy our stories also establishes the basis for some of the interrogation. Initially, it is
the interrogation of individual perception measured against the collective in both the
Roanoke Neighbourhood Partnership and Institute story. This is not, however, a
tyranny of community over the individual. It is more precisely to be understood as a
dialogue between the individuals and the community they choose to make and remake
as circumstances change and take place. As the process progresses to decisions about
action, all voices can see themselves in the approach, have a higher level of commit-
ment to the decisions, and often are more willing to live with the resultant conditions.
The context of every situation in which we take action, professionally and per-
sonally, is framed by legitimated and subjugated knowledges. In any location, we can
critique and deconstruct the structure of institutions and organizations to test the ade-
quacy of their aims and form to the project of both community and individual emanci-
pation. This includes our own location as practitioners of placemaking, whether we are
primarily professionals, researchers, or academics. These locations have historically
privileged the domain of science as the legitimate form of knowledge, assuming that
"objective" knowledge is more true than the subjective knowledges of lay people
(Harding, 1991; Schneekloth forthcoming). This belief is the origin of the language of
"application" in which it is assumed that knowledge generated through the dictates of
science should replace other forms of knowledge. One can argue, however, that ob-
jective knowledge, that is knowledge from nowhere, is as limited as subjective
knowledge, knowledge from everywhere. What we need to make places in the world is
situated knowledges in which the knowledge of science is transformed by the particu-
lars of each context, and in which the private, subjugated knowledges enter into the
public discourse for confirmation or interrogation (Fraser, 1989; Haraway, 1988).
Critical theory offers insight into the socially constructed reality of a place,
which has been reified through history and maintained by the social and physical struc-
tures of its institutions. The purpose of engaging in critical theory is to deconstruct,
and thereby reveal socially constructed worldviews, including our own. By asking
questions about the history and societal purposes of any place (institution, city,
neighbourhood, office, research institute), the views of the multiple members, and
power relationships, one gains insights into how the environment is used to support,
maintain and/or subvert the agreed upon purposes of the social form. Because the
practice of placemaking is contained in particular socially constructed realities, all
actions either maintain existing worldviews or challenge them. An interrogative
inquiry such as critical theory is required for competent and informed practice.
However, engaging in critical theory is not a "magic answer" that will tell us
how to proceed in any placemaking activity. Neither confirmation nor interrogation
alone is adequate grounding for action because human action is embedded in political
and social contexts. Yet the process of confirmation and interrogation is the foundation
of a collaborative dialogue which affirms meanings and activities, and at the same
time, interrogates those activities and meanings from a perspective which reveals their
The Practice of Placemaking 139
structure and inequalities. Decisions for action rely on these understandings, but must
be recognized as political and ethical positions.
must be involved in the process of generating knowledge about that change, in posing
issues to be researched, in implementation, and in evaluation.
For example, in the Roanoke Neighbourhood Partnership story, the thorny ques-
tion of "what is a neighbourhood?" was handled through a process of self-definition.
When a group of people came forward for the initiating Partnership Forum and defined
their neighbourhood, they were taken at their word. This resulted in planning with
neighbourhood groups as small as five blocks, and with much larger allied groups of
block clubs and business associations. The activity of their naming "who can play" to
a large extent framed the kind of action agenda they set for themselves, with larger,
more organized neighbourhoods taking on more complex projects initially, such as
changes in the zoning ordinance to exclude "adult book stores," and the smaller groups
working to take care of immediate problems such as clean-up, crimewatch, and light-
ing.
In this intervention, we framed participation not by defining what a
neighbourhood was, and therefore determining who could play, but by giving the
power of self-definition to the neighbourhood groups, facilitating and perhaps, forcing
them to name the people with whom they would work. We both confirmed and
interrogated their decisions: Why this boundary? Who lives over here and are they
organized? Who are the leaders of groups contiguous to your neighbourhood? These
kinds of questions sometimes led them to expand or consmct their original boundaries,
enabling them to problematize their own definitions. We assumed that if later it were
discovered that the area was not collectively self-defined, this would be addressed with
the constituencies. However, in the years since the beginning of the Roanoke
Neighbourhood Partnership, neighbourhoods continue to define themselves and their
own boundaries appear to "work."
In a similar fashion, in the Institute story, the Facilities Management Section,
our client, knew that the Administrative Officers were key to any environmental and
organizational change, and they had to be included. In turn, it was the Administrative
Officers who named the participants in the test site program. Collaboratively we dis-
cussed the kinds of people who might participate, but they, knowing their own unit
intimately, invited the players.
Practically, all decisions cannot be made by everyone. But ethically, the process
of exclusion serves specific interests, always at the expense of others. The task of se-
lecting who can play frames the discourse and privileges perspectives and knowledges.
In Roanoke, the self-selection process reified the racial separation of neighbourhoods
and thereby limited the kinds of knowledge that could be exchanged in the
neighbourhood conversation. But by creating many opportunities for self-defined
neighbourhoods to share and work together, these very reified boundaries began to be
problematized as residents from the Williamsom Road area visited the Gilmer Avenue
area for Gospel sings and people from the Northeast were conspicuously present at the
dedication of the new storm drainage system by another member of the neighbourhood
partnership.
There are no rules or simple guides for selecting who plays, only values and be-
liefs. However, the tasks of confirmation through an appreciation of the context and
interrogation by the conduct of critical theory offer insight into the implication of
those selected to be included.excluded.
The Practice of Placemaking 141
What are the Boundaries for Action? Another domain of inclusion and exclusion
in the practice of placemaking is the selection of the boundaries of any action, focus-
ing attention on what is part of the discourse and what stands outside this particular in-
tervention. Each act of intervention may address many universal and theoretical issues,
such as the legitimacy of knowledge or theories of territoriality. Yet when one is con-
fronted with an actual act of placemaking in a specific place, the questions are always
concrete. The work of planners and other professionals can be seen as "selective orga-
nizers of attention to real possibilities of action" (Forester, 1989, 14).
The decision of what to include and exclude in any discourse is part of the collab-
orative work done in the dialogic space. Depending on what knowledge we bring to
conversation, the practice may at times be subversive relative to existing power struc-
tures; it may also be addressed to making the best of the situation within the current
social structure. For example, when working in community development, the decision
of what issues are permissible to discuss sets the context within which action can be
taken. To present the neighbourhood with alternatives of rehabilitating the physical in-
frastructure of their community without confronting the segregation by race or class
permits positive action in one aspect of community life. However, this boundary de-
nies discourse on one of the basic structural conditions which permitted the infrastruc-
ture to deteriorate in the first place. It does not create the conditions of change which
would eventually give a community the ability to manage and maintain its infrastruc-
ture so as to avoid serious deterioration in the future.
Practitioners working in the domains of the professions, government andlor the
academia know that not every act of placemaking can address all issues of the human
tondition. Yet we recognize that each inclusion/exclusion is a non-innocent decision
that has significant political and ethical ramifications. We must have the courage to
know what we are nor doing as well as what we are able to do.
What are the Rules for Action? The rules for action, discrete methods for in-
tervention, embody the same dilemma as the setting of boundaries for action and in-
cluding/excluding participants. How should we proceed? What are the implications for
one way of working as opposed to another? What happens if we chose not to act? The
selection of methods of work and approaches to framing and solving problems is not a
technical activity.
Knowledge and methods from elsewhere are incredibly useful in placemaking -
but only in a dynamic sense. They are part of the knowledge that we, as professional
p!ccemakers, bring to our practice. But this knowledge cannot be "applied" in any
context, only appropriated and reconstructed by those engaged in the dialogic space of
making this particular place.
Further, every one of our methods is rooted in beliefs and ideologies and these
meanings are communicated in placemaking processes. The placemaker's toolbox of
methods, strategies, and procedures can be used for many purposes. For example, the
small group work we use frequently in Roanoke and the Institute, can empower many
voices and insure that formerly subjugated knowledges are revealed. This same method
has been successfully employed to diffuse and deny collective action.
". . .me~hodologicalfailings can always be traced to ideological errors . .
. If, one is to adopt a method which fosters dialogue and reciprocity, one must
first be ideologically committed to equality, to the abolition of privilege, and
to non-elitist forms of leadership wherein special qualifications may be exer-
cised, but are not perpetuated" (Freire, 1988, xi).
142 Lynda Schneekloth & Robert Shibley
The selection of ways of working and the ways in which methods are employed
are always rooted in basic assumptions about human beings and ultimate aims of prac-
tice.
6. Conclusion
All of the tasks of placemaking as we have presented them occur within the spe-
cially created dialogic space. Each task is embedded in all of the others. Confirmation,
for example, as it occurs through exposing different points of view on the newsprint
notes in the public-record meetings is also a form of interrogation. Any process
revealing difference invites questions as to the origins and motivations of the
difference.
"Dialogue includes the possibility and indeed the likelihood of conflict.
Outside the domain of dialogue, such conflict is destructive: we seek victory
over the other. But within a relation of dialogue, conflict - insofar as it leads
to discoveries and transformations of the self - will only strengthen the
relation. In agreement, we confirm each other in our shared experiences; but in
disagreement, we affirm each other in our difference" (Friedmann, 1979, 103).
Note: This article is based on a forthcoming book by L.H. Schneekloth and R.G.Shibley, Placemaking.
144 Lynda Schneekloth & Robert Shibley
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALBRECHT, J. & LIM, G, (1986). A Search for Alternative Planning Theory: Use of Critical Theory,
Journal of Architecture and Planning Research, 3(1986), 2, 117-131.
BORGMANN, A . (1992), "Crossing The Post Modem Divide" (The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago).
CARROLL, L. (1972). "Alice in Wonderland (Scholastic Book Services, New York).
FORESTER, J., Ed. (1985). "Critical Theory and Public Life" (MITPress, Cambridge).
FORESTER, J. (1989). "Planning in the Face of Power" (University of California Press, Berkeley).
FOUCAULT, M. (1970), "The Order of Things" (Vintage Books, New York).
FREIRE, P. (1988), "Pedagogy of the Oppressed Trans. M. Ramos. (Continuum, New York).
FRIEDMANN, J. (1979), "The Good Society" (The h4IT Press, Cambridge).
FRASER, N. (1989), "Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory"
(University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis).
GEUSS, R. (1981), "The Idea of Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School" (Cambridge
University Press, New York).
GIBB, J. (1963), Climate for Trust Formation, T-Group Theory and Laboratory Method (Bradford, L.
Gibb, J. & Beme, K., Eds.) (John Wiley, New York), 279-309.
GIROUX, H.A. (1988), "Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life: Critical Pedagogy in the Modem
Age" (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis).
HABERMAS, J. (1979), "Communication and the Evolution of Society" (Beacon Press, Boston).
HABERUAS, J. (1984). "The Theory of Communicative Action" Trans. T. McCarthy. (Beacon Press,
Boston).
HARAWAY, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism, Feminist Studies 14,
(1988)3, Fall, 575-600.
HAWING, S. (1986). "The Science Question in Feminism" (Cornell University Press, Ithica).
HIRSCHHORN, L. (1988), "The Workplace Within: Psychodynamics of Organizational Life" (MIT Press,
Cambridge).
LEWIN, K. (1951). "Field Theory in Social Science" (Harper & Row, New York).
RI'ITEL, H. & WEBBER, M. (1973), Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. 4
(1973) 2, 155-169.
RUDDICK, S. (1989), "Maternal Thinking" (Beacon Press, Boston).
SHIBLEY, R. (1985), Building Evaluation in the Main Stream, Environment and Behavior, 17 (1985) 1.7-
24.
SCHNEEKLOTH, L. & SHIBLEY, R. (1987). ResearchlPractice: Thoughts on an Interactive Paradigm.
Proceedings of the American Institute of ArchitectslAssociation of Collegiate School of Architecture
Annual Research CorJerence (Shibley, R.) (AIAIACSA, Washington).
SHIBLEY, R. & SCHNEEKLOTH, L. (1988), Risking Collaboration: Professional Dilemmas in Evaluation
and Design, The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 5 (1988) 4,304-320.
SCHNEEKLOTH, L. AND SHIBLEY R. (1990). Dialogic Practice, Coming of Age, (Selby, R., Anthony,
K., Choi, J., Orland, B.) (Environmental Design Research Association, Oklahoma City).
SCHNEEKLOTH, L. (forthcoming), Partial Utopian Visions: Feminist Reflections on the Field, Women
and Environments (Altman, I. & Churchman, A., Eds.) (Plenum Press, New York).
VICKERS, G. (1965). "The Art of Judgement" (Basic Books, New York).