How Hands-On Engagement Can Radically Change Planning Outcomes

By: Alta

How can houseplants, shoes, and headphones help us better understand our built environment?

Alta teaming partners James Rojas and John Kamp recently led our staff members in a fun and interactive model-building training on the Place It! method for creatively engaging members of the public in the planning and design process. Through the Place It! process participants are able to learn about the role of planning and design in shaping how we live, and to translate their dreams and ideas into physical forms and models.

The event invitation included the following instructions:

• Materials needed: Any small objects you like that are nearby or lying around the house that you can use for your models
• Sky’s the limit: houseplants, pens, shoes, candles, jewelry, books

Intrigued? We were too.

Alta staff were instructed to build models on top of their desks of their first mobility memory using objects they had lying around. Everyone took pictures and shared what they had created in smaller breakout groups.

Besides a conversation about scale and using tactical methods to engage the public in the planning process, the group also discussed the personal nature of all of the objects that people collected around their workspace after a year of telecommuting.

“I was so curious to see everyone’s desk space and all of the coffee mugs, plants, and unique items that Altoids used to demonstrate how they first experienced mobility as a kid,” said Charlotte-based designer Emily Condon.

The team noticed that this method of engagement levels the playing field. There is no technical expertise or knowledge needed to participate and the tactile nature of the exercise naturally favors collaboration.

Another positive aspect of the hands-on exercise: It’s visionary in nature as opposed to being focused on problems. The medium allows participants to mine core values and see how they are shared. Participants, who geographically spanned across North America, started to make connections between what had initially seemed like disparate memories and ideas.

The training workshop raised deep questions and reflections on how we plan for mobility:

• Mobility helps children learn about the world, but when do we stop learning from mobility as adults?

• Mobility is a pattern. Many folks had fond memories of biking. Maybe that’s why they work at Alta.

• Mobility is our second home. We need to put as much care into it as we do our homes.

• Mobility is more than just a transaction; it’s a deep relationship to space that is based on memories, experiences and aspirations.
• It’s a great reminder to always ask ourselves “How do our projects uplift someone’s story? Will it hold or create a memory?”

Check out replicas of some of our staff’s first mobility memories:

Left to right: Alia: I grew up in Abu Dhabi, UAE, a very urban semi-island, but it also had large greenspace (in spite of the desert climate) and parks and playgrounds that we frequented every weekend. Boca Raton FL, where I live now, reminds me of it. The green structure with the eye represents public art. Emma: School bus love! Shout out to bus drivers and rubber duckies. Stevie: Queer event fun! Accessible via train lines + hanging with friends

Left to right: Emily: The headphones are transit lines with the pencil as the subway cars. This represents my first time taking a subway — the T in Boston. Kristie: This is about the roads that I used to build as a kid out of blankets. The beads showed the road and my paper clips showed the matchbox cars I used to use. While it wasn’t a memory about me physically moving, it was how I saw mobility and interacted with it on my own time as a child. It was an extension of my outdoor activities. I should have known right away that roads would be my thing. :-)

Left to right: Zoey: The hand represents me on my bike as a little kid, riding up the hill on the street I lived on and seeing the city before me when I got to the top. Always felt so exhilarating. Lydia: Yarn train. Cailin: Me in a red wagon being pulled by my grandpa (the heart).

The PlaceIt! Method in Action

The California Avenue Underpass in Palo Alto is a successful example of using this approach. This underpass is a frequently used facility that connects people walking and biking in Palo Alto to the California Avenue Caltrain Station, to Downtown, and to numerous schools around the area. During a 30-minute count in the morning, the City recorded 139 youth biking, 24 adults biking, and 39 people walking.

The steep slope on both ends and the constrained width of the underpass provided a challenge to the high number of users traveling at different speeds. To help immediately address the issues and to enable all user groups to have a voice in the conversation, the City, Alta and PlaceIt! developed a workshop series aimed at exploring ideas and creating spaces for intergenerational conversations between user groups. The team hosted two different model building workshops, one with a younger demographic, and the other with older community members. Following these events, they brought the two groups together, and finished with a pop-up demonstration at the path for users to stop by and provide feedback.

The City’s goals for this process included:

• Build a youth voice for transportation needs in Palo Alto

• Test a new mechanism for community input that can build rapport between different user groups

• Develop ideas for improving people’s experience walking and biking through California Avenue underpass

Place It!’s approach using memory and placemaking moved participants away from adversarial position-based conversations that have previously framed this issue. The activities based around building past memories and ideal models helped include youth participants to share their ideas, as the method allows people to contribute even if they don’t have “talk privilege.” Through this project, a number of ideas around physical and policy-related changes emerged:

• Consistent messaging — Participants felt that the official policy and signage were inconsistent with each other, and confusing to users. Youth in particular reported that they and their peers did not find the signs useful.
• Pedestrian push buttons — One group designed push buttons on either side of the tunnel that people could activate before walking through that would light up the tunnel and alert users that others were present.
• Speed calming– One group designed speed bumps and rotaries within the tunnel that would limit the speed of people biking through.
• Space delineators — Both groups included markings on the ground to provide context to direction and users.
• Youth art — Both groups’ models included art in and around the entrances of the tunnel. One group specified that this art would be designed by students and could bring positive (not punitive) messages of sharing space.

The Place It! method of engaging stakeholders successfully built rapport between participants and facilitated a more robust, collaborative process than traditional outreach processes. Starting with participants’ first mobility memory humanized each person’s experiences and their needs for traveling through the California Ave. tunnel. Removing the exercise from the constraints and specifications of the tunnel also provided the opportunity for participants to develop the list of core values together, identifying similarities across individual stories, and coming up with unique ideas for improved infrastructure together.

Interested in connecting with the Place It! team? Here’s where to find John and James:

James Rojas: jamestrojas@gmail.com, www.placeit.org / @jamesrojas

John Kamp: kamp@prairieform.com, www.prairieform.com / @kamperpants

They’ll also have a book out by Island Press in 2021! Stay tuned!