current feature: placemaking in bermuda - the waterfront

On 1 November 2012, Bermuda held its first PechaKucha Night at the BMDS Bar. It was a great evening with speakers discussing topics ranging from a bridge connecting Spanish Point with Lagoon Park and the value of trees to a year in the life of a newborn (now 10 months old) whose mother is a filmmaker - with Bette Davis and an airship thrown in for good measure!

Since placemaking is an approach to community building from which Bermuda could benefit, and since our taping of the evening was not successful, here is a version of this writer's 6:40 minutes on placemaking, with an up front admission that this barely scratches the surface of the topic.

Placemaking: We Need To Do It

It is incredibly important to properly implement the new National Tourism Plan. (Before you ask, I am ignoring the ad campaign.) However, a read through the slideshow presentation reveals an understandable focus on business opportunities that, in my opinion, addresses only a part of the challenge. We need to be pretty sure that the 'hubs' developed, of which the Hamilton waterfront is one, are going to be enjoyed by a broad range of the community. Placemaking has a key role to play in helping to create places and spaces towards which people will gravitate. We need that. 

Planners, architects, developers, residents, community groups, students - all Bermuda's stakeholders - need to work together to create great sites, venues, events and activities to be enjoyed and used by locals and tourists alike. In the words of Placemaking New Zealand: 

Beautiful and meaningful places and spaces create a lasting value to the locality and a sense of pride to the community. As a result, people spend more time in their community: walking more, buying locally and spending more leisure and play time locally in vibrant mainstreets where there are places to sit, pause, learn, shop, connect and celebrate.

three items: world town planning day plus two more

World Town Planning Day is coming up on Thursday, 8 November 2012.

The international organization for World Town Planning Day was founded in 1949 by the late Professor Carlos Maria della Paolera of the University of Buenos Aires to advance public and professional interest in planning, both locally and overseas. WTPD is promoted each year by the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISoCaRP) headquartered at The Hague, The Netherlands.

In Bermuda, the Department of Planning is holding an open day from 12.00pm to 4.00pm. I would encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to visit the Department, speak to Planning Staff and learn more about the functions of the Department of Planning.

As I believe I have been advocating, planning is so much more than setbacks and site coverage and this is a great chance to find out about key role of planning in shaping Bermuda's future.

The First Steps to Meaningful Community Engagement are hard to take and even more difficult to maintain. However, it occurs to me, chatting with one of the planners in the Department of Planning, that with the economy in a slump, this might be just the time to seriously consider how we want to engage the community in planning its own future.

The sad advantage of an economic downturn is the construction industry is off the boil, so to speak, and we can all think and act with less pressure and, presumably, more thoughtfulness. I'm not at all sure what the Sustainable Development Round Table is up to these days but the reality is that planners should be at the forefront of helping to shape sustainable, liveable communities.

As Neeraj Mehta outlines in the blog post, The First Steps to Meaningful Community Engagement, in Next American City, we need to acknowledge our interdependence and the importance of drawing on the diversity in our community. Also, be honest about the complexity of working together and get used to controversy and uncertainty.

Proper community engagement is a process and not necessarily a quick process at that. I think the Department of Planning could be taking a lead role here but, if not, what about the rest of us?

The Informal Workforce appears to be here to stay. I cannot be the only one who has noticed the increase in street peddlers along main roads in Bermuda. It is a sign of the times and a huge hint that there is an entrepreneurial workforce, which is directly addressing the issue of unemployment.

This photograph by Gerald Botha taken in Durban, South Africa, shows an example of a 'good practice'image: gerald botha case where the informal workforce has been drawn into urban plans.

As outlined by Caroline Skinner in the article, It's time to welcom the informal workforce to the urban policy table, for The Global Urbanist, it could be that the informal workforce plays an important part in alleviating poverty and growing the economy. And, if that is the situation, shouldn't we in Bermuda be paying more attention to our street peddlers?

Bermuda may not be a third world country but I can't help thinking the policy tips offered by Skinner in her article should be kept in mind by our island's decision-makers.

design communities, not housing

Bermuda has lost the opportunity, several times now, to design communities and, instead, has erected a crowd of dwelling units, between them providing or intending to provide a roof over the head of more than one hundred families. Examples that come to mind include Harbour View Village, Grand Atlantic - unfortunately, it's simply very visible; there's no intention to pick on it! - and Loughlands.   

It's the lost potential that is probably most frustrating. No doubt current residents enjoy living in a new development but architects and planners, me included, should take some responsibility in settling for OK, or even pretty good, when great might have been within reach.

tassafaronga village, east oakland, ca image: matthew millman for nytimesDesigning for a community can be done. This article in the New York Times, Design as a Balm for a Community's Soul by Michael Kimmelman wonderfully explains and illustrates the possibilities, admittedly in an urban setting. (Enjoy the accompanying slide presentation too.)

Useful points include: design so that eyes are on the shared public spaces; make those spaces ones that encourage walking, recreation and community; include business ventures that appeal to immediate residents as well as passers-by so as to bring activity to the site; and, open the development up to its surrounding neighbourhood.

We tend, here, in both the private and public sectors, to engage in some 'tick the box' design and planning. So, for example, the Cataract Hill/Fritholme Gardens residential complex, which includes a swimming pool and an attached clubhouse with a bar, hairdresser, yoga centre and gym, enables both architect and planner to tick the communal amenity space box and pat ourselves on the back.

As it turns out, this residential amenity space deliberately does incorporate uses that are a part of daily living and which appeal to both immediate residents and the wider island community. In that way it steps up the community building ladder, more so than most, and that's a good thing. Also, with 100% occupancy and more townhouses and villas on the way, clearly there is something working in this formula. Are there tweaks, though, that might help it fulfill its community potential and take it to the level of great?

Given the economy and current lack of construction, it is unlikely issues of community building will move to the front burner soon. That doesn't mean Bermuda's architects and planners can't spend some time considering new ideas and ways to improve the communities, neighbourhoods and apartment complexes we have now. The collection of buildings and activities somewhat randomly sprouting up around the Warwick Gas Station on South Road and the proposed residential community planned for Victoria Terrace in Dockyard point to the opportunity for new thinking around community design that ought not be lost. Such new thinking can only be good for Bermuda.

Update on 2012-10-21 21:57 by A Ratteray Pryse

This article on the polis blog, "Social Sustainability Report Must Look Deeper" by Melissa Garcia Lamarca is enlightening. UK developer, the Berkeley Group, studied the social sustainability of four of its housing developments, as a result of England's 2011 riots, using the following definition:

Social sustainability is about people's quality of life, now and in the future. It describes the extent to which a neighbourhood supports individual and collective well-being.

Social sustainability combines design of the physical environment with a focus on how the people who live in and use a space relate to each other and function as a community. It is enhanced by a development that provides the right infrastructure to support a strong social and cultural life, opportunities for people to get involved, and scope for the place and community to evolve.

The four dimensions studied included:  infrastructure and social amenities, voice and influence, social and cultural life and change in the neighborhood. Critically, as Lamarca points out, the dimension of equity and justice was not studied. Considering that riots served as a catalyst for the study, this is surprising.

Bermuda's communites - the examples highlighted above - are considerably smaller than those constructed by the Berkeley Group but there is much for us to learn from this hindsight view.