Place-keeping Definition

‘Placemaking’ is a term widely used by architects, town planners and urban designers to describe the process of creating attractive squares, parks, streets, and waterfronts. Landscape often plays an important role in the design process. However, as with nearly every great success story comes a new challenge, in this case, how to maintain the real and multiple benefits of well designed places.

The MP4 project combines efforts to solve the problem that too much emphasis is being placed on ‘creation’ rather than long-term upkeep. This is a concern felt transnationally (across different countries), at every level and across all sectors. In practice, open space managers increasingly recognise the danger of cities constantly revisiting and ‘improving’ previous projects, which is neither environmentally or economically sustainable.