Location: Architecture Building, Auditorium
This Guy Lumbardo lecture is part of Spring 2026 Architecture Lecture series. In Partnership with the Neighborhood Design Center.
This lecture will be the kickoff for the Vision is Yours conference, held on April 23 - 24, 2026.
Placemaking as an Essential Practice: Building Thriving Communities
Elena Madison
Director of Projects,
Project for Public Spaces
About the lecture:
This lecture introduces placemaking as a collaborative, evolving practice that builds and sustains vibrant and inclusive public spaces across disciplines including planning, design, art, landscape architecture, economic development and civic engagement. We will look at the essential role of continuous community participation for authentic placemaking, and placekeeping, as we explore the shared responsibilities of practitioners, community partners, and stakeholders in creating and sustaining vibrant places. Through examples and case studies we will explore how placemaking responds to the challenges of today and how public art, creativity, design-build approaches, social infrastructure, and democracy-driven initiatives contribute to dynamic place-based solutions.
About the speaker:
Elena is an urban planner with rich experience in the planning and design of parks, plazas, campuses, and the outdoor spaces of civic and cultural institutions. A veteran of placemaking, Elena is passionate about working with people in communities to create the public spaces they love. She brings a deeply collaborative, place-based co-creation practice to every stage of placemaking, guiding projects from community engagement and visioning through concept development, programming, implementation, and long-term governance.
Elena leads Project for Public Spaces’ placemaking project practice and Community Placemaking Grants initiatives. She is actively engaged in placemaking education through PPS trainings and webinars, and serves as an adjunct lecturer in Hunter College’s Department of Urban Policy and Planning. Her current research and advocacy focus on social inclusion and the creation of supportive social environments in the public realm. Elena is the co-author of a chapter on supporting people experiencing homelessness in public space in Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World, (Brookings Institution Press, 2022).