The City of San Antonio established Downtown Movie Nights in 2014 to promote activation in public spaces. The free movie screenings are hosted throughout downtown within various cultural public spaces. At Travis Park and La Villita, the outdoor movies are accompanied by food trucks, themed giveaways, and pre-show programming, such as photo booths, art and educational activities for children, and special appearances from actors dressed as characters from the movie.
Activation
Sub Categories: Activation
I Scream! Kiosk
I Scream! is a Times Square pop-up kiosk that encourages people to speak up about social and political issues while enjoying a frozen treat. The Alliance and Urbanspace partnered with New York-based, Vendy Award-winning ice cream shop Ice & Vice to offer flavors like “Freeze Global Warming”, “The Full Scoop” and “Justice is Sweet.” 5% of total profits are donated directly to a rotating list of local and national nonprofits including Habitat for Humanity, Project HOPE and Harlem Grown.
Bryant Park Amenities
The traditional public park offers simple amenities that meet basic human needs, like a refreshing water fountain, convenient WiFi, or a comfortable public restroom. Bryant Park expands on these offerings, deepening the visitor experience with its free “Amenity” areas, a set of staffed activity “rooms” that are open nearly all day during the warm season. We call them “Amenities” because of their dependability: they are open for at least nine hours each day from April through October.
Top Issues Council: From Dumpsters to Biergartens
This publication looks at the placemaking of “interstitial” spaces the connective tissue that lies between private developments and developed public spaces within the urban built environment. The perception of how we can make use of space is changing as cities strive to reclaim these in-between areas. Drawing on ideas from neighbors, businesses and community groups, UPMOs can implement physical interventions that revitalize and activate what would otherwise be a forgotten space.
Top Issues Council: Activating Public Spaces – A Guildebook for Urban Districts
The purpose of this guidebook is to identify fundamental challenges that downtown stakeholders encounter when they undertake placemaking efforts to activate public spaces, as well as innovate solutions to these challenges. This guidebook uses real world examples to analyze challenges and solutions to downtown placemaking initiatives in terms of their design, maintenance, funding, and regulation.
Community Building – Creative Placemaking
Place management organizations work at the cross-section of thoughtful development and making culture accessible, increasing the quality of life for our districts. Pola Bunster, Director of Storytelling, Prism Creative Group, talks about the creative placemaking projects she has undertaken in Miami, tapping into the city’s culture to tell a story and create an experience.
GSA Federal Courthouse / Civic Center Mall Toledo Advisory Panel: Making a Place
IDA’s Advisory Panels are a time-tested way to explore new ideas, solve difficult problems, and rally the board, staff and community around priority projects or topics. In this instance the panel was tasked with assessing the “sad, tired, and dismal” Civic Center Mall and determining whether the formation of a place management organization would be beneficial. The report details the panel’s findings and recommendations.
City of Tulsa Advisory Panel: How to Bring Bustle to Downtown
IDA’s Advisory Panels are a time-tested way to explore new ideas, solve difficult problems, and rally the board, staff and community around priority projects or topics. This panel was asked to assess the downtown’s on-the-street activity, street level offerings, and the governance and partnerships managing the downtown area. The report details the panel’s findings and recommendations.
Nuts and Bolts to Creative Placemaking
Placemaking is a term that can be used to describe how stakeholders, municipal leaders, and neighborhood activists transform spaces into places, with characteristics and qualities that foster personal attachment and create community value. The process of gathering input, conceptualizing, designing, building, and maintaining the public realm all feed into the act and art of placemaking. This session shares real world lessons learned on challenges, and strategies to overcome those challenges.
Place Branding Top Issues Council: Best Practices and Lessons Learned
More than merely marketing campaigns, Place Branding explores the features that make your downtown or urban space unique among others: those quirky spaces and interesting places that define your urban experience. The best practices, lessons learned, and surprising tips can assist planners in defining strategies for physical manifestations of their community’s cultures in public spaces.
Centro San Antonio Advisory Panel: Activate Houston Street
IDA’s Advisory Panels are a time-tested way to explore new ideas, solve difficult problems, and rally the board, staff and community around priority projects or topics. This panel was focused on creating a revitalized vision for the Houston Street Corridor. The panel created an outline of strategies and initiatives to revitalize the corridor. The report details the panel’s findings and recommendations. The report details the panel’s findings and recommendations.
Taming the Beast: Rethinking Transportation Infrastructure in our Downtowns
While transportation infrastructure provides the life blood of most downtowns, it can also create barrier and blighting effects. Today, many cities are reevaluating the presence of transportation infrastructure and weighing the benefits of keeping, removing or modifying this infrastructure to enhance the livability, walkability and quality of life found in downtown communities.
Hidden Treasures and Neglected Spaces
Public space and alley activation are the hot new topics in the place management industry. This presentation shows how different districts are activating their neglected public spaces and alleys and incorporating art.
Activating Uncommon Spaces to Produce Memorable Events
From empty alleys to mall parking to sidewalks, the uncommon spaces of a community can provide the perfect location for “outside the box” events designed to revitalize the area. By activating these forgotten spaces, you can make the most of these unused urban assets and bring new life and crucial economic development to your community.
The Business of Winter
How are winters in Tampa, Florida and Winnipeg, Canada the same? As you can imagine, Winnipeg is very cold in the winter and they have been very successful in activating the Red and Assiniboine Rivers and The Forks Marketplace during a time of year when everyone likes to hibernate. Downtown Tampa, decided to take promoting winter with a twist! This presentation shares creative holiday event ideas for warm and cold climates!
Mastering the Art of Bringing Low-Cost Rapid Change Downtown
There is an international trend of low-cost interventions being used to test out ideas before making large capital improvements. Pop-up parks, guerilla wayfinding, and mobile vendors are just a few innovations. During this session you will learn about tactical urbanism projects from successful communities internationally.