Numbered Publications: LA
LA-11: Placemaking: Strengthening Your Public Spaces
Jayoung Koo | Dec. 13, 2017 (New)
Strong public spaces provide lasting impressions and shared community experiences. Public spaces refers to locations that are accessible to the public. This can include parks, streets, playgrounds or fair grounds. In addition to publicly owned spaces, public spaces can also include privately owned spaces with areas open to the public such as plazas or memorials. Although the size and scope of public spaces may differ, the goals and functions should be suitable and appropriate for the size and location, whether small or large, rural or urban. Successful public spaces connect with other parts of a community and are accessible and open to the public, residents and visitors alike.
LA-12: Placemaking: Planning and Designing Meaningful Public Spaces
Jayoung Koo | Dec. 13, 2017 (New)
Public spaces are areas that are open to the public to access and use. Spaces that are used most frequently tend to be valued highly in the community. When these public spaces have personal meanings associated with them that transform them into memorable public places. Therefore, public places are not only locations in our society, but tend to have an additional special identity linked to the public spaces. Great public places in communities should strive to be destinations for both locals and visitors.
LA-10: Walkability and Connectivity: Planning for Enhancing Walkability and Connectivity
Jayoung Koo | Dec. 13, 2017 (New)
Built environment patterns are essential for supporting the pedestrian experience in communities for health, wellness and safety. Since the mid-20th century, the intertwined relationship between sprawling development patterns and auto dependence has left many communities with built environments that discourage people from walking in the community. With shifting focus on people rather than cars, attention and interest in planning and design has brought about the need to bring back walkable communities for various goals and objectives including pursuing healthy lifestyles, engaging in more physical activities and investing in attractive pedestrian focused environments. Many communities have turned their efforts toward reintroducing and strengthening their pedestrian paths/networks and increasing connectivity in the community. Supportive built environment patterns can have other impacts on people's everyday lives and lifestyles such as providing for a safe and attractive environment for outdoor activities. Furthermore, sound and well-connected walkable environments can also directly influence a community's economic health, place identity, and sense of community.
LA-8: Streetscapes: Planning and Designing Vibrant Streets
Jayoung Koo | Nov. 20, 2017 (New)
Streetscapes can provide and support community visions for social interaction and achieve common goals such as safety, economic health, or social destinations. Streetscapes also contribute to lasting impressions of communities and places. The streetscape development process requires community members to work together with local governments and other state and federal agencies that are responsible for creating and managing public right-of-ways, the property located edge to edge on either side of a street. The planning process provides opportunities for collaboration among organizations, meaningful interaction and strengthens community capacity.
LA-9: Walkability and Connectivity: Enhancing the Pedestrian Travel Environment for Healthier Communities
Jayoung Koo | Nov. 20, 2017 (New)
Our built environment patterns can be more supportive of pedestrian experiences rather than that of vehicle travel. Since the mid-20th century, housing developments have sprawled beyond city limits with convenient and connected infrastructure such as road networks. However, such built environment patterns have influenced personal lifestyles. Partly, this results from the lack of appropriate environmental settings for safe and engaging outdoor activities within close distances to and connections to where we live and work. Attention and interest in planning and design of our built environment has brought about the need to return to walkable communities for a variety of goals and objectives, including investing in attractive pedestrian focused environments, engaging in more physical activities and pursuing healthy lifestyles. In addition to the physical health of communities, walkability characteristics of communities also have indirect influences on a community's economic performance, sense of community and place identity.
LA-7: Streetscapes: Visioning Vibrant Relationships
Jayoung Koo | Oct. 20, 2017 (New)
A streetscape is the sphere that includes the public right-of-way from the edge of properties on both sides of the street. The streetscape typically includes a mix of features including but not limited to the following: vehicular lanes, sidewalks, bike lanes, parking spaces, planting strips, storm water management elements, signage, street lights, utility lines, amenities such as bus stops, and facades of built structures. The nature of a successful streetscape design is to convey a safe, environmentally friendly, aesthetically appealing, inclusive, and context sensitive atmosphere to the area, neighborhood, or district. Additionally, established streetscapes enhance the functionality, accessibility, and vitality of the built environment.
LA-5: Wayfinding: Planning and Design with Communities
Jayoung Koo | Jan. 26, 2017 (New)
Wayfinding is an ability to orient oneself based on repeated cues from the physical environment. Travel experiences for both residents and visitors can be strengthened through efficiently laid out information in our physical environments. Features that stand out in the environment can remind people of a particular meaning through experience and recognition.
LA-6: Wayfinding: Planning and Design at Work
Jayoung Koo | Jan. 26, 2017 (New)
Communities can learn from one another's successes, challenges, and limitations for going about wayfinding projects. What worked for one community may not always work for another. However, it is also important to note that what did not work for one community may work for another community depending on the context, scale, scope, or support of a community. With this in mind, the following case studies can help identify types of signage, potential locations, and serve as an effective starting point to pursue your own community's wayfinding project, including potential funding sources.
LA-4: Effective Navigation through Your Community: Wayfinding and Signage Systems for Communities
Jayoung Koo | Jan. 26, 2017 (New)
Wayfinding is the ability to orient oneself based on repeated cues from the physical environment. Various physical features and structural elements can help people find their way around places, feel welcomed beyond the initial welcome sign at the entrance to a town or district, be informed, and feel helped when uneasy or lost. These uneasy experiences can change and become positive benefits for the community with effective wayfinding systems that complement the physical features in the built environment.
LA-2: Beyond a Path 2: Trail Planning
Jayoung Koo | Mar. 28, 2016 (New)
There are two general ways to begin a trail project in a community. The first method is for the community (client) to hire design or planning professionals such as landscape architects, urban planners or engineers to lead a trail project on behalf of the community. The second way involves a grass roots approach where a community gets the project started and develops the conceptual ideas on their own and then later brings in professionals during the design phase. Regardless of the approach for the initial phase, professionals need to be involved to eventually construct the trail(s) but how much of the process and outcome they influence is ultimately up to the community. For the purpose of this document, we will focus on the second method to help projects get started in the community by the community. Collaboration, coordination and partnerships are essential for the success of a project due to the linearity of trails and complexity of trail systems. The specific outcomes of a trail, its benefits, and costs for the community depend on the specific location, region and potential of the community group as covered in the Beyond a Path 1 publication.
