THE POSSIBILITIES OF PLACE

How Placemark moves beyond typical requirements to focus on how a site can be transformed into a place of experience, remarkable and memorable.

Royal Bay, Vancouver Island

What do you see?

That’s the question that design asks. Do you see the marble slab or the finished sculpture, the tree or the totem? Do you see the possibility within?

The team at Placemark strives to see the possibilities of a place – whether it’s a landscape, a neighbourhood, or an individual property – to draw out its potential and reveal its inherent, enduring qualities. It’s a process Placemark calls the Possibilities of Place; a process so essential to the company’s DNA, the phrase is prominently displayed on the website.

But what does it mean? It’s an approach to design that differentiates “possibilities” from the often narrow, one-dimensional requirements, to instead focus on how a site can be transformed into a place of experience, remarkable and memorable.

Over the course of conversations with the Newsroom, Placemark Principal Paul Fenske, and Partner Theo Finseth identified and discussed how their own personal experiences inform the process that allows them to draw the most from each site.

The Placemark team sees parallels between the work of the artist and the work of place-making. Just as artists capture the spirit of a scene, place-makers must observe and elevate the spirit of a place through community design. Of course, there is a clear distinction – art is the creative process that seeks to express one’s own personal ideas and reflections. Design uses a similar set of skills, but is directed by a series of requirements. Here, design is at the service of others; it’s a way of thinking, as well as a way of working to bring about a considered response: how do we grow in community, how do we grow even when growth requires compromise, how do we live sustainably with the land?

The process begins by first recognizing the land as “place”, with its own unique possibilities that go well beyond the typical technically-focused considerations of a project. It is to observe, taking note of the nuances and sensory details, responding to the unique context, geography, and history, so as to root the concept in human experience. The process recognizes “place” as having the potential to evoke a range of emotional, sensory and spiritual experiences for people, beyond its physical attributes.

Great design doesn’t happen in isolation. The designer is like the conductor of a symphony, skilled at orchestrating a collaboration with diverse perspectives and stakeholders. The possibilities are held in tension among all the those involved – designers, developers, the community and civic authorities. It takes a community of thought to build a community of place.

As high-minded as it may sound, the reality is that without basic economics to support a project, it will never get built. Unfortunately, while many worthwhile ideas are never realized, sub-standard projects get built all the time. There’s a lesson to learn about these projects— when built, they often disappoint the marketplace because they fail to reflect the community, the culture, or people’s values.

That is Placemark’s differentiator: balancing commercial realities with a human-centric, experiential approach to placemaking, all while adding value to the project and community. They commit to delivering that expanded value on every project. They don’t work on a project unless they can.

“A great meal doesn't make itself. A great meal requires not only good ingredients, but it requires a very experienced and thoughtful group of people to draw out what's best within it.”

For some readers who may find the artist parallels too abstract to appreciate this value-adding process, Paul Fenske uses a different comparison, that of a low-end versus a high-end steakhouse:

"One could argue, what’s the difference between the low-end burger house and a high-end steakhouse apart from the size of the bill? You say, they both have steak, they both have potatoes, they both have lights and tables, and people to greet you, and people to serve you, and people to make the food.

You may say, I don't get the difference here. But the difference is one that Placemark acknowledges and stands by every day. The difference is a great meal doesn't make itself. A great meal requires not only good ingredients, but it requires a very experienced and thoughtful group of people to draw out what's best within it.”

This drive to deliver an experience of excellence allows Placemark to design communities that designers themselves want to live in.

Each member of Placemark has their own reference point for what constitutes the possibilities of place. For Theo Finseth, growing up in the Little Italy neighbourhood of Vancouver’s East Side, continues to inform his experience of the possibilities to this day.

"I think one of my favorite experiences of place involves people and how they use a place. The neighborhood that I grew up in was rich with culture and people using the street and parks as their way to connect with community.​

When I think about a successful community it has to have those opportunities. Our project like Predator Ridge in the Okanagan has it. We have a small General Store and whenever I’m there, I see the same resident with his dog sitting out front on the patio, drinking his coffee, enjoying the fresh air. I now say hello whenever I see him.”

You recognize the same people on your daily trips to the grocery store, the deli or the coffee shop. Continual connection with the same people over and over kindles relationships. Great communities are made up of our connections with other people and the richness of those relationships.

There are also physical elements in the neighborhood that contribute to the experience; I often talk to people around Commercial Drive – it’s the only high street in Vancouver that goes down to one lane of traffic either direction – creating a very narrow, very slow and very intimate civic experience.​

And then, there is the home that I grew up in, also rich in character. Homes that had true craftsmanship – early 1900s – when they took time to create a distinct style. Those type of homes are all over Vancouver; there are thousands of them and they’re each unique reflecting the families who live there. While each is slightly different, together they create a really interesting pattern and diversity within each neighbourhood.

Because we put the fundamentals in, an authentic living habitat was created in our little yard. Our yard stands out in the neighbourhood; it feels like a bit of an oasis in the desert.

One of the common features that runs through each of the practitioner’s appreciation of a good project is that they would like to live there themselves. Paul Fenske, for one, already lives there.

He has literally realized the possibilities of place in his own backyard – and is committed to the ongoing elaboration, refinement and elevation of the experience.

“One of my favorite places is my own backyard. It’s a 1900 home on a 33 foot wide by 140 feet deep lot, typical throughout the City of Vancouver.​

We have a street tree out in front, and we have a fairly nasty rear lane in the back. When we moved in, the property had a total of nine plants and there was no where to sit outside and enjoy the yard. You wouldn’t want to – it was dusty and it was sun-baked. And it was visually cluttered – pretty ugly overall.

So over the last nine years, Jennifer and I have invested time to notice the changing light and seasonal rhythms. We installed paths and pruned trees, planted gardens and added rock walls and flowering beds. We added new windows to take advantage of views, and built decks and new doors to connect the inside with the outside.

Today, our home is not only an enjoyable place to spend time in, but it’s become a home for birds, bees and butterflies, as well as raccoons and the odd skunk – and it is alive with rich possibilities of place.​

Because we put the fundamentals in, an authentic living habitat was created in our little yard. Our yard stands out in the neighbourhood; it feels like a bit of an oasis in the desert. So even within the city, each lot has potentials that often go unnoticed and unrealized. Yet when you apply time and resources to recognizing those potentials, you can bring to life rich experiences that nurture and elevate daily living.”

Paul’s experience in seeing the possibilities of place literally in his own backyard brings us full circle to another unrealized rock bursting with possibilities. It may not have been a block of marble but it was a quarry – the Mechosin Gravel Pit in Colwood, near Victoria on Vancouver Island. It is now Royal Bay, a thriving new community overlooking the Salish Sea, one of the projects in which Fenske and team where able to notice and deliver on the possibilities of place on a large scale.

The Team generally agrees that unless you’re trained in seeing or noticing the possibilities, they can be easily overlooked – especially within a derelict gravel pit. Once used by the Royal Navy for cannon practice, the Pit became a local landmark – and scar on the landscape – as it was mined for its gravels and sands for over a hundred years. But renowned Canadian painter Emily Carr noticed the bleak charm of the site and immortalized it the 1935 masterpiece “Scorned of Timber Beloved of the Sky”.

Reminiscent of Carr’s encounter with the land, Fenske and his team recognized the potential cachet for Royal Bay and were able to see beyond the rubble to envision possibility of place – a vibrant, mixed-use community that hundreds of families now call home – reconnecting Colwood to its waterfront.

An experience, remarkable and memorable. Seriously, you’d like to live there.

If you believe in the Possibilities of Place, learn more at Placemark.