Sustainability at PSU

Picture of brick plaza with students, a fountain, a clock tower, tree, and Portland Streetcar

Placemaking at PSU

Save the Date: The 2026 Placemakers Exchange

The second annual Placemakers Exchange on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM at the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom.

Portland State University is advancing its commitment to urban vitality by shifting from theoretical framework created by the PLACE MATTERS design team to applied practice. We are pleased to announce the second annual Placemakers Exchange, taking place on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom.

Building upon the qualitative data and foundational storytelling established in 2025 through PLACE MATTERS, this year’s symposium serves as a strategic call to action, utilizing our campus as a "living laboratory" to test experience design principles, economic drivers, and fundamentals of community engagement that foster institutional pride and long-term community belonging.

The 2026 program knowledge sharing and collaborative problem-solving (The Exchange of ideas, experience, and more) through several key components:

The Placemakers Showcase: A campus-wide poster session highlighting cross-departmental research, formal curriculum-based projects, and grassroots initiatives that define PSU’s physical and social identity.

The Roundtable: A facilitated dialogue featuring distinguished alumni and community practitioners sharing the complexities and triumphs of implementing high-impact urban interventions.

The Exchange (Breakout Sessions): After our speakers share their stories, we will break into groups to try our hand at solving some of our toughest challenges on campus, together. We will focus on strategic "North Star" opportunity areas. They could be such challenges as the 18-Hour Neighborhood, Breezeways & Plazas, Oak Savannah District, Student-Led Activations, and more.

Site-Specific Tours: Expert-led walking tours of key campus nodes to identify immediate physical improvements and long-term spatial strategies.
Students, faculty, and community partners are invited to participate in this lively dialogue as we cultivate a shared language of urban resilience and institutional distinction.

For more details in April and May, visit this site and follow us on Instagram.

Students, faculty, staff, and the larger community are essential in the placemaking process at PSU! The intent of Placemaking at PSU is to empower people to become placemakers and work collaboratively and justly to create a vibrant and inclusive campus. Placemaking provides an opportunity for a living lab experience where the campus is the lab and student work influences the future development of the campus.

 

Various types of collaboration are possible!

 

Individual students, student groups, and community members can work directly with the Planning & Sustainability Office on a variety of projects.

  • Examples:
    • Montgomery Plaza activation
    • The Courts Skatepark
    • New community garden at Park & Market
    • Campus murals

 

Faculty can shape classes, capstone projects, assignments, or even use a site to help support a larger placemaking effort at the university.

  • Examples
    • Oak Savanna
    • The Courts Skatepark
    • Montgomery Plaza activation, engineering, and design
    • The Green Loop
    • Future transformation of 11th avenue 

Retired urban planning professor Ellen Shoshkes taught PSU’s Public Space class for several years and partnered regularly with Campus Planning staff to get her students involved with placemaking projects on campus. Prof. Shoshkes focused her Fall 2019 Public Space class around one of PSU’s skybridges. Campus skybridges were identified in PSU’s 2019 Open Space Plan as an opportunity site for open space activation. The project was coined “Pie-in-the-Sky” and concluded with a “pop-up” event with free pie on the skybridge as a way to increase foot traffic and draw campus engagement with the class. Shoshkes’ students incorporated furniture, elements of interior design and wayfinding, along with a survey for feedback around future use of the space. 

Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Capstone projects supervised by engineering instructor Evan Kristof have partnered with the Planning & Sustainability Office multiple times to study Montgomery Plaza. The first Capstone project was completed in March 2020 and resulted in the project team recommending  infrastructure improvements on the plaza. Beginning in January of 2025, a new group of CEE students has taken on Montgomery Plaza as their Capstone project. They are currently evaluating the next phase for the plaza, a curbless environment with onsite stormwater treatment, power, and potential outdoor covered space for winter gatherings. The students have also created a survey to engage their community and gather information around how people use the plaza and what they would like to see in the future. 

PSU art student Nick Pelster worked with the Planning & Sustainability Office to create a partnership between “The Courts Skatepark” and PSU. The Courts was a pilot skatepark located on PSU property just south of Shattuck Hall. The lot was in need of activation; Nick and the skate community started activating the space and eventually a partnership was born. Nick, now a graduate student in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, is currently working on a new site on campus for The Courts 2.0. 

If you are interested in partnering, supporting, or promoting Placemaking at PSU please contact the Planning & Sustainability Office!

Email: placemaking@pdx.edu

Phone: ‪(503) 725-4451‬