Sustainability at PSU

Gathering of people at the Wintermissions games event

Placemaking at PSU

 Inaugural Placemaking Convening at PSU!

Please hold the date for the inaugural Placemaking Convening at PSU! This event is organized by PSU and Walker Macy Collaborative, the winners of the Place Matters Design competition. At the Convening we will celebrate current and past placemaking efforts and look to the future of placemaking at PSU and the City. We will bring together key participants involved in placemaking activities from within PSU and from our partners to foster a rich discussion.

The event is scheduled for May 21, from 9:00am-12:00pm, on the PSU campus. We are still finalizing the details of the event structure, but it will involve a campus tour of placemaking from 9am-10am and the program from 10:00am-12:00pm. We will share more details as the event nears.

 

We hope that you will join us for this exciting next step in implementing Placemaking at PSU!

For the Place Matters Design Competition, see this link

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