Rewriting the Social Script in Public Spaces

The Exploratorium's "Middle Ground: Reconsidering Ourselves and Others"

One of the most museum-y branches of urban planning is creative placemaking, a practice that “animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together”, according to this white paper from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Good placemaking changes how people interact with the built environment – and with each other. And it sparks people’s imaginations about what the rest of their city or town could look like, which is why placemaking can be the vehicle and fuel of comprehensive planning,” according to Leonardo Vazquez, executive director of the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking.

In San Francisco, the Exploratorium’s Studio for Public Spaces (SPS) has a long history of creative placemaking, installing science interactives in outdoor public spaces. Thanks to that body of work, San Francisco’s Planning Department and Mayor’s Office for Innovation tapped the SPS team to enliven some of the city’s sidewalks and plazas with hands-on science interactives. Despite fostering STEM learning, the goals for the installations weren’t science-learning goals, but “civic goals to help rewrite the script” for public spaces, transforming them from unsociable “defensive places” by fostering “human-to-human interfaces,” says SPS founder Shawn Lani.

The Studio’s exhibition Middle Ground: Reconsidering Ourselves and Others, mounted in front the main public library, lets people explore social science insights into positive and negative human interactions such as humor and generosity, and bias and stereotyping. As this video shows, the exhibit engages people in those exact social science phenomena – by requiring them to collaborate to operate some interactives or by inviting them to explore the ‘whys’ behind their own biases.

In the Unseen Stories interactive, people share – and refute - what incorrect conclusions other people might draw about them based upon external characteristics. Photo courtesy of Shawn Lani.

The exhibition location – the city’s civic center plaza – is typically a classic “defensive” public space, that is home to drug dealing, sexual harassment, and nighttime encampments. To staff the exhibit, the Exploratorium turned to Urban Alchemy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit of formerly incarcerated street-workers who use trauma-informed communication and de-escalation techniques to create safe public spaces for all. With exhibit-related training by the Exploratorium, Urban Alchemy practitioners facilitated people’s learning and engagement in the exhibit, while ensuring that the space was one where all people – though not all behaviors – were welcome.

The Civic Center plaza before and during the run of Middle Ground. Courtesy Shawn Lani.

Here's some of what I love about this project as a Planning-Curious Museum Person.

(Note that a lot of these themes came up in my previous post about the “Throwing Shade” project in Richmond, VA, though the projects are completely different.)

It’s Rooted in the Real

What I’ve always loved about Exploratorium outdoor exhibits is that they are so brilliant at giving people “noticing tools” to investigate phenomena that are happening right under their noses. One of my favorites was the (now de-installed) Outdoor Exploratorium exhibition installed at Fort Mason that “instrumented the landscape” to get people to investigate the science phenomena of the park – the wind, the tides, the view of Golden Gate bridge, even the cracks in the asphalt (all without a bit of AR!) Check out this video for a moment of zen and inspiration! Middle Ground is equally rooted in the real - the phenomena of real human experience, our own, and others’. And it makes people aware of their own agency in altering those phenomena by inviting empathy, play, and humor.

It Ties Museum Work to Planning Work

Aside from being a great example of creative placemaking that showcases what is possible in reimagined public spaces, the exhibit served as a location for community engagement by planners. In the words of former San Francisco planner Neil Hrushowy, the public location and empathy-building interactives of the “allowed [us planners] to ask questions like ‘What should our streets be like?’ that we can only ask of people during the course of their everyday lives.” Another Exploratorium installation in the city gave planners like Hrushowy new insights into exactly who was using the public space: “No one knew so many kids were passing through Market Street”.

The Right Grassroots Partners

Any number of people could have been trained by the Exploratorium to be effective exhibit facilitators. But no amount of training could impart the social awareness and skills that Urban Alchemy’s practitioners brought through their lived experience. Their presence illustrated the main messages in the exhibit. And with its “ban behaviors, not people” approach, Urban Alchemy ensured that the exhibition did not represent a mini-gentrification of the space.

Join the Conversation!

Have a question or a project to share? Interested in collaborating with me on community engagement in planning? Drop a Comment!

~ Betsy Loring¹

The Planning-Curious Museum Person

Sharing stories and ideas for other Planning-Curious Museum People and for Museum-Curious Planning People.

1. Betsy Loring is founder of expLoring exhibits & engagement. She has over 20 years’ experience in project management and exhibit development in multidisciplinary, indoor and outdoor museum settings. Her services include exhibit master planning, content and interactive development, and writing, with a focus on hands-on STEM. She also offers staff training in exhibition planning, formative evaluation, and prototyping. Special interests include multi-institutional collaborations, peer-to-peer professional development, and of course – collaboration with municipal planning practitioners.