Trend Watch, June 2016

Superblocks to the rescue:

Barcelona’s radical new strategy will restrict traffic to a number of big roads, drastically reducing pollution and turning secondary streets into citizen spaces for culture, leisure and the community.

“In a city as dense as ours, it’s all the more necessary to re-conquer spaces.”

Visit the Guardian article.

Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash.

7 placemaking tips:

The Project for Public Spaces is a wealth of knowledge and research on how to create vibrant places rather than just useable spaces.

Vox Urban highlights seven pearls of wisdom. In three words, these are:

• Engage with community
• Place, not space
• Collaborate with partners
• Prepare to push
• Observe local users
• Triangulate related elements
• Value, not cost.

Read the full story.

Photo: Sydney Living Museums.

104 year old street artist yarn bombs town

Grace Brett might be the oldest living street artist in the world. The 104-year-old grandmother of six is a member of a knitting club known as the Souter Stormers, who yarn-bombed three towns in Scotland.

The Stormers spent nearly a year secretly planning the project, which was part prank, part street art installation.

See the full story.