Community Placemaking with Outdoor Dining
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Newton’s villages are a treasured resource of the city’s social and economic fabric. They are unique, quirky, and often characterized by an aging commercial building stock that can be both architecturally inviting as well as sorely wanting from a “quality of place” perspective. The “rear yards” of these sites tend to be a hodgepodge of random parking spaces, dumpsters, “smoke break” furniture and other building infrastructure. As the pandemic unfolded, landowners and tenants alike began to see the value in these residual spaces as potential placemaking opportunities, especially as outdoor dining venues. This study explored the potential of adding outdoor dining to a favorite local café and creating a series of amenities that included public art, improved softscape and hardscape, enhanced lighting, attractive dumpster corals, as well as improved pedestrian access and parking.
