Thursday, May 14, 2020 • 12:00–12:59pm (ET)

As residents, designers, and policymakers adapt public spaces to face the threat of COVID-19 and its social and economic fallout, success will depend a great deal on our ability to experiment, observe, and learn.

So what better time to revisit the work of trailblaizing public space researcher and PPS mentor, William H. Whyte? This Thursday, join Project for Public Spaces staff for a free watch party of Whyte’s influential 1980 documentary, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Register now.

Holly Whyte was both Project for Public Spaces’ (PPS) mentor and friend. Perhaps his most important gift was the ability to show us how to discover for ourselves why some public spaces work and others don’t. With the publication of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces and this companion film in 1980, the world could see that through the basic tools of observation and interviews, we can learn an immense amount about how to make our cities more livable. In doing so, Holly Whyte laid the groundwork for a major movement to change the way public spaces are built and planned. PPS hope you enjoy the film as a reminder of the importance of use and design in our public spaces. They will kick off with an introduction from Project for Public Spaces, and take Q and A throughout the webinar.