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charette, the objective was to encourage some more reflection, maturation, and refinement of ideas. These ideas can be effec- tively communicated by inserting illustrations, drawings and photographs which depict by example or analogy some of the ideas which were developed during the charette or afterwards. What follows is a description of these place making elements which must necessarily be linked to an urban design strategy which should be at least sketchily described here, though it is probably redundant as others are including it in their work. The next step will be to take the parts of these findings which the Riverfront Commission finds feasible and to develop a presentation for the specific client groups which can be acti- vated to make them a reality. The "place makers" then respond to these larger urban design objectives of orientation, physical direction through space, and connection between different design elements (often missing in assemblages of public art). Chapter IV Place Making Elements for the G rand Junction Riverfront Ronald Lee Fleming The Townscape Institute Cambridge, MA Introduction Unlike the anticipated planning strategy, members of the design team worked together in a collaborative effort throughout the planning process, This makes it somewhat difficult to isolate the achievements of individual team members, but it also made it a richer process with a kind of synergy that would not have been present if team members had worked separately. When describing the place making elements of the plan, one has to say that there are those elements which anchor the viewer to the location by creating a sense of association,' a kind of mental landscape of elements which encourage the public to participate in the evolution of a place. Often this feeling of participation in place, through an increased understanding of the historical, cultural, even geological events which helped to create it, in turn builds a feeling of proprietor- ship, a sense of caring which is the basis of an ethic. Unfortunately, many architectUral and urban design projects ignore this phenomenon. They do not build into the design process the kind of information gathering which can create a basis for determining what is special about a particular com- munity. The environmental brief of contextual information, a behavioral analysis of how people actually use space, and the content of facts - historical, cultural, geological - become a base for inspiring the metaphors about place that can stimulate works of urban design, craft, and public art which affirm this sense of place and ultimately create the feelings of care and connection. We often experience a sense of wonder when we discover such environments, but it is too seldom that we have built new environments in American cities since World War II that inspire this feeling of both intimacy and respect. The planning staff and the Riverfront Commission helped to fast track that discovery process whilst the NEA funded design team was in Grand Junction. Through a series of inter- views, museum visits, encounters with community historians, and perusal of old plans and photographs, which the plan- ning staff made available, the team became rapidly acquainted with many facets of the community; though, of course, this collection of facts remained a fragile mosaic in the heads of the team. By writing the report after the fact of the design Place Making Elements I. Grand Junction Vista Confluence Point The team proposed a complex that sits on the bluff above the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers which would utilize the marketing of fruit products, the housing of a State Park office and the construction of an observation tower and native flora and fauna garden as a way of focusing attention on the particular characteristics of the City. The "Grand Vista" can serve as a major orientation point which, not incidentally, makes visitors aware of the presence of the river while celebrating the relationship to the Colorado National Monument and the continuing importance of the orchards. a. Orchard entry parking lot. To welcome visitors into this complex, the automobiles are guided into a court that is planted with fruit trees and is land- scaped like a grid of the City with grass squares to indicate the real squares of the City which lie on the same axis in the distance. Perhaps these fruit trees in the parking lot are only ornamental, in order to spare tourist autos the thump and splash of aging fruit, but they provide shade in what the team observed as a very hot open vista, and they reinforce the sense of the City grid. They can also be related to an entry border 17