Perspectives on Placemaking: Affective Practices and the Lived Dimensions of Space

Abstract

Placemaking is widely promoted as a tool for belonging and urban transformation, yet its affective dimensions remain undertheorized. This article develops a framework for placemaking as an affective practice, arguing that sense of place is best understood through the relational dynamics of affect. Drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial triad, I show how governance often privileges conceived space while overlooking lived dimensions. Distinguishing affect from emotion, I demonstrate how embodied and social interactions generate atmospheres that shape how places are governed. Building on assemblage thinking, I conceptualize placemaking as a distributed process where affect binds material, social, and institutional forces.