Author Paul Kalbfleisch and architect Phil Fenech believe cities can address the challenge of our weakening societal resilience. Civic spaces should embrace the notion of play and connection. As part of this effort, community centres occupy an important role by becoming creators of community connection and thereby raising their value and purpose.
We are in the grips of an epidemic of loneliness. Our societal resilience is weakening to dangerously low levels and there is an urgency to address these challenges. Cities are the ideal environment for healing social bonds and fortunately many have begun to prioritize the need to create places for citizens to connect with each other.
Paul Kalbfleisch refers to this as building the “Infrastructure for the Human Spirit”. These are civic spaces that support the notion of play and collaboration to create collective community joy. Community centres, libraries, and parks can become a natural extension of this effort. This white paper is a joint writing and visioning effort from our Toronto studio with Paul Kalbfleisch, co-author of the The JOY Experiments: Reimagining Mid Sized Cities to Heal Our Divided Society. It explores how the building of community centres are a vital part of this important effort. They can offer a better value proposition, from host of community activities to the creators of community that ensures municipal governments gain maximum value from their capital investments.
The goal is to prompt a discussion about the evolving social role and elevated value of these buildings and their surrounding spaces. The authors explore ways that more imagination, rather than more money, can create a path to elevating them to become infrastructure for the human spirit.
