by Haley Loram — October 27th, 2009 |
Best Practices, Clients, Housing
People call it “the Miracle on Seventh Street.” Between a brownstone church, a superblock apartment house, and a scattering of rowhomes, two North Philadelphia pastors built a 56-unit green-roofed, 55,000 square-foot “cyber village” that offers low and moderate-income seniors an affordable and engaging place to live.
Rev. Martha Lang and Rev Mary Lou Moore, pastors of Mt. Tabor AME Church and leaders of Mt. Tabor Community Education and Economic Development Corporation, were the driving force behind the creation of the Cyber Village.
Rev. Mary Lou Moore, PhD, and Rev. Martha Lang
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by Erik Kojola — October 20th, 2009 |
Best Practices
Leap Night was a one-night winter festival on a vacant site in Cleveland. Photo courtesy of CUDC.
Terry Schwarz wants to save our cities– and she is prepared to do it in a bear suit.
Schwarz, a senior planner at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) and adjunct professor at Kent State University, has been coordinating creative temporary uses of vacant land through Pop Up City, an initiative of the Shrinking Cities Institute at the CUDC. Events have included the February 29th Leap Night, a one-night winter festival on a vacant lot complete with a snowboard ramp, bonfire, music performances and, yes, bear suits. Schwarz’s work has centered on developing more sustainable models of development and addressing Cleveland’s vacancy problems through art, creativity and community engagement.
Terry sat down to talk with me before her presentation, Ad Hoc Urbanism: Adventures in Temporary Use, sponsored by the Community Design Collaborative as part of DesignPhiladelphia. Read Full Story
by Haley Loram — October 19th, 2009 |
Volunteers
The Community Design Collaborative has honored Wallace Roberts & Todd with its inaugural Gold Medal Firm Award in recognition of the firm’s extraordinary dedication and service . “WRT has been a rock of support,” says Beth Miller, Executive Director of the Collaborative, “Since our beginnings in 1991, WRT volunteers have provided more than $200,000 worth of pro bono services. This firm has a great ethic of community service. More than 60 WRT staff members have shown their enthusiasm for our mission by volunteering.”
WRT Principal and Collaborative Board Member Mami Hara on a site visit for Infill Philadelphia: Food Access
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by Erik Kojola — October 16th, 2009 |
At the Collaborative, Events, Volunteers
Our volunteer recognition event during DesignPhiladelphia was a huge success! Over 120 people attended and the presentation was standing room only.
The talk by Terry Schwarz raised interesting issues about vacant land and temporary reuse. Her work with Pop Up City in Cleveland provides some creative ideas for revitalizing urban areas, fostering community engagement and utilizing neglected infrastructure. Schwarz discussed past Pop Up events including a winter festival called Leap Night, a community celebration on a neglected bridge and an artists’ bazaar in an empty building.
The Collaborative will continue working on these issues with our Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites Interim Use Charrette on October 30. Design professionals, public artists, and nonprofit and city planners will devise creative temporary projects to enliven vacant small-scale neighborhood industrial sites in Chinatown and Kensington.
Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer
by Haley Loram — October 12th, 2009 |
Events, Infill Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA – October 12, 2009 – Former industrial sites are great assets in Philadelphia but the process of purchasing, remediating, and redeveloping a former site can take years. The Community Design Collaborative hopes to accelerate that process and calls on designers and other creative users to participate in a charrette that will consider options to enliven sites in the interim.
The charrette is the first in a series of events that make up Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites, and will take place on Friday, October 30th during the 3-day “7th Annual Design on the Delaware Conference & Trade Show” (Oct 28-30). Read Full Story
by Linda Dottor — October 8th, 2009 |
Best Practices, Housing
The Roll-Out House
Deborah Gans is Principal of Deborah Gans Studio and a professor at Pratt Institute and Yale University. She’s best known for her “extreme housing”, design prototypes for people displaced by homelessness, natural disaster, or war. Gans Studio’s Roll-Out House was recently featured in Into the Open, the 2008 Venice Biennale exhibition that explores the ways architects are collaborating to foster civic engagement and build better communities.
When Into the Open came to Philadelphia this summer, the Collaborative spoke with Gans about her work, building a practice, and her role in planning the exhibition. Read Full Story
by Haley Loram — October 7th, 2009 |
Volunteers
Erin and Richard Roark, the recipients of this year’s Community Design Award for their outstanding work on the master plan for revitalization of Palumbo Park, make a pretty exceptional team.
Richard Roark RLA, ASLA, LEED AP, and Erin K.M. Roark, RA, LEED AP, recipients of the 2009 Community Design Award
Erin and Richard have volunteered their skills to help Collaborative clients for years. Most recently, they formed a two-person team and worked with the Palumbo Park Task Force and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial to create a conceptual landscape plan for Palumbo Park.
Before the couple decided to take on this project together, the Roarks never had a chance to work together as a husband-wife team on a project outside their home. In their own words, “This was a big step up from renovating the bathroom and designing Christmas cards.” Read Full Story
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