Join Teknion on October 20 when they host Public Architecture’s John Peterson and “local heroes” Beth Miller, Brian Phillips, and Deborah Gans. A great opportunity to hear (and talk) with folks that are doing public-interest design both locally and internationally.

Speech Bubbles: Interface Studio finds a fun way for residents of Wicker Park to share their ideas for the neighborhood.

Several hundred folks dropped by for the Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design opening last week.  If you missed it then,  this exhibition of fifty new approaches to community design and engagement is on display at the Center for Design through October 23. Scott Page of Interface Studio, whose work with Chicago’s Wicker Park and Philly’s Francisville is featured , shares how he’s been putting the spark back into public participation– and getting people engaged in the plan and beyond:

“After I bought a new fall jacket the other day, I was directed to go online and fill out a “satisfaction survey” for a discount.  It seems like I now receive regular requests to provide my input on almost everything—ranging from what I’ve bought two weeks ago to how I feel about smoking laws.  We now live in a world filled with public polling.  While this is a major step up from the days when no one cared (or at least bothered to ask) what we think, it does put the traditional practice of public participation into a different light.

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Listen in to Marty Moss-Coane’s interview with Teddy Cruz, Beth Miller, and Mami Hara on Radio Times about how new ideas and visions are shaping civic spaces, including here in Philadelphia.

Teddy Cruz, a Guatemala-born, San Diego-based designer and urban theorist,  found inspiration for his work in an unlikely place: the bustling slums just across the border in Tijuana. Cruz is also working on a grant-funded MixPlace Studio in the Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia, a youth mentorship initiative that includes design-related research and exhibitions for jump-starting community discussion.

Cruz was in town for Design in Action 2011, a conference exploring the burgeoning practice of design through community engagement. Beth Miller is the executive director of the Community Design Collaborative, co-host of the conference. Mami Hara is co-chair of the Collaborative and a designer and planner with Wallace Roberts & Todd who has led the planning and design of  projects that  enhance both civic life and ecological function.

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Humanitarian… inclusive… colorful… experimental… local… universal…
These are some ways to describe the projects featured in the Collaborative’s upcoming exhibition, LEVERAGE: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design.

The exhibition will present fifty innovative community design projects and programs by design firms, nonprofit groups, and public agencies October 1 through 23 at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street. You may walk by several of them  every day… others are the work of design activists and innovators in New York City, Chicago, Dallas, and beyond.

Join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, October 5 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, co-hosted by GRID magazine. RSVP. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek of the show. Read Full Story

Check out WHYY’s Friday Arts interview today with  Beth Miller, Executive Director of the Community Design Collaborative, on how the Crane Building fits into the American Street neighborhood, and how the revitalization of that building by Crane Arts fits in well with Philadelphia’s history and future.

The Crane Building, located on American Street just north of Girard Avenue, has become a nexus of artistic activities for the Northern Liberties/Fishtown/Kensington area. By turns an industrial plumbing factory and fish processing center, the Crane building has stood for over a hundred years in an oddly-shaped North Philadelphia triangular lot. Now the building houses art shows and arts organizations, artists and craftspeople, architects and designers, and the the number and variety of arts-related professions keeps growing, as it changes the immediately surrounding neighborhood.

The Community Design Collaborative hosted a peek behind the construction fence at the soon-to-be completed Sheridan Street Housing at 7th and Montgomery Streets last night. Neighbors spontaneously joined the crowd of mostly architects and planners to see, touch, and talk about these sustainable, L-shaped affordable homes.

The design concept for Sheridan Street was originally developed for APM during the Collaborative’s 2005 Affordable Infill Housing Design Challenge.  The design was refined further through a Excellence in Design grant from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

Brian Phillips and Daryn Edwards of Interface Studio Architects showed everyone around these 13 sleek, simple, and sustainable units, which offer a strong palette of recycled materials, solar thermal panels, energy-efficient HVAC, green roofs, and rain barrels. The units are also visitable, built with zero-step front entries and first floors with accessible baths and generous hallways.

Brian Phillips, Principal of Interface Studio Architects observed that market-rate  home buyers in Philadelphia now have an intriguing set of housing choices– loft space, condos, apartments, and single-family homes– with a strong sustainability component.  “Affordable home buyer should have the same options–so we’re proud that this product is for affordable home buyers,” he added.

Photos by Carryn M. Golden.

Interface Studio Architects and architect Brian Phillips, a member of the Collaborative’s board,  were featured this week in a New York Times article on the ins and outs of prefab design, Squeezing Costs, Builders Take a New Look at Prefab.

There’s new excitement around urban prefab housing, but its design and cost-savings potential only comes through extreme attention to detail. Brian learned his way around prefab through the design and construction management of The Modules, the 100K Houses, and the soon-to-be completed Sheridan Street Housing. He notes, “You really do need to embrace the modular constraints. That’s where you save time and money.”

Be sure to check out some great construction assembly footage of  The Modules. Just keep reminding yourself about all the coordination that led up to that day!