Landscape improvements along 63rd Street in Overbrook Farms designed by Sara Pevaroff Schuh.

Pedestrians and drivers along the 63rd Street Commercial Corridor in historic Overbrook Farms will get a treat this spring when the sidewalk planters built by the Overbrook Farms Club emerge from the snow and begin to bloom.

The landscape improvements were designed by Sara Pevaroff Schuh, Principal of SALT Design Studio and a regular Collaborative volunteer, as part of a larger effort by the Overbrook Farms Club (OFC) to enliven its neighborhood commercial corridor, which extends from City Line Avenue to Woodbine Avenue. The initial idea for the project came from a master plan for the corridor that Collaborative volunteers developed in 2007 to provide OFC with a vision for revitalization and strategies for beautification, façade improvements, and site identity.

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Tavis Dockwiller, principal of Viridian Landscape Studio, a long-time Collaborative volunteer.

The Community Design Collaborative and local nonprofits have benefited many times from the sustainability savvy of landscape architect Tavis Dockwiller. Tavis, principal of Viridian Landscape Studio, has volunteered on five Collaborative projects.  For her, landscape architecture is not just about understanding biological processes but enhancing the spaces in which we live, “Design is important because it reveals the beauty in place and people need beauty.”

Tavis and her firm had a hand in developing a conceptual design for a sustainable master plan at the Cook-Wissahickon School in Roxborough and a neighborhood open space for the Mural Arts Advocates that will highlight local ecological diversity and help reunite adjudicated youth with their community.  More recently, she lent her expertise as part of a design charrette organized by the Collaborative as part of Infill Philadelphia to explore the temporary use of former industrial sites.

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Collaborative volunteer Matt Huffman with his son Renzo.

Matt Huffman is a project architect at Brawer & Hauptman Architects and received a 2009 Outstanding Volunteer Award from the Community Design Collaborative.  Matt volunteered on a project with the Center for Literacy to help assess their needs and provide them with guidelines and advice on selecting a new site.

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Tom Halliwell of Duffield Associates received a 2009 Outstanding Volunteer Award.

Tom Halliwell is a civil engineer who works as a Project Manager at Duffield Associates and was named a Community Design Collaborative 2009 Outstanding Volunteer for his work on the Greening of Greene Street Friends project.  With Tom’s assistance, the volunteer team developed a conceptual landscape plan for Greene Street Friends School that would incorporate sustainability measures and enhance the students’ play experience.

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Miquon School has a 10-acre partially wooded campus cut by a creek. Charles and Chariss, along with team members, provided an analysis of water flows and suggestions for managing stormwater.

Charles Loomis and Chariss McAfee, principals of Charles Loomis Chariss McAfee Architecture and 2009 recipients of a Collaborative Outstanding Firm Award, look forward to new design challenges.

Charles and Chariss have worked on two projects with the Collaborative, a master plan for the renovation of Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania and a conceptual design for creek stabilization for the Miquon School in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.  Volunteering with the Collaborative allows them to take on a wider range of projects.  “We are attracted by the complexities of the issues and to working with diverse groups of people,” remarks Charles.

They see providing their architecture skills pro bono as a way to support community organizations. “It is helpful to nonprofit groups to have this assistance in the early difficult-to-fund stages of their projects,” says Chariss.

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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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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.