A conceptual design for St. Mary's Episcopal Church opens new doors (and windows) for serving the community with day care, a food kitchen, and a community bike shop.

Check out Philadelphia Weekly’s review of the Collaborative’s new book, Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design. Darren White looks at leverage from several angles—yes, it is possible!—and the cumulative effect of twenty years of leveraging the talents of our volunteers and the tenacity and vision of our nonprofit clients.

In the review, Beth Miller shares her own definition of leverage, “Last year, the value of service of the design professionals that worked through us was $900,000. And that’s money you can’t find anywhere. There are no preliminary design grants out there.  Funders usually want to be the last money in, so it’s a critical point. And it’s a great match of service, interest, and need.  It’s a lot of interventions from the grassroots up… but collectively it can make a huge impact.”

Lighten up your Black Friday by getting a colorful copy of Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design—or give one to a friend or family member who’d like to know more about what design can do. The book’s on sale for the holidays at the AIA Bookstore & Design Center, 1216 Arch Street—or online.

P.S.  If you’ve ever volunteered with the Collaborative, don’t forget to look for your name in the “volunteer hall of fame” pages at the end of the book!

Courtesy of TEDx Philly

Volunteer Jennifer Martel writes, “I love to hear about new and exciting ideas, so I was thrilled to receive a ticket from the Community Design Collaborative to attend my first live TED event last week. TEDx Philly was held at the Temple Performing Arts Center, the stunningly-renovated temple-turned-theater on North Broad Street. “The City” was the topic of this year’s talks. Throughout the day, I heard from individuals and organizations whose work weaves and reinforces the physical, social, and technological fabric of our cities.

The first presenter set the tone for the day. Jennifer Pahlka, Executive Director of Code for America, told us about growing up in New York City in the 70s. The city was dirty and dangerous. The economic boom turned things around in a big way, but when the market crashed, Pahlka admits she believed the city would regress to its former state. But it didn’t. It thrived, and today it is greener, wealthier, and better than ever.

Why are many financially-strapped cities doing so well in tough economic times? The answer unfolded with each speaker that stepped onto the stage. It is programs like Play On, Philly!, the Philadelphia Student Union, and the Philly Youth Poetry Movement that empower young people to achieve astounding successes through music, activism, and spoken word.
It is scientists like Dr. Jeffrey Brenner— who is working with Camden residents to build a new health care delivery system for underserved communities. It is activists like Keya Dannenbaum— who realized that mayoral and city council elections (TEDx Philly took place on Election Day) have more impact on the lives of urban-dwellers than the congressional or presidential races that over-occupy the media. It is researchers and scholars like Amy Hillier and Young Jin Yoo— who use technology to better understand and improve the urban lifestyle.

The answer also lies in the art that brings wonder and joy to our city streets. I was excited to hear about two new works of art that will be calling Philadelphia home in the coming year. Artist Janet Echelman has designed a colorful dry-mist garden that will dance across the new Dilworth Plaza whenever a train passes underground. Dutch artists Haas and Hahn whose vibrant paintings transformed urban neighborhoods in Brazil will be working with Mural Arts on several projects in Philly in the coming years.

From TEDx Philly, I learned that it’s not money and large capital projects that make our city great. It’s the invaluable human capital that cities both create and thrive upon.”

Learn about who spoke at The City and where they live on Twitter—plus news about TEDx Philly’s next topics.

Teddy Cruz speaking to hundreds of architects and designers at the Friends Center on October 10.

Hundreds of architects and designers came together at the Friends Center in October to hear Teddy Cruz speak on Creative Acts of Citizenship. If you missed this public symposium or want a reprise, check out our video clips.

Friends Center was busy that night as Occupy Philadelphia activists used the meeting house as home base, parents picked kids up from day care, and teens attended a nutrition class… an apropos setting for an architect who honed his design philosophy at the crossroads of the San Diego-Tijuana border.

Cruz picked up on the Occupy Philly vibe, tying his passionate design practice to its themes of equity. Here’s what he had to say:

A New Kind of Architect

Citizenship is the Creative Act

Rethinking the American Dream

Room to Grow: The Neighborhood Center wants to expand its South Camden campus onto vacant buildings and land nearby.

Join the Collaborative on Wednesday, November 9 for the URBAN ENERGY II Design Charrette: Planning for the Next Century of Service.  

The Neighborhood Center, an urban outreach mission of the Greater New Jersey Conference United Methodist Churches, has been serving the needs of low-income children, families, and seniors for nearly 100 years from its small campus in South Camden. The Center has room to grow—but needs a strategy for retooling its existing five-building campus and  bringing nearby vacant buildings and land into play.

To celebrate its centennial year, the Center recently convened a community visioning workshop to consider the changing needs of Camden residents and kick off an era of new leadership. The design charrette will translate ideas from the Center’s visioning workshop into conceptual master plans for an expanded campus.

Contribute your design concepts for new spaces and landscapes that support the next generation of social services, create a strong neighborhood anchor, and act as a catalyst for community revitalization. All design disciplines are invited to participate!

Planning for the Next Century of Service is being offered as part of AIA Philadelphia’s Design on the Delaware 2011 conference and provides 8 continuing education credits to members of AIA. Cost:  $50/$25 for AIA Members/$15 for AIA Associates. Register.

“Not a Vacant Lot”, built on a vacant lot in the middle of vibrant Center City, gathered our free-floating anxiety about Philly’s huge stock of vacant land into something more tangible and hopeful. The Broad Street art installation contained 250 PVC pipes that represent the geographic distribution of Philly’s 40,000 vacant lots and an aluminum play house that displays artists’ interventions on vacant lots throughout the city. The installation was the starting point for Nathaniel Popkin’s recent Inquirer column about the city’s vacant land, how it got there, and new directions in which it could go.

Our vast and varied stock of vacant land—residential, commercial, and industrial—distinguishes us from other major East Coast cities, but only if we can unleash its potential.  It’s simultaneously a singular resource for adding things new and necessary to the city and a tough nut to crack. Check out Nathaniel’s conversations with people who are putting vacant land back into play, including the Collaborative’s Beth Miller.

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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