As Part of Baltimore Architecture Week, the AIA’s Urban Design Committee Hosted a forum on the role of design centers in urban regeneration. This event generated some interesting energy and discussion. The following are the notes of Urban Design Committee co-chair Klaus Phillipsen:
Panel Moderator Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson of the D.center. Click here to see the complete set of photos from the discussion.
BALTIMORE ARCHITECTURE WEEK: BALTIMORE AIA URBAN DESIGN COMMITTEE SPONSORED EVENT
A Forum: The Role of Design Centers in Urban Regeneration –
A Comprehensive Center for Design in Baltimore
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Location: RTKL, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD, 21231, Fells Point
Sponsors: PNC Bank, Dana Risk Insurance
Event Topic
A successful design center, as shown in other cities, has the possibility to elevate the status of design and bring talent and ideas to a city. A design center is a common ground for several individuals and institutions and industry leaders to bring together and share ideas. It is a chance for an open and public forum of ideas where the design community can share and express progressive ideas for how to improve the city from physical, policy, and social points of view. Maurice Cox from the National Endowment for the Arts will address these aspects from a national perspective.
Presenters
Gary Gaston
Gary Gaston is the Design Studio Director of the Nashville Civic Design Center. He has lead planning efforts for the East Bank, Edgehill, Lafayette and Wedgewood Houston Neighborhoods. He was a principal contributor to the Center’s book The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2005. Gary co-chaired the Live It Up Downtown Home Tour for four years, and currently serves as co-chair for Education & Outreach on Mayor Dean’s Green Ribbon Committee. Gary holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and serves on the Board of Directors of Nashville CARES and Artrageous.
Maurice Cox
Maurice Cox was appointed Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts in October 2007. Cox supervises the NEA grantmaking process in design, oversees the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Governors’ Institute on Community Design, and Your Town: The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, and provides professional leadership in architecture and design to the nation.
On leave from the University of Virginia, School of Architecture where he is an Associate Professor of Architecture, Cox most recently led graduate students in the development of award-winning proposals for the rebuilding of affordable housing in New Orleans following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
Cox served as Mayor of Charlottesville from 2002-2004. As mayor, architect, and urbanist he was widely recognized as the principal urban designer of his city.
He was a founding partner of RBGC Architecture, Research and Urbanism from 1996-2006 in Charlottesville, Virginia. RBGC’s groundbreaking use of design as a catalyst for social change in the rural town of Bayview, Virginia has received national acclaim and has been featured on 60 Minutes and in Architecture magazine.
Maurice Cox is currently on leave as a partner with Ken Schwartz in Community Planning + Design WORKSHOP (CP+D Workshop). A recipient of the 2004-05 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the 2006 John Hejduk Award for Architecture, Cox has lectured widely on the topics of democratic design, civic engagement, and the designer’s role as leader. He received his architectural education from the Cooper Union School of Architecture.
Notes from the event:
Gary Gaston showed how the Nashville Design Center has become known for public participation and big picture planning in Nashville. http://www.civicdesigncenter.org/
- He explained the four tenets of the Civic Design Center embodied in the logo squares: “Think, Design, Create, Sustain”.
- The Center initially trained over 300 citizens in a 101 of planning course.
- They also produced 15 minute TV shows about urban design in Nashville.
- They worked with 9 inner ring neighborhoods on neighborhood plans.
- They established 10 principles and prepared the Nashville Vision Plan
- They have annual “Living the Plan” fundraising events in which they raise $80-90k each year
- They worked with the Army Corps of Engineers on a Riverfront Masterplan
- They developed a set of site alternatives for the Nashville Convention Center and create baseline specs for it
- They work in a partnership with University of Tennessee students
Maurice Cox emphasized the inclusionary aspect of design, that design should serve the public interest and he sees designers as facilitators, problems solvers, activists and advocates.
- He quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Design Activity and Political Thought are Indivisible”
- He pointed to the book by Ronald Heifetz “Leadership without easy answers” as a useful source from which he explained the term “Adaptive Challenge”
- He stressed that the willingness of behavior change determines if somebody has a seat at the table
- He pointed out that “participation enlarges the community’s capacity to accept change”
- He stated that it is necessary to move the learning to a “neutral ground” i.e. away from City Hall and city departments to a place such as a Design Center
- He spoke about the “gap”: “The greater the difference between aspirations and reality, the larger the gap and the larger the need for trust”. (that a design center is suited to build this trust)
- That learning what is possible should be de-coupled from an imminent project (and rather be practiced on a longer term project)
- He reported how in Charlottesville as Mayor he had appointed designers to every board in the city and how this made a huge and lasting difference
- He stressed how “doing good” alone is not enough and that it needs to be coupled with “design excellence” and showed the Charlottesville transit center project as an example which had been reviewed by a “Design Excellence Task Force”.
- He challenged the design community to come “to the problems the country cares about” (which are likely not design problems per se) and mentioned the foreclosure crisis as an example.
- He explained how NEA sponsors grants and that a non-profit needs to be incorporated for 3 years before it can receive NEA grant money.
- He stressed the importance of linage between universities and design centers. The average grants are between $20 and $50k. Half of the design grants went to Universities that had associated design centers.
- He spoke about the “Mayors Institute” funded and organized by NEA which trains mayors (and now also Governors) across the country in urban design.
- Maurice challenged all present to become active and offered his help and promised to be a friend of our efforts to bring the D:Center to life
Tom Stosur, Director of Planning in Baltimore City stood up and responded to the presentations. He acknowledged the importance of design excellence and that this might not always have been a priority in Baltimore.
