Posts Tagged ‘design charrette’

Highlights from Hill City

October 7th, 2009

Last week I had the opportunity to spend four days with the folks in Hill City. SD during a design:SD charrette.  I say opportunity for several reasons: it is a special thing when a community invites a team in and believes they will produce something they need, and it is awesome when fifteen individually talented strangers at the start become friends lending their talents towards a common goal. 

The experience always leaves me with new impressions, ideas, and hopes.  Project Hill City was no different.  Below is an unedited, incomplete, and completely biased view of my impressions in Hill City.  I hope my mates will fill in where I’m off track. 

Preserve What’s Special

The folks in Hill City continually shared that preserving the “feel” of Hill City was top priority.   Naming what that feeling is was a bit more difficult; everything from unique character, charm, history, arts, natural beauty, and the list goes on. 

The point is, there was something special to capture about Hill City that is different than the next community, but that each community has (or should develop) that same sense.  Figuring out how to put words to it will help you make decisions regarding your community brand and design. 

Unintended Consequences

During our learning studio, we heard that some Hill City residents desired an events center: a place where people could be housed and entertained in one convenient location. 

What the design team realized is that Hill City is already an events center. Adding a separate events center  (likely to be located on the fringes of the community or out of the city limits altogether) may actually detract from the culture Hill City is trying to create.  Our recommendation is to use existing places and spaces to meet the needs of events that will be held in Hill City.

Tourists and Residents Have Different Needs

Who are you going to plan for? Understanding how residents and tourists use your community differently may help guide a comprehensive plan.  One example is of this is shared in the video below.

Matt’s point is this:  parking needs are different for residents than they are for tourists, so plan accordingly. 

Design Impacts Community

Hill City has been able to reinvent its downtown area due to the influence of the arts.  Several prominent artists house galleries in Hill City, and dozens more display their works in the galleries and shops along Main Street.  I think it is no coincidence that the community describes itself as able to work together well.  Downtown places, and the interaction that they encourage, help residents build social capital, contributing to a community’s ability to get along.  (sort of like the “third places” Mike keeps talking about)

 

 

 

These are just a few of the highlights I’ve come away from Hill City with.  All of the design:SD boards are available for viewing below.  I’d be interested in what you think!

DesignSD - Hill City Boards
View more documents from Rural Learning Center.

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design:SD — More on the Boards

April 2nd, 2009

Design:SD is a lot of fun because we don’t focus on financing - or more specifically, the lack of it.  Instead, the team and community spend  a lot of time brainstorming and imagining creative projects.   Unfortunately, what sometimes happens next is that the design team leaves, and community members are left wondering, “Where is the money going to come from?”

In Deuel, the design team didn’t even get out of town before the question was asked.  In response, the team created a board with a list of funding opportunities to address the question.  (see slide below)

 

The point behind the board was that lots of funding opportunities exist:  so the task becomes matching the funding source with the type of project being developed. 

After the board was done, team members began identifying opportunities not listed and we added a couple more ideas (see DOT Enhancement Grant and HOME Funds).  We could have added many others (like USDA Rural Development programs) as well, but decided the board wasn’t big enough.  In any case, the list is far from complete.

 

A bit of further advice

As I reflect on the slide, I can’t help but offer some further advice. 

People often worry about funding way too early in a project’s lifespan.  Rather than focus on money, community members should begin by prioritizing the community’s needs and developing a ranked list of projects that meet those needs. 

Once complete the community can take the first few projects off the list and begin developing them, including their cost estimates.  It is at this point that attention should be focused on both local resources and outside funding opportunities like those described on the board. 

At that point, projects either acquire the necessary funding or they don’t.  If they don’t, projects may have to go back on the list and wait.  The list may also need to be reprioritized.  It has been my experience, however, that if the project has merit, the support of the community, and is well thought out, the project will find its funding.   

I am offering this advice because it seems that if too much attention is directed at funding at the start, projects appear unrealistic and nothing ever gets started.   But if the energy goes into developing a good project that meets the community’s needs, the funding will eventually materialize.

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design:SD — The Design Boards

April 1st, 2009

Design: South Dakota’s three-day design charrette in Deuel County, SD culminated with a presentation of the design board developed by the team.  As Joe Bartmann wrote on the Design:SD blog:

The theme of our charrette this year became “Deuelities.” A play on ‘Deuel’ and ‘Duality.’ A duality is a relationship between two things, where both are different, but something is shared. That’s pretty much what we saw and heard in Deuel-several individual communities with identities of their own, but connected by a commonality or shared space and culture. County boundaries are certainly just imaginary political lines, but Deuel County communities have an opportunity for bigger things by connecting and working together.

Design Sd Deuel County (SD) Design Boards
View more presentations from ReImagineRural.

You can see from the slides that there are some pretty talented design professionals on the team.  Some of the concepts developed involve major projects, while others could be accomplished with a little effort here or there.  It will be fun to see where the community takes the ideas.

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Welcoming potential residents

March 31st, 2009

A recurring theme we heard during our three-day design charrette in Deuel County (SD) was the desire to bring more residents to the community.  We heard that several of the community’s largest employers are still looking for employees - even during this economic downturn - and that a high percentage of the community’s labor force is currently driving into town to work.   Sounds like a great opportunity. 

It also leads to a question: how does a community convince people to move to their town?   Part of the answer may be in how easy it is for these potential residents to get to know the community. 

Lost and Found

During the charrette, design team members stayed with host families.  One of our presenters was one of those hosts. 

On Wednesday evening, he and his wife were on the “look-out” for their guest.  After seeing someone who looked lost go by their house several times, the presenter’s wife walked out to the street to see if this was their guest. Turns out the individual worked in town and was contemplating a move to Clear Lake.  His work schedule had made it difficult for him to get to know the community and look for available housing, specifically.  , He was driving around to get a feel.  The presenter’s wife offered some assistance, and the worker was on his way.

Small town atmosphere

This is the type of story that we have come to expect from rural communities.  It demonstrates the small town, friendly atmosphere that is so common.  But it also demonstrates that just being friendly may not be enough.  How many people never get noticed as they check out our communities? 

I was happy to learn that the town of Gary recently held housing fair as means of sharing information about housing opportunities.  But beyond that I did not hear of many other examples of how the issue was being addressed in Deuel County. 

It seems to me that all rural communities should dig into this question further.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers, but I’m sure there are a lot of innovative ideas out there.  I hope people who have those ideas will share them in the comments below. 

The bottom line is that welcoming potential residents is too important of an issue for us to leave it to happen-stance meetings out on the street.

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design:SD — Themes emerge

March 31st, 2009

Wow! We survived Design:SD. And I think the Deuel County (SD) community did as well.

While it was fun to work on design elements county-wide (rather than one community at a time), it challenged our time schedule, and made blogging from the event difficult.  After working late into Friday evening (the last boards were completed around 2:00 am), the team successfully presented the design boards to the community Saturday.  We heard some interesting comments following the event, and I think we sparked some “reimagination” among community residents.

I intend to produce several post-charrette articles over the next few days, including the presentation of the design boards.  Until they are ready, I will leave you with a brief summary of a few of the main themes that emerged during the charrette.

General Themes from the Charrette

Plan: Whether it’s the physical appearance of the community or economic development, creating plans will help the community use its limited financial resources more efficiently.

Develop gateways: The community could benefit from improving design elements that direct visitors to key public places. For instance, local residents may know how to get to Main Street, to the school, or to the city park, but visitors probably don’t. There are numerous design elements that could help, including signage.

Work together: Most rural communities have a strong history of coming together in times of need, and we definitely saw evidence of this in Deuel County. But all communities benefit by collaborating with other towns in the county as well as those outside the county.

Beautify Main Street: Each of the communities has an opportunity to improve the aesthetics of their main street areas. Doing so will send the message to visitors that something good is happening in the community and it can help spur retail development.

Photo:  Larry (standing) and TJ working on some architectural elements.

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design:SD — Team Orientation

March 26th, 2009

Design South Dakota got off to a start last evening with a reception and team orientation session at the 109 Club in Gary, SD.  It provided an opportunity for the design team (made of architects, planners, and community development specialists) to mix with community members and hear details of the following three days. 

Joe Bartmann, the project’s co-leader (along with Tom Reasoner) asked the team to remember two points that I’d like to share:

1.) Design like people matter. By this, Joe meant that “place matters.” And how people interact within places may be different. The team’s job is to capture how people will interact within their place, and then design to facilitate that interaction.

2.) Design Team’s job is to help the community have “new eyes”. From my perspective as a community development specialist, this is particularly important because residents rarely see the whole picture of their community. After looking at their community day-after-day, some elements of the community seem to disappear. We no longer see them, or at a minimum don’t see them the same way outsiders do. It’s the design team’s job to help people see their community in new ways.

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Design:SD Heads to Deuel County this Week

March 23rd, 2009

The folks in Deuel County can expect a little extra excitement this week.  A group of 18 architects, landscape architects, engineers, planners, and community development professionals will spend three days in Deuel at the end of this week (March 26-28) for Design: South Dakota. 

Design: South Dakota, now in its third year, is a is a new way to help rural communities across South Dakota create a better future by design, where architects, engineers, planners and community developers volunteer to help South Dakota’s small towns gather and illustrate ideas for their future.

 The 3-plus day design:SD event, called a “charrette,” is described by project leaders as a “mixing bowl” of local knowledge, ideas and visions for the future, with the expertise and experience of professionals from outside the community. 

The Deuel County community has been preparing for the event since the fall of 2008, when they were selected as the next Design: SD community.  Recently, Deuel Area Development (a local non-profit development corporation) has hosted a series of roundtable discussions leading up the charrette.  The topics have included:  agriculture, main street business, healthcare, recreation, young families, and uses for the former school for the blind property.  The information harvested from these conversations was sent to Design team members to help them prepare and understand the community a bit before the three day event.

“The design charrette is the shortest portion of the process, when you consider the work that must be done before and after the event,” said Joe Bartmann, co-leader of the d:SD, Project Deuel County.  “The ideas that are illustrated have, in many ways, been long in the making for a community-and when the design team leaves it is up to the community to follow-through and make the ideas a reality.” 

Mike Knutson and I will be among the Design team for Project Deuel County, so watch for live updates and pictures from Deuel later this week!

If you’re a Deuel County resident, or simply interested in learning more about Design:SD, you’re invited to several community events during the charrette.  Events, times, and locations are listed below.

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