Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods Through Design
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LEVERAGE LEVERAGE In 2011 the Community Design Collaborative celebrates two decades of DESIGN THROUGH NEIGHBORHOODS STRENGTHENING providing pro bono design services to nonprofi t organizations in Philadelphia and the region. LEVERAGE showcases the approach and success of this groundbreaking community design center. LEVERAGE HOW THE COMMUNITY DESIGN COLLABORATIVE Profi les of 20 key projects highlight how the Collaborative transforms its values into three dimensions, on projects large and small. A series of essays considers the role of designers as advocates and policymakers, the future of design STRENGTHENING activism, and how the Collaborative has contributed to design excellence in IS CHANGING THE URBAN LANDSCAPE OF PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia and beyond. LEVERAGE was created for readers interested in the role of cities, as well as for architects, designers, and nonprofi t COMMUNITY DESIGN COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY leaders who view thoughtful, innovative NEIGHBORHOODS design as a strategy to create and sustain vital urban places. EDITED BY BETH MILLER AND TODD WOODWARD THROUGH DESIGN www.cdesignc.org LEVERAGE STRENGTHENING NEIGHBORHOODS THROUGH DESIGN Edited by Beth Miller and Todd Woodward Community Design Collaborative, Philadelphia First Edition ISBN 13: 978-0-615-52450-4 Copyright 2011 © The Community Design Collaborative Printed and Bound in Canada by the Prolifi c Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without The body text is set in Whitney. The 360° sections are permission from the publisher. set in Adobe Caslon Pro. The text is printed on two di erent papers. All pages except for the 360° sections are printed on 80lb Rolland Enviro 100 Satin. The 360° sections are printed First published in the United States of America by on 80lb Starbrite Gloss. The cover is printed on 12 point The Community Design Collaborative, Publishers Carolina C1S with a matte fi lm lamination. www.cdesignc.org Available through D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Editorial and project management: 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, N.Y. 10013 Alison Rooney Communications, LLC Tel: 212.627.1999 Fax: 212.627.9484 Design: Smyrski Creative (www.smyrskicreative.com) Photography: Brawer & Hauptman: 111, 112 bwa architecture + planning: 5, 55, 64, 65, 73 bwa architecture + planning/Don Pearse Photographers: 70, 73 Mark Garvin: 3, 5, 17, 18, 60, 93, 101 Carryn M. Golden: 39, 69, 98 Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia: 76 Raymond W. Holman, Jr. Photography: 10, 61, 82, inside front and back cover Interface Studio Architects LLC: 66, 69 Kelly/Maiello, Inc. Archtitects & Planners © Halkin Photography LLC: 42 Peter J. Kubilis: cover, 58, 74, 75 Lager Raabe Skafte Landscape Architects, Inc.: 38, 40 Wynne Levy: 10, 15, 32, 35, 44, 49, 87, 94, 106, 109 Haley Loram: 71 Sam Oberter: 68 Spiral Q Puppet Theater: 103 Studio Agoos Lovera and Matt Wargo: 78, 79 Andrew Toy: 5, 21, 30, 35 Pablo Virgo: 104 THROUGH DESIGN THROUGH NEIGHBORHOODS STRENGTHENING LEVERAGE 54 20 92 6 Foreword: The Origins of the 50 When Is Collaboration 22 56 94 Community Design Collaborative Like Construction? Community Legal Oxford Street Wynne Theater C D in Philadelphia Mark Alan Hughes C Services of Philadelphia Don Matzkin 60 98 ollaboration 83 A 360° View, Part III: Where the ommunity 24 esign The “New Angle Lounge” Weavers Way 8 Introduction: Collaborative Should Go from Here Mt. Airy Presbyterian as “Trilogy” Ogontz Unapologetically Urban Church Beth Miller 88 At the Margins: Politics 62 102 and Design Now 28 Byron Story Foundation Spiral Q Puppet 11 A 360° View of the Collaborative Sally Harrison rStore Program Theater Maurice Cox and Alan Greenberger 66 116 Design Is the Future 32 APM at Sheridan Street 106 12 A 360° View, Part I: What the Brian Phillips and Todd Woodward Greenfi eld Home and Programs Employing Collaborative Does Well School Association 70 People 120 An Overview of the Collaborative Mt. Tabor Cyber Village 16 Building Toward the Public Interest: Beth Miller 36 110 The National Signifi cance of the Roxborough 74 Narberth Community Collaborative 122 The Collaborative Community Development Habitat for Humanity Library Jess Zimbabwe Corporation Philadelphia 126 Contributors 114 45 A 360° View, Part II: The Power 38 78 Allegheny West of Design 128 Acknowledgments Cedar Park Simons Recreation Foundaton Center 42 North Philadelphia Community Help BY DON MATZKIN In the Beginning accruing to it, and, because the YAF was an AIA proj- First, we invited participation from anyone who ect, the chapter sought control of the Collaborative. wanted in: anyone feeling they had something to Obviously, both issues were resolved satisfactorily, Foreword: The Origins of the contribute or just wanted to be intoxicated by the with the Collaborative acquiring its own corporate ferment. They were architects, planners, landscape status and 501(c)(3) tax designation. architects, interior designers, graphic artists, and Community Design Collaborative activists—AIA and anti-AIA. There was no set struc- Since the Beginning ture or established leadership. If you were there, The experience of the Collaborative’s gestation and you were an essential participant in the process and the aura that enveloped it at the time have carried part of the leadership. Decision making followed the it forward, and they are refl ected today in how it Quaker way of consensus. performs its services, relates to clients, conducts Second, we let it take its own sweet time, meeting business, governs its operation, and envisions its WE ALL KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS to start anything up, rejuvenating the commercial district surrounding regularly—weekly, for a while—over the better part future. Having been only peripherally involved with much less keep it running and growing successfully Amtrak’s then-dilapidated North Philadelphia Sta- of two years. The fi rst project engagement, a master the organization after its birth, it strikes me now that for twenty years. The creation of the Collaborative tion, thereby bringing widespread, much-needed plan for the expansion of a church in Southwest the Collaborative has made the most of the sense of was a joy from the beginning. attention to conditions in North Central Philly—and, Philly, was conducted in the summer of 1990 by service, interactivity, and collegiality that surrounded Inspiration was derived from the Philadelphia by extension, many other neighborhoods of the city. Robin Kohles, Alice Dommert, and myself. It expired, its founding. The special initiatives mounted by the Architects’ Workshop, an early community design Vehicle was provided by the Young Architects stillborn, as a result of the overreaching of a newly Collaborative, for example, have been spawned workshop founded in the late 1960s by Hugh Zim- Forum Philadelphia (YAF), another project of the hired pastor, in a failed attempt to simultaneously by and derive their power from the neighborhood mers via the Philadelphia chapter of the American AIA, designed to attract younger practitioners and establish and expand his turf. It taught us a valuable service projects that are the mainstay of the Collab- Institute of Architects (AIA). In its successful early interns to the fold, including those who had become lesson in establishing project selection criteria. orative’s mission. And the relevance and authenticity years, the Workshop was led by Hugh and longtime disenchanted with what they saw as an indi erence Third, we resisted as long as possible—perhaps of these initiatives are reinforced through the direct architectural director, the late (and much beloved) to the deteriorated physical and social conditions in longer than necessary—the impulse to establish participation of the Collaborative’s client groups. Gray Smith, an activist to the end. The mission of the our great urban centers. YAF became a vehicle for a formal structure, reveling in the creative high of It will only get better. Workshop was very much what we later adopted for these folks to become engaged in their communities anarchy in action. Leadership emerged and struc- the Collaborative: planning and design support for and, as a result of that engagement, to strengthen ture evolved organically, and the right person for community groups and other nonprofi t, community- both the communities and the AIA. What better a particular task never failed to step up at just the based organizations in support of their e orts to locus for the generation of an operation such as the right time. bootstrap their neighborhoods. Collaborative? Fourth, we solicited, and received, the support of Need was demonstrated by the Regional/Urban Fuel was provided by the latent energy AIA Philly in the form of workspace and a modest Design Action Team (R/UDAT) Philadelphia, a within YAF, as well as the pent-up desire within start-up stipend. But not until we smoothed over planning and design charrette sponsored by AIA all the design professions to do something. a couple rough spots: the chapter needed to be National on the cusp of the 1990s that focused on assured that there would be no liability consequences 6 Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design 7 BY BETH MILLER The essays included here were generously contributed by some leading thinkers (and doers) in design and the evolving role of architecture today. In addition, we have interspersed excerpts from a wide-ranging conversation with Maurice Cox and Alan Introduction: Greenberger, who were kind enough to share their perceptions of the Collaborative and the role of community design in our cities. We hope these excerpts inspire even more dialogues among our readers. Unapologetically Urban As Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has said, design is not a luxury. Good urban design, architecture, and planning are critical to creating thriving, sustainable neighbor- hoods. Design can promote healthy communities by delivering built-in features that attend to specifi c communal needs. Public safety, commodity access, and neighborhood identity are a few of the many factors that quality design can infl uence signifi cantly.