Another shoddily-done video made by me for you. Enjoy!
by marianne.
Posts Tagged ‘CUDC’
Video of The Bridge Project
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009VOTE: Bridge Design[Build] Charrette
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
What if the Detroit-Superior Bridge lower level became a public space? How would you use it? Now is your chance to see it happen.
1. Visit www.BridgeProjectVote.com to share your thoughts on initial concepts developed by students involved in the Bridge Project design[build] charrette. Leave your comments on the projects and begin a dialogue with the students. What ideas do you like? What would you like to see more details on? What new uses would you like to see included?
2. Share the link with co-workers, friends, family and smarter-than-average pets. The students would love to have your feedback so they can quickly develop and refine their projects. Only a few projects will be selected to be built full-scale on the bridge, so make your thoughts known!
3. Come to the public opening during the Bridge Project on Friday and Saturday September 25th (4pm-midnight) and 26th (noon-midnight) to experience the selected projects as built prototypes. Public input on the projects will continue during the two day bridge opening as people activate the spaces and students observe the interactions, then adjust the installations.
Oftentimes as designers the distance between conceptual plan and embodied user experience is too wide to be meaningful. The rapid prototyping concept for the Bridge Project charrette intends to collapse this distance and introduce user feedback earlier in the design process. The installations during the event should not be viewed as finished products, but rather as prototypes designed to engage and draw feedback from the future users of the space.
Many thanks to Jeff Schuler for constructing the drupal website for project voting: www.jeffschuler.net
by david jurca
Footage from the Electric Roller DiscoTech
Monday, August 31st, 2009Cleveland Executive Fellowship and Pop Up City transformed the old Leff Electric Building at 1163 E. 40th St. into an Electric Roller DiscoTech on August 28th. Here’s what went down:
Learn more about Pop Up City
(roller skating with video camera in hand and posting by marianne.)
Landscape Urbanism Lecture @ MOCA
Monday, July 6th, 2009
Metrograma :: PGT Plan for Milan
Landscape Urbanism :: After the Post-Industrial City
ALBERTO FRANCINI
architect, Milan, www.metrogramma.com
ANDREAS KIPAR
landscape architect, Milan and Duisburg, www.landsrl.com
Alberto Francini and Andreas Kipar are members of the team developing innovative plans for the expansion and greening of Milan. The plan includes major new green infrastructure for the city, integrated with new and redeveloped commercial and housing areas. This effort and many of the architectural projects resulting from it have become an important model for designers interested in the urban landscape of the 21st century.
Presented by Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design and Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art.
FRIDAY July 10th, 6:00pm
MOCA [Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland]
8501 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, [216] 421.8671
parking available
The lecture is free and open to the public, but the Cleveland Playhouse will charge for parking. MOCA’s “There goes the Neighborhood” and other shows will be available for viewing by lecture-goers (www.mocacleveland.org)
After the lecture, go to Playhouse Square, where the Ingenuity Festival will be in full swing. At 8:20, Pecha Kucha begins. What’s Pecha Kucha? Visit http://www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/cleveland
by david jurca
The Bridge Project Charrette
Monday, June 15th, 2009
For more info on the Bridge Project event, please visit: www.clevelandbridgeproject.com
Every year, graduate students at the CUDC take part in a community design charrette, which addresses the urban design needs of a particular site or neighborhood in Northeast Ohio. This year’s charrette will be part of the Bridge Project scheduled for September 25th and 26th.
During a typical charrette, students are asked to gather relevant data about the focus area in preparation for a community meeting where stakeholders and residents share their thoughts and desires for the neighborhood. The students then work along side CUDC staff to quickly develop design solutions and assemble presentations for the community. In years past, the student charrettes have focused on downtown Lakewood, the Jewish Community Federation site, the Howard Street corridor in Akron and Youngstown’s Oak Hill neighborhood.
Pop Up City @ MOCA
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
The Pop Up City animation, made by Gauri Torgalkar and David Jurca from the CUDC, was announced today as a winner of MOCA Cleveland’s Neighborhood Watch Video Competition! A narrative of a proposed development on the port site made by KSU graduate student Sukant Bhatnagar was also selected as one of the eight winning video shorts. The films will be screened in the Commons Area at MOCA throughout the summer 2009 season.
The video competition is a part of MOCA’s new exhibit, There Goes the Neighborhood, which opens this Friday, June 5th with an artist gallery talk from 6-7pm and opening reception until 10pm. The exhibit runs from June 5th through August 16th.
by david jurca
Pop Up City Book Trailer
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009It might not have the quick edits and intense action sequences of typical movie trailers, but we think our star moved pretty fast, for a panda.
Urban-Infill Volume 2: Pop Up City can be ordered from Amazon or from the Shrinking Cities Institute website.
Support for the Pop Up City initiative is provided by the Civic Innovation Lab and the Sears-Swetland Foundation. The publication of the Pop Up City book was made possible by funding from the George Gund Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
by david jurca
Bike to Work (every)Day
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Those willing to brave the 65 degree sunny weather and almost non-existent car traffic in Cleveland were rewarded with discounts at Gypsy Beans coffee shop, free breakfast at the YMCA, new friendships and various health related benefits on National Bike to Work Day.
A contingency from the near-west side of Cleveland took a pleasant ride down Detroit Ave., starting at W. 65th St., and made their way to the Downtown YMCA.
Along the way, the group stopped at the Gateway parking garage on the corner of Huron and E. 4th St. for a glimpse of future plans for the proposed bike station to be built inside the garage.
A health-conscious bounty awaited weary two-wheel travelers at the Downtown YMCA. Yes, it was fun to stay there.
Could biking to work become such a common occurance in Cleveland that “Bike to Work Day” would sound as gratuitous as “Complain About Cleveland Sports Day”? Well, if the Cavs don’t blow it, there might be a chance.
by david jurca
Coming (or already here) Attractions
Monday, May 11th, 2009Attraction #1: Cleveland Bicycle Week
Today starts Cleveland Bicycle Week! Some event highlights for the week include an art and architecture bike tour on Tuesday from 5:30pm-7pm, which will begin at Progressive Field, the Northeast Ohio Cycling Forum on Thursday from 4-7pm at the Cleveland Public Library Main Branch, and the official Bike to Work Day on Friday. The GCRTA is also offering free rides to all bicyclists on Friday, so take the opportunity to ride in to work and let a friendly bus driver take you home after enjoying the Bike Week festivities on E. 4th St. after work.
Check out clevelandbicycleweek.org for a full event calendar that extends beyond just this week, filled with all sorts of activities for cycling enthusiasts and everyone that wants to learn more about cycling in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.
If you’re on the fence about riding to work, here’s a little inspiration courtesy of that bike-lovin’ little town, Copenhagen:
Attraction #2: Palladio Exhibit @ CUDC
We invite you to join us on Friday, May 15 for an exhibit opening at the CUDC’s main gallery at 820 Prospect Avenue, from 5-7pm.
Andrea Palladio – 500 Years
The CUDC is pleased to host a photography exhibit brought to Cleveland by the Consulate of Italy in celebration of the 500th anniversary of Palladio’s birth and the declaration of a sister-city agreement between Cleveland and Vicenza, Italy (site of much of Palladio’s work). Word on the street is the mayors of both cities will be in attendance, so come early to beat the crowd to the bruschetta.
by david jurca
CircletheUSA.com visits Cleveland
Friday, May 8th, 2009CircletheUSA.com, a website maintained by the Planning Commissioners Journal, is currently undertaking a cross-country road trip documenting notable city planning projects along the way. The recently concluded first leg of the trip stretched from Vermont to Cleveland and the second leg will continue on to Chicago. 
While in Cleveland, the blog’s author met with Terry Schwarz, Senior Planner from the CUDC, Bob Brown, Planning Director for the City of Cleveland and Bobbi Reichtell, Senior Vice President for Programs at Neighborhood Progress Inc., to discuss the Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland report. The visit and subsequent thoughts on Cleveland’s progressive strategy for addressing vacancy are presented in the Audacious…or Realistic? post.
A Piping Hot Slice from Designerosa
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Designerosa! from david jurca on Vimeo.
Thank you to everyone that came out to Designerosa! All of us at the CUDC had a great time and we’re really glad to have met so many new people. We especially want to thank Heelsplitter, the amazing bluegrass band that travels to all their shows by bike, Greg Priddy, Indy and Greg Peckham for the miniature ponies (Cinnamon and Doodle), and Lois Moss from Walk + Roll Cleveland for bringing everyone together for Transportainment.
We’d also like to thank Kelly from KRA photography for taking the brilliant photographs shown below. You can see the entire Designerosa photo set and order prints at her client lounge, just type in “walkroll” as the password.
The new Pop Up City book we released at the event should be available on Amazon soon, but in the meantime, please visit our Shrinking Cities Institute website to order a copy.
Artists vs. Blight
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Art installation at Bridge Mix, photo by Stephen Piscura
The CUDC’s Pop Up City initiative, Arts Collinwood and other Cleveland arts organizations were highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article about artist communities developing in blighted neighborhoods. Although there’s nothing new about artists moving into low-rent areas, the recent foreclosure crisis is motivating communities to increase incentives for artists:
Drawn by available spaces and cheap rents, artists are filling in some of the neighborhoods being emptied by foreclosures. City officials and community groups seeking ways to stop the rash of vacancies are offering them incentives to move in, from low rents and mortgages to creative control over renovation projects.
Some of the local organizations mentioned in the article include:
Arts Collinwood :: Collinwood
78th St. Studios :: Detroit Shoreway
ArtMart 09 :: Ohio City
DanceWorks @ CPT :: Detroit Shoreway
Also check out this set of Collinwood photos from the Plain Dealer.
by david jurca
Shrinking Flint
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Cleveland hacked-house rendering by Gauri Torgalkar, CUDC
The New York Times recently posted an article on how Flint, Michigan is planning to deal with its city’s depopulation and vacancy by demolishing entire neighborhoods. The idea is that speeding up the process of decline in certain sections of the city will consolidate any housing demand that remains into a few viable areas.
Housing demolition as a reaction to vacancy is occurring in Cleveland as well. The City is currently planning to remove 2,000 homes this year. Not only will most of the embodied energy of these structures be lost in a landfill, but the fabric of the neighborhoods will also be forever changed. Can the abandoned structures still be used as urban greenhouses or biocellars? What sort of neighborhoods are we creating if we add 2,000 new voids a year? Could these new acres of land be put to productive use?
by david jurca
Green City Blue Lake on Pop Up City
Saturday, April 18th, 2009Last week Marc Lefkowitz, blog author extraordinaire for Green City Blue Lake, published a great post about Pop Up City and the Urban Design Center’s efforts to ignite (not literally) vacant spaces in Cleveland.
To read the post, visit http://www.gcbl.org/blog/marc-lefkowitz/counterculture-ignites-fallow-urban-space
In addition to giving our new publication, Pop Up City, a congenial review (”The essay and book is not only a fascinating read, it’s filled with eye candy”), Marc brought up some good points. He asked towards the end of the post:
“Will those seeds grow to inspire some Temporary Users to leave the protective circle of the CUDC?“
In other words, he’s asking whether the Cleveland Urban Design Center’s Pop Up temporary events will inspire other groups and individuals around the city to start temporary uses of their own in otherwise abandoned lots.
For anyone out there who is reading this, we would love to hear back from you. Leave a comment and let us know about your experiences, ideas, and events that were/are all about temporary uses of vacant spaces.
And for anyone who is interested in starting a temporary event or use of a vacant space in Cleveland, there is a handy brochure in the back of the recent Pop Up City publication titled “Temporary Use Advice & Contacts”. It lets you know what kinds of permits you might need to get in order to use a space, and it’s also chock-full of advice from how to get sponsors to how many Port-O-Potties you may need. So, if you haven’t already, pick up a book and start igniting (please, not literally) Cleveland!
by marianne eppig.
Spring Studio ‘09 :: Design Stories
Friday, April 10th, 2009
The spring semester graduate studio at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative focused on the location of the current Port of Cleveland as its site for investigation. The students were asked to respond to the Cuyahoga County Port Authority’s RFQ (Request for Qualifications) released in December, which stated its interest in selecting a design firm,
“to develop a comprehensive master plan for an iconic and transformational redevelopment strategy for a portion of Cleveland’s downtown lakefront. This area is approximately 100 acres of industrial waterfront land, in public ownership, located between the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and the North Coast Harbor public venue and currently is used principally for commercial maritime activities.”
