03-22-10
Manchester DJ Dave Haslam Talk
This is a short notice event announcement, but we’d like to invite everyone to stop by the CUDC for an exciting presentation on Saturday, March 27th starting at 5:30pm. A friend of ours, the multi-talented Dave Haslam, will be visiting from Manchester, UK next weekend for a DJ-ing gig at B-Side Liquor Lounge on Sunday and we want to take the opportunity to spotlight some of his other interests with a talk the night before.
Dave will deliver a talk on the post-punk band Joy Division’s emergence in the context of post-industrial Manchester in the late 70’s, the band’s re-emergence as New Order after singer Ian Curtis’ tragic death and their music’s enduring influence to this day.
If you’re a fan of Joy Divison, New Order or the bands they inspired (U2, the Killers, Arcade Fire, etc.), then this is definitely an event you won’t want to miss. But the story of creativity in the midst of affliction is something in which we can all find inspiration.
by david jurca
02-25-10
Brite Winter Festival
PopUp City strikes again this Saturday from 5-10pm at Hart Crane Memorial Park.
So, what’s going on? Loads.
Imagine the love child of locavore eats courtesy of Sainato’s Restaurant and sponsor Gypsy Bean Coffee and Baking; the wafting musical genius from the likes of The Hot Rails, Uncanny Xe La, and This Moment in Black History; art to make you think more/better; and activities that will make you forget you’re an adult.
That love child is Brite Winter Festival.
09-21-09
It’s coming.
The Bridge Project.
on lower level of The Detroit-Superior Bridge
2433 Superior Viaduct
September 25 & 26, 2009
Friday from 4pm - midnight | Saturday from noon - midnight
Click here for more info and for a schedule of the Project’s events, shows and exhibits.
You’re not going to want to miss this,
Marianne
08-31-09
Footage from the Electric Roller DiscoTech
Cleveland 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.)
08-15-09
Roller Disco Pop-Up Event: Aug. 28th
The next Pop Up City event is coming on August 28th…
It’s a disco roller rink (sort of) in the old Leff Electric Building at 1163 E. 40th Street. It’s an old industrial building with great views of the lake.
Friday, August 28th :: 7 - 10pm
Should be a fun time.
from senior planner Terry Schwarz, posted by marianne.
06-15-09
The Bridge Project Charrette
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.
06-03-09
Pop Up City @ MOCA
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
05-20-09
Pop Up City Book Trailer
It 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
05-13-09
Terry Schwarz Receives Cleveland Arts Prize
Congratulations to our very own Terry Schwarz for being awarded the 2009 Cleveland Arts Prize! Terry is senior planner at the CUDC and an adjunct professor at Kent State University.
Terry was awarded the artist prize in design for her work surrounding the Shrinking Cities Institute at the CUDC, which addresses local population decline. The multifaceted work of the Shrinking Cities Institute includes the Cleveland Land Lab, the Pop Up City! temporary use intiative and two editions of the Urban-Infill Journal.
The awards ceremony will be held Thursday, June 25th at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square. Tickets are available by calling 216 321-0012 or by email at info@clevelandartsprize.org.
by david jurca
05-05-09
A Piping Hot Slice from Designerosa
Designerosa! 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.
04-24-09
Artists vs. Blight
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
04-22-09
Pop Up City Eye Candy
Pick up a copy of our new publication! When we get smarter, we’ll put a little PayPal icon somewhere around here so that you can buy our stuff instantly! The possibilities are endless! Until then, you can pick a book up at the CUDC office (currently above the Winking Lizard on Prospect/Huron downtown) or at CUDC events.
by Marianne Eppig
04-18-09
Green City Blue Lake on Pop Up City
Last 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.
01-21-09
Another Taste of the Upcoming Pop Up City Publication
This is an excerpt from Philipp Oswalt, Klaus Overmeyer, and Philipp Misselwitz’s article “Patterns of the Unplanned” that will be published in the Pop Up City journal to be released in February. Be sure to pick up a copy in order to learn more about temporary use strategies for vacant land!
“Temporary uses are unplanned, but they are present in every larger city. Often, they play an important role in a city’s public and cultural life as well as in its urban development, but they have thus far been almost completely ignored in official policymaking and city planning circles. But why do temporary uses occur in the first place? And how do they develop? Can structures be discovered in the unplanned?“
by marianne eppig.
01-21-09
A Taste of the Upcoming Pop Up City Publication
This is a taste of Jennifer Malloy’s article “What is Left of Planning?! Residual Planning!” that will be published in the upcoming Pop Up City publication:
“Temporary space practitioners are dispersed throughout the shattered remains of shrinking cities in the United States and Europe, within eddies of vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and radical space strongholds - where community and social relations flourish through the production of art - and thrive as a counterculture of resistance to capitalist circuits of place-making. They temporarily remediate the leftovers of capitalism through radical interventions in urban spaces that begin to poke holes in the dominant frame of the city as an avenue for competition and exchange. Instead, the city is viewed as a place where community can be built and experienced, temporarily, while simultaneously creating alternative temporary uses for, and opportunities within, disused urban spaces. This paper discusses such countercultural urban development strategies through two case studies: the Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor in Chicago, Illinois and Hotel Neustadt in Halle, Germany.”
To read the rest of this article and to read others, be sure to pick up the new Pop Up City journal that will be coming out in February.
by marianne eppig.