Old Orchard Beach

I spent all day Saturday in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, volunteering my time at a community design workshop to come up with residents' redevelopment visions for the town's abandoned minor league baseball park. An extremely fulfilling day, although a bit frustrating in a few ways.

Over 100 residents attended the day-long event at the town's high school, and were broken into fourteen groups of 8-9 each to discuss their goals for the land and come up with consensus masterplans. Each team had an architect to offer design advice and an architecture student to act as a facilitator, my job was to be civil engineering "resource rover" and run around to all the teams to answer questions and help out.

Not much was needed in the way of civil engineering advice since the short 5 hour session didn't allow time to get into detail, and that was slightly frustrating. I spent most of my time trying to assist the student facilitators (my fellowship charrette training was a huge benefit) as they tried to keep their teams on track. Some groups started wandering down paths that were interesting but not relevant to the priority of building consensus for a masterplan in a very short period of time, and some groups included very opinionated citizens who dominated the conversation at the expense of the other participants. I found out quickly that wind farms are a hot topic in Old Orchard. It was helpful to not be assigned to any one group, because I could wander and help groups I thought really needed it, but it was also frustrating because I didn't really spend enough time with any one group to feel like I made a connection with anyone.

Here's the required charrette picture showing three hands working on one drawing in order to get it finished before the presentation deadline. One architect and two town residents, who had never done anything like this before, working on the group's consensus vision plan. That sums it all up...a very cool and inspiring moment happening simultaneously in fourteen rooms.


The fourteen groups made back-to-back five minute presentations to the assembled group at the end of the workshop. Two themes emerged - some groups had plans which kept the land as town land, incorporating town buildings, parks, and community buildings, while other groups proposed a mix of housing, retail, office, and parks. Almost every group proposed a community center. One thing was clear - it was incredible how the process produced clear visions from each group in just five hours. I'm looking forward to what the Memphis charrette produces in seven days.

An event like this really exposed the hopes and fears of a small town faced with a great opportunity. There was scattered mistrust of Town officials and more consistent opposition to development, but there were also ambitious plans detailing growth and outlining the aspirations of residents for their town. A work in progress - updates to come.

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, urban theorist, economist, and intellectual, died this morning in Toronto. It's hard to concisely put her influence into words, suffice to say there are dog-eared copies of her 1961 masterpiece "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" on the shelves of urban planners, architects, and other community activists worldwide, including mine.

She will be a lasting inspiration.

CNU happenings

An interesting 24 hours. John Norquist, CNU President & CEO and former mayor of Milwaukee, was in town to speak last night at an event I helped put together to promote CNU XIV, and this morning I met with John and the chief editorial writer of the Boston Globe to talk about getting stories into the paper. It was amazing to see John in his element, he has an incredible amount of knowledge on a sweeping range of topics including architecture, housing, schools, diversity, transportation, funding mechanisms, US & world history, European culture, etc. etc. Not surprising given he was mayor of a major US city for 15 years, but it was still fascinating. He also told stories about his buddy Ray Flynn and the times they spent singing Irish songs in Milwaukee bars at 3 am.

I'm looking forward to this Saturday, I'll be volunteering my civil engineering and New Urbanist knowledge at a community workshop to brainstorm redevelopment options for the abandoned minor league ballpark in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

Buckcherry - Middle East

While the MTV audience was at Avalon with Alkaline Trio last night, the true rock crowd was with recently reunited Buckcherry downstairs at the Middle East. Don't get me wrong - I love both bands, but if a raunchy, sweaty, PBR soaked rock show is your thing, the Middle East was for you. Although singer Josh Todd seemed a bit dazed throughout Buckcherry's 80 minute set, lacking his usual frenzied energy and visceral hold over the crowd, Todd at 75% is more than most frontmen at 110%. The riotous power of Todd & guitarist Keith Nelson's high octane songs, evenly balanced between their two old albums and "Fifteen", out a week ago, carried the band through the set and had the sellout crowd literally bouncing off the walls.

Opener Rock n' Roll Soldiers impressed with ragged hook-heavy punk songs and raw energy. They seemed psyched to be on the bill and played a no holds barred set, as opposed to the headliners.

Happy Patriots' Day!

Heather, Mark, Kate, and I explored Rockport and Gloucester this weekend. We arranged a getaway with no plan or agenda and minimal research beforehand, just a reservation at a bed & breakfast in Rockport. A vacation with absolutely no agenda is the way to go - it was so incredibly relaxing to wander off without a destination or a timetable and just make our way.


As for the towns, Rockport is a quaint old sea town - some great neighborhoods with weathered old houses although the Bearskin Neck shopping area bordered on being too cutesy for me. I'm more a fan of the gritty urban Gloucester type, but Rockport & Gloucester truly had something for everyone.

Rockport:




Mini-Stonehenge at Halibut Point State Park:

the bronze

I am a huge fan of "third places" (first being home, second being work). In response to Eileen's trashing of Starbucks, I feel the need to point out the value of spots within communities where people can informally meet, relax, get work done, get a beer or a coffee, with the opportunity to people watch, possibly run into someone you know or meet someone, enjoy the commotion around you...basically to feel like a part of the community. Third places bind the community together, although Starbucks is not exactly a textbook example. Say what you will about Starbucks' coffee and corporate policy, but many communities don't have the luxury of an independent coffeehouse, local pub, or park - Starbucks is it.

Personally, my tiny apartment and love of cities and urban life combine to keep me looking for great "third places" to read, relax, get work done, whatever. Especially during the summer because we don't have ac. Unfortunately my neighborhood only has two tiny Starbucks, an uncomfortable crepe place, and a few local bars which are great for relaxing with a pint but too dark for reading or working. Indie coffeehouse needed! We did recently get a Whole Foods and a Cold Stone though, hooray.

Pictures of the week

The Cape.
Summer is coming!

Weekend

I finally had a weekend at home with no major plans, the only thing missing was Heather who spent the weekend in Florida with her friend Andrea and returned with a sunburn.

Friday I went to Boston Beer Works to meet up with Joe Eddy & friends, and for someone who hasn't been out much lately it was great. I love Beer Works' burgers, I love Beer Works' beer.

Saturday I performed a miracle by successfully editing the registry in my mom's computer to adjust the limits and restore the cd-rom drivers. I don't even know what that means, but the drive reads cds again and I was happy.

I finished "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey on Saturday, and although it was unlike anything I have ever read and I couldn't put it down, I have to say that much like other fashionable books (Life of Pi, Kiterunner, etc.) I thought it was a bit overrated. I was drawn in by the realistic and caustic view of the depths of alcoholism and addiction, Frey's writing style conveys the desperate feelings of hope/hopelessness, and ficton or non-fiction, Frey's portrayal of himself was ruthless and not for the weak. What turned me off was his complete change in personality over the course of the book. I won't ruin the plot for anyone, but I wasn't completely buying it. Still, a fantastic book.

Now back to the real world, where my boss's last email to the dept. included "we are officially in crunch mode" and used the word "overtime" six times. Yikes.

Thank you, Apple

Apple has decided to make it easier to run Windows on their computers, which is a big deal to me. Since I bought my Mac laptop over a year ago I plan to never switch back, but since Macs don't run my engineering software I have had to do all my fellowship research work here in the office on nights and weekends. Now I can hopefully* work on research at home, which would be a huge development although probably a big hit on my productivity.

* Since I don't know what I'm talking about, with my luck this isn't going to work.

the Jury

I had the rewarding experience of serving on the CNU New England first annual awards jury on Saturday. We spent the day deliberating at the offices of Cornish Associates in Providence as we reviewed the project entries and chose five winners, grouped by the scale of the region, the neighborhood, or the block, street, and building. The day included excellent debates about specific projects and principles of New Urbanism in general, a nice lunch in the Downcity Providence area, and a tour of the venue for the Chapter reception to be held at CNU XIV in June.


An interesting debate centered around the objective of our awards - are we setting the bar very high, making it difficult for any projects to be worthy especially with the relative lack of New Urbanist implementation in New England, or are we rewarding projects that are heading in the right direction but may have been hampered by resisting abutters, political climate, missing or poorly executed design elements, poor site conditions, etc. My opinion is that we should set the bar high to avoid diluting the meaning of New Urbanism and the value of the awards in the future. Better to not give any awards than give awards to projects that are anything less than great. Luckily, we had five great submittals that I am proud to stand behind.

Here's the jury:


L-R: Jack Davis (publisher, Hartford Courant), Matt Lawlor (lawyer, Boston), Michael Behrendt (town planner, Rochester, NH), Robert Orr (architect, CT), Patrick Pinnell (architect, CT), Carrie Marsh (planner, Portland, ME), David Scheuer (developer, VT), Norman Garrick (civil engineer, UConn), me.

After a long day in Providence it was really nice to take an early train home and relax watching movies for the rest of the night...