From the Sustain Northampton listserv:
Hi Everyone,
It’s been a while since I’ve written on this listserve, but I’ve been
following the discussions with interest, and want to take a moment now to let you
know about an exciting opportunity we may have in the near future.
About two years ago, I wrote to all of you with an introduction to the
idea of New Urbanism, a design philosophy emphasizing traditional planning
patterns with an eye towards creating vibrant and sustainable communities. The
central idea is to re-orient the city from the kind of single-use sprawl
development geared towards cars to denser mixed-use development geared towards
pedestrians.
At the time, I mentioned also that I was frustrated with the city’s
conventional approach to smart growth, which consisted (and still
consists) primarily of responding/reacting to developers rather than putting forward
a broad positive vision for the future of the community. I said then that I
would be "thinking, in the next few months, about ways in which this could
be accomplished."
Well, it’s been more than a few months, and since then the city has
completed its Sustainable Northampton plan, which provides a framework for thinking
about future development, and a solid first step. But we now have a chance to
engage in a community design process that will provide a concrete vision about
how to implement the concepts outlined in the Sustainable Northampton plan.
As I mentioned a while back, I’m currently an architecture and urban
design student at Notre Dame, where we emphasize just the sort of traditional
design that is encouraged by New Urbanism. Next fall, the focus of our urban
design studio will be the creation of a master plan for a town or city, following
the principles of smart growth. At the beginning of the semester we’ll be
conducting a week-long community design exercise, known as a charrette,
whereby everyone will have a chance to weigh in on the direction of the design.
My classmates and I will then spend the rest of the semester creating
drawings and written guidelines that would show in a very concrete and visual way how
the community’s desires for future growth could be implemented.
I’m pleased to tell you that on June 2nd, my studio professor Phil Bess
will be coming to Northampton in order to determine whether we would be able to
make Northampton the focus of our studies this fall. He’ll be making a public
presentation at 7:30pm in the city council chambers, in an attempt to
gauge the level of interest in the community for executing such a project here. I
hope you’ll all consider coming, in order to find our more about the process,
and weigh in if you think Northampton should work with my design studio in the
fall.
I’m really thrilled at the prospect of bringing the design abilities of my
classmates to bear on the development issues we are facing here in
Northampton, so I hope to see you all there on the 2nd. Prof Bess would, I’m sure be
happy to answer questions at that time, but If you’d like to get a better sense
of what we do in advance of the meeting, please take a look at the plan that
last year’s design studio did for the town of Cooperstown NY. We would be
attempting something very similar this fall:
http://architecture.nd.edu/inside_the_school/cooperstown_studio.shtml
Let me know if you have any questions. And spread the word to anyone you
think might be interested. Again: Monday, June 2nd, 7:30pm City Council
Chambers.
Aaron Helfand
From the Notre Dame School of Architecture website:
"Prof. Bess began overseeing the Graduate Program in August 2004. He teaches graduate urban design and theory, and continues his professional work as a design consultant for municipalities, architects and community development corporations working through the office of Thursday Associates. From 1987-88 he was the director and principal designer of the Urban Baseball Park Design Project of the Society for American Baseball Research; and in Boston in August 2000 he directed and coordinated the ultimately successful "Save Fenway Park!" design charrette. Prof. Bess is the author ofCity Baseball Magic: Plain Talk and Uncommon Sense About Cities and Baseball Parks(1989),Inland Architecture: Subterranean Essays on Moral Order and Formal Order in Chicago(2000), and most recentlyTill We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred(2007). Prof. Bess holds an M.Arch from the University of Virginia (1981), a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) from the Harvard Divinity School (1976), and a B.A. from Whittier College (1973)."
