AIAGV September Program

What: AIAGV September Program

When: September 21, 2006, 6-9 pm

Where: UICA, 41 Sheldon Blvd., GR

As part of its monthly program series to bring awareness to issues impacting the quality of life in West Michigan, The Grand Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Grand Valley) will present ”Neighborhood Design“ on Thursday, September 21, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids. Special guest speaker for the event will be Mark Cameron, ASLA, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Design Center, Baltimore, Maryland. The public is invited.

Mark Cameron, ASLA, is Executive Director of the Neighborhood Design Center, a non-profit organization providing design and planning assistance to low and moderate income communities in the Baltimore - Washington D.C. area. Previously, Mr. Cameron was Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he taught from 1991 to 2000. He has lectured nationally in the fields of crime prevention through environmental design, community design, and urban landscape architecture, and has published several articles on these topics. Most recently he was editor for the conference proceedings, ”Great Urban Parks: Sustaining the Legacy“. Mr. Cameron is a registered architect in the state of Maryland and serves on the Baltimore City Design Advisory Panel. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati and Masters Degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

Since 1968 the non-profit Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) has been providing community design and planning assistance to low income neighborhoods throughout the Baltimore-Washington region. The organization provides these services in the belief that 1) while design alone cannot solve the many problems impacting these communities, incremental physical improvements can significantly improve the quality of life, and 2) through a participatory design process residents are given a voice and stake in advancing their grassroots efforts.

NDC utilizes a combination of staff and volunteer design and planning professionals to provide technical assistance, educational material, and project and planning assistance that guide a neighborhood’s redevelopment and investment efforts. NDC teams from the architecture, design, planning, and construction professions provide assistance that: (1) Strengthens citizen involvement in neighborhood improvement initiatives; (2) Educates the public about the essential value of good design, planning, and preservation practices as community revitalization tools; and (3) Serves as a catalyst for increased investment for neighborhood development.

For almost 150 years, members of The American Institute of Architects have worked with each other and their communities to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings and cityscapes. ”The AIA supports governmental policies, programs, and incentives to promote healthy neighborhoods and a participatory design process that directly impacts stakeholder needs“, says Jeff Vanden Bosch, AIAGV Publicity Director. ”We hope Mark Cameron’s presentation will help advance efforts already under way in West Michigan“.

AIA Grand Valley’s ”Neighborhood Design“ program will be held on Thursday, September 21, 2006 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art located at 41 Sheldon Boulevard in Grand Rapids. The program’s events begin at 6:00 p.m. with a catered reception; the speaker’s program will begin at 7:00 p.m. Reservations for the evening are required. The cost for attending the program is $10 for non-AIAGV members and $5 for students. To make reservations for the program call Jeff Vanden Bosch at 616-308-8986 or visit http://www.gvaia.org/registration.html. The program is sponsored by Crites-Tidey, and Sternberg Lighting.