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2005 WMRUD Charrette Overview
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2005 Charrette PURPOSE
The clear purpose of the Grand Valley Regional Design Charettes:
- Experiment in multi-jurisdictional regional planning collaboration.
- Create a basis for state and community grants for expanded study opportunities.
- Create the basis to apply for the AIA Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team program (R/UDAT).
- Provide to architects the opportunity for strategic civic engagement at the regional level, now at this unique time in Michigan’s development history.
2005 Charrette PROCESS
The charette process will ask the design and jurisdictional stakeholder team:
”What Are the Hidden Assets of the Area?“ (Reference - Scott Bernstein; Center for Neighborhood Technology: Using the Hidden Assets of America’s Communities and Regions to Ensure Sustainable Communities).
This same document will be provided to the 3 charette area planning departments. We all will use this to focus our attention on the 10 assets of urban systems.
- Urban purchasing power
- concentrated workforce
- mass transit systems
- accessibility
- abandoned and underused land
- underutilized infrastructure
- in-place infrastructure with under-utilized capacity
- already assembled right-of-ways
- efficient resource use
- surprising bio-diversity & natural capital
They also will provide a digital plan and aerial of each area, including its regional context beyond.
The charette process will also layer a decisions filter – does it meet the 3 tests of sustainable development, balancing:
- economic prosperity
- environmental integrity
- social equity
2005 Charrette PLAN
A 3-day event January 27 - 29, 2005, all held at one location for maximizing regional synergy. 3 Teams will be formed made up of the planners and stakeholders identified by each jurisdiction. The architects will be spread across the 3 teams, as diversely as possible to provide a more regional design insight.
- Day 1: morning: Orientation, parameters, goals and expected outcomes. Each team will tour their area by bus, stopping to see, walk, photograph and obtain interaction from the stakeholders of that area. The afternoon will be a general sharing of all teams, and then breaking into area teams, and download observations of the hidden assets.
- Day 2 morning: regional discussion of the tangible hidden assets, the barriers to valuing these assets, and the intangible assets. What are the commonalities and links that the 3 areas have in common – regionally thinking. Following the regional perspective capture, return to area teams, and begin to dialogue on the specific assets of your area. Capture these. Identify opportunities. Three ”regional ambassadors“ will rotate around to each area team to help speak for regional assets. Two representatives from each area begin web search of ”Best Practices“ to help illustrate the discussions. Again, this is not about solutions, but inspiring ideas.
- Day 3: synthesize and describe the findings both graphically and written. A Regional Design Charette template (PowerPoint format) will be available to cut/paste findings and thus document the process. The charette will not require significant additional work, beyond final editing.
- All members & their firms, municipalities, stakeholders and sponsors who participate in the charette will be given credit for their involvement. Copies of the charette outcome will be given free to the same. The finished product is a gift from the American Institute of Architects to both the West Michigan Strategic Alliance and participating municipalities who can use the outcome for their use. The only stipulation is that any public presentation of the material must be accompanied by the list of credits.
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