OPEN: New Designs for Public Spaces

OPEN: New Designs for Public Spaces
June 1st, 2007 to August 19th, 2007
MOCACleveland

I know I have been harping on Cleveland's public square lately and I think that I can be justified in that. You see, I was looking for a new abode, someplace different to hang my hat. Currently I reside in Lakewood, a western suburb surrounded on the south and east by Cleveland proper and was debating moving into one of Cleveland's rehabbed West Side neighborhoods to practice all what I preach. Mostly I was very excited about the prospect of riding my bike to work each day (without turning into a ball of sweat).

I have spent quite a bit of time not only trying to find a place that is the right size (I need a home office of SOME sort), the right price as well as a location that would negate the need of an automobile (not that I would get rid of it right away but I have no problem putting it in storage). I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I would, in effect, be paying a premium of sorts to move into Cleveland and would have to give up a totally walkable and accessible lifestyle that I currently enjoy in one of my fair city's inner suburbs.

Granted that seems counter intuitive but I can currently walk to 3 different large grocery stores, at least 3 record shops, bike shops, a guitar shop, movie theatre, ridiculous amounts of bars and restaurants, churches, parks, coffee shops, ICE CREAM places, etc etc etc etc. I tried to find a local with similar connectivity in the city of Cleveland and came up abundantly short. Granted there are some pockets of concentrated use, Tremont and some areas of Ohio City, but to me they still seem to support an automotive dependent culture. They have become almost bedroom communities whereas one must commute not only to and from work but also for basic needs such as groceries or entertainment.

What does this have to do with an exhibit on public spaces? Possibly everything. In some respects Cleveland is a remarkable failure in terms of public spaces. Public Square, what should be the grand daddy of all of Cleveland's public spaces has severely limited access to any retail support that would create a street life. Granted, during the lunch hour there are people there but since Cleveland mostly closes down at 6pm you would be hard pressed to find people in the square in the evening or during the weekend. Currently it also enjoys a major disruption of the vehicular patterns that once restored could annihilate the ease and current comfort of the space.

The Mall(s) in Cleveland also suffer from a lack of residential prowress and commercial support. It saddens (and angers me) how the city rolls up the carpet in the evening and becomes and urban ghost-town. I don't know if it is a lack of support for small business owners, fear of financial failure, lack of creativity, or over-endulgantly-obese-nonefficient beauracracy that stifles small business growth or what, but the town is severly lacking the amenities to support it's current residential load and that strongly hampers the growth of Cleveland's population.

Can a well defined/created public space create enough of a centralized icon to spur growth and instill change? Well that is what the MOCA exhibit is primarily about. There will be about 30 international examples of new public space design and developments and the battles which ensued to create those places.

I have seen the book from the original exhibit at the Van Alen's Institute and it is, in a word, amazing. The imagery is solid and sound and the ideas conveyed are all different in complexity and intent.

check out the book here

It should be an interesting exhibit. Also, wish me luck in finding a new place!

Music Saves/ Beachland Ballroom Weenie Roast

Good friends, music, hot dogs and beer. There is more to life then buildings , plazas and complaining!

Farshid Mousavvi @ MOCA

Thursday, May 31, 2007
Fashid Mousavvi FOA
Cleveland Museum of Natural History

YOU MUST RESERVE A SPOT BY FRIDAY, MAY 25th!

Join architect Farshid Moussavi of London-based Foreign Office Architects (FOA) as she offers an introduction to her innovative practice, shares insight on past projects, and speculates on her emerging design for MOCA’s new building planned for the University Arts and Retail District. Provocative and highly acclaimed, Moussavi’s body of work will offer audiences an exciting, alternative perspective on the potential of contemporary built environments.

This free event is ticketed; reservations required by Friday, May 25. Please call our reservation line at 216.421.8671 ext. 55. Lecture begins at 6pm, tickets will be held until 5:45pm.

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

Veteran's Memorial Bridge Tour

Saturday, May 26th, 2007
Veteran's Memorial Bridge Subway Deck Tour
9.ooam - 3.00pm

County Engineers Tour Page

Also known as the Detroit Superior Bridge, Cleveland's Veteran's Memorial Bridge spans the Cuyahoga River and at one time had street cars that ran along a lower deck below the auto deck (which recently was improved for pedestrian and cycling use) which attributed to some of Cleveland's explosive growth.

I don't know what else to say about that. Oil barons and auto manufacturers put the squash on what once was an amazing streetcar system. Heck it even connected downtown to Cleveland Heights which we all know SUCKS to get in and out of by car. SUCKS!

The tour is self guided, there are some interesting kiosks/info booths and you can walk over open grate above the river. Quite wonderfully scary. If you are lucky maybe a freighter will pass beneath you. You start on the West side and can walk all the way to the East Bank. I think I have already gone three times and have some GREAT photos of my endeavor and really enjoy going.

What would YOU do with the Breuer Tower?

Thanks to the Design Rag for this one.

The Cleveland Ingenuity 2007 festival is sponsoring a competition on submissions of what could be done to our infamous tower in dire straits.


Ingenuity 2007 the Cleveland Festival of Art & Technology architecture exhibit

What Would you do with the Breuer Building?
July 18 – July 21, 2007

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 19, 2007, 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
Location: 1305 Gallery, 1305 Euclid Avenue at East 13 Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44115

Two-thirds of Cuyahoga County’s commissioners want to demolish it.
Architecture critic Steven Litt wants to save it.
What would you do with it?

Sponsored by Ingenuity, the Cleveland Festival of
Art and Technology, this juried architectural
exhibition invites architects, architectural interns,
students, engineers, artists and designers living or
working in Northeast Ohio to answer the question.
The intent of the exhibit is to keep the debate alive
– through both imaginary and real alternatives to
the Breuer Tower’s future. Additionally, this
exhibit offers area design professionals and others
with an opportunity to participate in the
Ingenuity festival and to demonstrate how
architecture can be the embodiment of "creativity,
innovation, culture and technology."

We encourage architecture, engineering and design
firms to participate as well as to support and
recognize their staff members who participate in
the creation of an entry. Firm affiliations will be
noted along side the designer’s/designers' name(s).

To participate, please email
architecture@Ingenuitycleveland.org,
subject line: Breuer Tower.
We will forward the hi-resolution jpeg image to use
in the creation of your submittal.


Submittals:
Rendering using the hi-resolution image of the Breuer Tower
30” h x 20” w mounted on 3/8” white foamcore.

Digital jpeg image, 15” x 10” at 72 dpi.

Drop off/Pick up:
Renderings must be submitted by 5:00pm, Friday June 22, 2007.

Digital images must be emailed by 5:00pm, Friday June 22, 2007.
Email to architecture@Ingenuitycleveland.org

All work will be available for pick-up ?.

Entry Fee: $19.71
Please make check payable to the Ingenuity Festival, earmarked for architecture exhibit
(Fees will be used to mount the show and for the opening reception.)

Jury:
Faith Baum AIA, IIDA, Principal, Faith Baum Architects, Lexington, Massachusetts; Adjunct Faculty,
Department of Interior Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design
Debi Lacey McDonald, AIA, LEED Architect, DiMella Shaffer, Boston, Massachusetts
Etty Padmodipoetro, AIA, Loeb Fellow 2006, Rosales + Partners, Vice President, Boston, Massachusetts
Maryann Thompson, Maryann Thompson Architects, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gretchen von Grossman, Parsons, Corp., Boston, Massachusetts
Vicky Sirianni, Consultant, Salem, Massachusetts

Jury policy:
Decisions will be based both on quality of work and allowable space. The intention of the

Ingenuity Festival and the What Would you do with the Breuer Tower? exhibit is to
celebrate as many talented designers from the region as possible.

Curators:
David H. Ellison, AIA
Sally L. Levine, AIA

For more information or to register, contact:
Email: architecture@ingenuitycleveland.org
Website: http://www.ingenuitycleveland.org

The Exhibit is sponsored by Ingenuity, the Cleveland festival of arts and technology.

What more could I say but "Get on it". Another wonderful example of Cleveland's ability to voice their own aesthetic. I can't wait to see all the submissions.

Just a note in passing

Today I had taken a photo of public square (sorry for the bad panoramic, I was jostled during the filming) which had quite a few people enjoying their lunch break. I admit I was rather surprised, I suppose that that many people would be out at one time in Cleveland and that they would be taking advantage of the park.

I was all excited, mostly because with the traffic around public square being so disrupted it actually now functions as a nice public space but also because having a street presence makes a city seem vibrant, alive and important.

One of my cohorts retorted with "Sure, but then they all drive home in their gigantic cars and then five minutes later drive down the block to a grocery store."

While BITTER I could understand where it was coming from. Cleveland doesn't really have the public mass transit a city of it's breadth should and it does exist primarily as a commuter city. However, I was left with this idea...

"Maybe if everyone had to push their car around they would understand the amount of energy wasted in moving it".

That, I figured, was a delightful thought. How about a National Push Your Car to Work day. Who wants to volunteer first?

18 seconds dot org

With all the controversy over CFL's such as proper disposal technique (they do contain mercury) and the energy used to ship them over from (mostly) Asia there has been a lot of disagreement as to whether they are worth it.

Well, from a simple economic standpoint, they are. Replacing a few regular incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents will shave dollars off of your electric bill (and similar to my case, take longer to burn out when people leave the lights in the basement on all week long). They quickly pay for themselves with the energy saved, so that alone is rather interesting.

I guess the disposal question could be answer the same way you get rid of your old TV's, video monitors and other electronics that typically contain heavy and/or poisonous metals. You (should be) taking them to the proper waste/recycling centers.

And as far as shipping bulbs all the way over from China or the like. I suppose one could make the argument that if you want to purchase American made efficient goods then you have to get American companies to start producing them. One wonders where GE, Chevy, Ford etc gets their ideas from when they complain how people aren't purchasing their crazy inefficient crap.

Anyway, off the soap box. If you would like some relatively unbiased information about CFLs you can check out 18seconds.org where the tagline is "change a bulb, change everything" (no doubt the next Heros mission). You can get some facts on the matter, see how your locality is doing in the pledge department and maybe feel a little bit better about helping out.

Public Square

I just wanted to mention that as Cleveland's Public Square is currently under construction, with Ontario and Superior being all screwed up with traffic being blocked it dawned on me just how wonderfully walkable the square has become. I can quickly cross to the square from Tower City (after arriving on the train) and hustle on over to East 2nd on my way down Euclid without hardly any worry. In fact, I find the whole experience much more enjoyable then it was before all the construction began. It makes me wonder if keeping Ontario and Superior either one way or bus only could connect the entire square into one big pedestrian friendly area with the hope that pedestrian level businesses could move in (similar to the one already existing to the south east of the square - granted some re designing of the surrounding area would be needed) which could help pull more people to the square itself.

That is assuming that Cleveland wants people in it's public square. Who the heck knows what the intentions of anything downtown are anymore? Maybe the shadow knows.

Anyway, just a passing thought I wanted to share.

Cleveland Loves Local Produce

...and if you need further proof then the recent plans to zone certain locations as community gardens or greenspaces or the recent discussion on Cleveland Magazine's Silver Spoon Awards on 90.3 at noon today in which there was some discussion on local restaurants who strive to purchase local foods (I don't believe that Lucky's Cafe was mentioned but you can't have everything) then maybe you should read about one Carl Skalak's mission to start his own organic urban farm on East 72nd between I-90 and St. Clair. Carl plans to serve not only the local community as a farm but also as an educational tool for youth to learn about agrarian techniques (he has already participated in the City Fresh Program.

I am very excited about the developing local food market, not only as it will provide fresh and tasty food stuffs to our community but also will help reconnect ourselves to nature and perhaps help shift the image of the city as a self sustaining one.

Special thanks again to MarJ for this one

Cleveland Competition - Exhibition Save the Date

June 7th, 2007
Spaces Gallery

The Cleveland Design Competition recently released their 'Save the Date' notice.

Anyway, mark your calendar and don't you dare make plans for June 7th, 2007. You should all be at Spaces Gallery looking on what some people are imagining for our beautiful Cuyahoga River.

If you see any typos on mine don't tell me. It is too late anyway.

Street Sections

One of the pure joys of architecture school (besides the model building and celebrations that followed such milestones) was the creation of simple sections to exhibit proportions of spaces so as to examine how the space would 'feel' when occupied. I remember doing tons of sketches, coloring in solid building and structure while trying to make the space in between have whatever feeling I was attempting for it.

Now, with my move to Cleveland I have noticed that there are quite a bit of 'streetscape' plans being bandied about, some with the requisite street section however these sections are typically pastel and colored and concentrate too much on strict representation to be useful study tools. In fact one could begin to doubt that any study went into it more then the following of a simple 'building-sidewalk-tree lawn-parking lane-road lane-planted median-road lane-parking lane-tree lawn-sidewalk-building' formulation that pays no mind to within what context the street scape is attempting to fit.

Enter Street Sections, a 'charrettecenter web tool' designed to collect and exhibit photos and cross sections of street scapes that work in an attempt to study and explain why some streets just 'feel right'. Currently they are a little short of their gallery goal which is where you can come in. You can register and become a contributor and share your examples of working streets with the world. If anything it could become a very powerful tool for when explaining to people (clients) why some familiar streets feel so comfortable and are so successful.

It is also surprisingly easy to create a streetscape. First you upload a photo from ground level, then there is an editor that allows you to recreate the street in section with a variety of pieces so that each section has a standardized look and layout for easy comparison.

I think it actually quite fantastic and will no doubt put plenty of time aside to play with it.

Save the Tower - Cleveland Planning Commission meetings

June 1st, 2007
June 8th, 2007

The Cleveland Planning Commission will meet to discuss (and listen to arguments) upon whether to give the green light to the County to raze the Breuer Tower.

After all the hackneyed arguments for the razing and the confusing and sometimes hypocritical reasoning behind saving the tower I would hope that this last hurrah allows some succinct and cohesive discourse on why the tower COULD be re-used and why it SHOULD be saved.

For more reasons you could even search this blog, or check out The Design Rag, Green City Blue Lake or even one called savethebreuertower.com. Heck, there are plenty of sites out there arguing their reasons for the tower.

If you care about preserving historic or iconographic structures, attempting to do some environmental good or just think Jimmy Dimorra is a corrupt putz then take some time, read up on the topic and take this last chance to voice your opinion.

See you there.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's day to all those mom's out there.

Chuck D. vs Peter Lawson Jones : Steel Cage Death Match 2007!!!!

Oh, I know, you are all confused by that one. Good. Two events in one post. Is it even possible? Oh, I think it IS!

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Chuck D. at Akron Public Library at 7.pm

Called “the Bob Dylan of Rap”, Chuck D is one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful rap artists in history. Born Carlton Ridenhouer in Roosevelt, Long Island, Chuck D formed Public Enemy in 1982. The group rose to international fame with their explosive debut album YO! Bum Rush the Show in 1987, redefining rap music and Hip Hop culture in the process. Following up with It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988 and Fear of a Black Planet in 1990, along with the soundtracks to several Spike Lee films (perhaps most memorably, Fight The Power from Lee’s Do the Right Thing).

Public Enemy continues to make music, win fans, and make people think. Chuck D is a contributor to a number of mediums. He has published a best selling autobiography, and hosted his own segment on the Fox News Channel. Chuck D has served as a national spokesperson for Rock the Vote, the National Urban League, the National Alliance of African American Athletes, and the partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Chuck D will be speaking on rap, race, reality, and technology at the Main Event. Don’t miss it!
Following the presentation, there will be a question and answer session, and book signing. Books will be available for purchase.

-OR-

Peter Lawson Jones & Meet the Bloggers from 6.pm - 7.30pm.

Once a month Meet.The.Bloggers, Midtown Brews and I-open host a community forum. Our theme this year is based on making Cleveland a global leader in lessening our carbon footprint and using it as a goal to drive economic development in our region.

Since we have an issue confronting us here in Cleveland concerning the Breuer Building and its Carbon Footprint vs. the Carbon Footprint of a brand spanking new county administration building, we thought that a special Community Roundtable to discuss the county's plans for East Ninth and Euclid was especially approriate. Our discussion will include the "green" initiatives included in the plans, the embedded energy at the site and how the plans will lessen our carbon footprint. In essence, how do these plans benefit our regional community and economy?

We have invited all three county commissioners to participate in this forum. Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones has accepted our invitation. Commissioner Jimmy Dimora has a prior commitment but Joyce Burke-Jones will be attending as his representative to the forum. We have yet to hear from Commissioner Tim Hagan.

Our conversations are usually lively, and everyone benefits from the exchange of ideas and opinions. We would love to have you participate in this discussion. Ample parking is available behind the building.

What a frickin' star studded night! Take someone you love the event of your choice. Just make sure you 'represent'. I would most likely go see Chuck D.