Dare to take back the sidewalks?

I suppose it happens even in Philly, where construction impedes the daily lives of pedestrian life. I never really thought about how easily contractors take over the side of a street by blocking the sidewalk off for construction and staging of vehicles without really making any sort of concession or arrangements for how people will traverse the site.

One of Philly's councilmen had a revelation whilst visiting New York, a city that undergoes roughly five times the amount of high-rise construction as his hometown. James F. Kenney realized that in New York City construction crews must make arrangements to protect pedestrians on the sidewalk by building shed shelters and by also creating protected paths that may intrude on the street to protect pedestrians. These techniques allow not only for pedestrians to move efficiently around the city but it also keeps storefronts and businesses open.

What an amazing idea! After traversing the Breuer Ameritrust Tower site debacle for the past year and so (still has up the lovely construction fence and closed sidewalk) I had found it so rude that they had to completely block passage on that side of the street. I wonder what going to Tribe's game would have been like if the sidewalks had been open.

Probably more pleasant.

It would be a wonderful thing if the city made concessions for its inhabitants and street level businesses by making construction teams stage equipment and protect the sidewalks and streets for those needing to use them.

resource:
Changing Skyline: The city has lost control of its sidewalks

ARE 4.0 IDP Support Group has had to change location

Due to an overwhelming response AIA Cleveland has changed the location for the ARE 4.0 discussion group regarding the new Architecture Registration Exams.

see here

Moved from AIA Cleveland Offices to URS's offices.

Jargon alert: ARE 4.0 + IDP seminar hosted by AIA Cleveland

A big part of becoming an actual "architect" is not only the grueling school work and the internship (3 years or so) but then one gets to sit for a series of exams which were no doubt prepared by lawyers practicing their legalese.

As any part of contrived and difficult to understand bureaucracy, the ARE (Architect Registration Exam) is undergoing a series of changes to "streamline" and make "more current" the examination procedure.

Certain aspects of the examination have been updated such as:

The ability to begin sitting for examination before completion of IDP (Intern Development Program).

The decrease from 9 sections of the examination to 7 sections which...

...means that some sections were combined and all your study guides are not as current.

Oh, and the fees are changing too.

Luckily the Cleveland Chapter of the AIA will host a discussion regarding the new exam called (in very high-tech fashion) ARE 4.0. Strangely if you type '4' while holding the shift key you get at '$' sign. Crazy stuff, eh?

Monday, April 14, 2008
AIA Cleveland Offices
1001 Huron Road*
URS Corporation, 1375 Euclid Avenue, Suite 600
Cleveland, OH 44115
6.00pm
$5.00 registration includes pizza and delicious refreshments
AIA members are free (its a perk!)

To register call Helen @ 216.575.1242 or email aiadocs@aiacleveland.com

*best to register as the location may have to change to accommodate the amount of attendees. told you it would have to be moved! So many people have so many questions!

Hip and fancy flier

Combining two of my favorite things -

No, not beer and fried ice-cream (which I am now extremely curious about its ability to be combined into something new and delicious) but design competitions and the GCRTA!

The GCRTA has issued a call for submissions for public art for the Woodhill Rapid Transit Station

Due: 2008 04/30 at 4.00pm at 1240 West Sixth St.

You can read more about the particulars on this honking large 6.6 meg Woodhill Public Art Call for Artists pdf

Plenty of time. Get on it.

April Tremont Artwalk

Tremont Artwalk
Friday, April 11th, 2008
Tremont, Ohio
6pm - 10pm

Once again Tremont galleries are hosting the Tremont Artwalk. Appropriately named after itself.

Enjoy the nice weather this Friday and wander around Tremont. Then you can wander on over to the Gordon Arts Area either later that Friday or on Saturday and check out the other somewhat nearby but still disconnected for now art district (yes, I am being a little snarky about all the 'art districts').

Support local art so we can connect all these separate districts into one big super district!

Bike Sharing in the U.S.?

Clear Channel, the corporation who loves to slap advert slogans on whatever you can imagine are using their business savvy in an attempt to lessen the congestion of Washington D.C. by bringing Bike Sharing Programs to the U.S.

Already being used in cities such as Paris and Barcelona, bike sharing programs work on either a short term or subscription basis through a series of rental stations scattered in strategic locations around the city.

Part of the purpose is simple. To alleviate road congestion but also to capitalize on existing infrastructure. I couldn't put it more succinctly than I could reiterate it.

“Public transport is usually fuel intensive and needs drivers and there’s a lot of infrastructure required. But with bicycling, you already have the bike facilities, the bikes themselves are inexpensive, the driver is the customer, and there is no fuel, other than the breakfast of the customer,”

April - Cuyahoga County Recycle Your Computer Month

Undoubtedly you have heard about all the toxins and heavy metals that happen to be contained in your computer. One of the marvels of living in a consumer based society which undergoes gigantic technological leaps is that every couple of years or so that expensive piece of hardware sitting on your desk has become "obsolete".

The best thing to do if your computer is less than 5 years old is to donate it, however if you are like me and older equipment laying around that you had used until it cooked itself the best way to properly get rid of it is to recycle it.

Computers are a specialty item to recycle because their innards are filled with those toxins and heavy metals we should all be afraid of being exposed to. Most communities have a tricky time gearing up to have those components removed and recycled.

This month Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District is sponsoring Recycle Your Computer Month where they coordinate large scale pick ups of computer and electronic items at various collection centers in various cities of the County. Please refer to the list at the bottom of the linked page for the cities in your area.

Computers will be refurbished and/or disassembled by RET3 Job Corp

Cleveland Design City - Happy 10000th webbernet visitor

Cleveland Design City has received its 10,000th visitor web hit which is sort of a big deal considering that at the last census that figure is almost double the current population of downtown. It is nice to think that that many people care about design in the city to check out that aggregater.

The safety factor of staying the same

Work on Public Square was finished this weekend. Most of it at least. The part dealing with the collapsed water main that resulted in a sink hole at the intersection of Superior and Ontario and major reconstruction for the past month.

While waiting for Christopher Walken to make his "hundredth" appearance on SNL I managed to catch a local news story about how work on Public Square has been completed complete with interviews from locals discussing how difficult the construction at Public Square has made their lives, especially the congestion.

I suppose I had never considered Downtown Cleveland as having a congestion problem. Now the commute into and out of downtown, sure. 77 and 90/2 become a complete bear during rush hours. I can't blame downtown traffic patterns for that as much as the exodus to the outlaying suburbs (and to some extent the solo occupant commuting pattern).

I surmise my only issue with the 'news story' was simple based upon how much of a 'relief' it is to us lucky Clevelanders that Public Square has been rebuilt to what it was only a month ago. That our simple commutes into and out of downtown will no longer suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune but will instead be quick, easy, relatively harmless and unchanging. How difficult it would have been to imagine anything other then the simplest solution proffered. This is my concern. That the 'news' didn't bother digging any further into understanding the issue of Public Square, the conditions that caused the event or even how the city reacted (how were buses rerouted, was there a drop in ridership, were local businesses affected because of the buses or the complete disruption of any access?) and what the end result of any alternate solutions could be.

I would have been extremely interested in a news story regarding any of that. If only we had news agencies that were interested that sort of information. If only we actually wanted to experiment and study what would happen if we were willing to do something differently. This isn't just about the search for the facts or the proper information. A large portion of it has to do with the understanding that sacrifice of some sort needs to be made to offset the self destructive behaviors that, as a society, we ascribe to. Without a willingness to at least explore what change could lead to we have no right to complain, no right to argue that we have been dealt a bum hand. If we lack the understanding that by making small changes in our own behavior we very directly affect the larger outcome than there is no hope for us to come together as a connected community to create a better affect for ourselves.

I say this because there is a very large world out there that we are so quick to turn our backs on. Not environmentally, nor politically, nor religiously, but humanely.

Talalay Lecture Series; Carolyn Strauss and Cameron Sinclair

MOCA Lectures

The formal announcement of the MOCA's Talalay Lecture Series has been made two exciting speakers, Carolyn Strauss of slowLab and Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity

The New Face of Architecture
Carolyn Strauss
slowLab
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 <---according to MOCA the flier is incorrect, the lecture will be on the 22nd!
6pm (seating ends at 5:45)

Award-winning designer, curator, and founding director of slowLab Carolyn Strauss has emerged as an innovator in the concept of slow design as a fertile, holistic framework to understand and advance sustainable design. For Strauss, slow design describes a design philosophy guided by elevated awareness of process, quality of outcome, and enrichment of the community.


The New Face of Architecture
Cameron Sinclair
Architecture for Humanity
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
6pm (seating ends at 5:45)

Winner of the 2006 TED [Technology, Entertainment Design] Prize, the motto of Sinclair's group, Architecture for Humanity, design like you give a damn sums up his design vision. With projects ranging from designing mobile health clinics combating HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa to establishing mine clearance programs and building playgrounds in the Balkans his mission is to create sustainable and innovative living standards for the masses.


Programs Held Off-Site
Westfield Insurance™ Studio Theater
Idea Center at Playhouse Square
1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115

Ticket Pricing
Students $5
MOCA Members $8
Non-Members $10
Patrons $80 one lecture / $150 both lectures (per person)
This very special package includes preferred seating, free parking, and a light supper following the lecture in an architecturally significant building.

Limited Seating
Please contact Andrea Kormos at 216.421.8671 xt. 21 to reserve your space.

I only want to add that I am extremely excited for this series and have already gotten my tickets so you better hurry as seating IS LIMITED!

Car counting and watching the dance that is Public Square; the never ending burden of being bored

Whilst waiting for my bus on this morn I was taken aback by the massive number of automobiles that were zooming past me with only one occupant. I had decided to begin a quick and completely unscientific random sample.

In the 7 minutes or so that I was waiting at the bus stop I had counted a total of 174 cars. Of that quick sample only 34 had more than one occupant. Of those 34 vehicles operating at over 25% efficiency only one of the automobiles had more than 2 occupants meaning that only 1 out of 174 automobiles was operating at over what could be considered 50% efficiency.

Now we could begin to argue the semantics of "efficiency". Some could state that one would have to take into account vehicular mileage as well as designed seating capacity and eventually embodied energy to truly understand how "efficient" the automobile is, however I would like to base the premise that the vast majority of automobiles are designed with a comfortable seating capacity of 4 adult humans. Therefore I would state that any vehicle operating at less than full occupant capacity would therefore be working at less than full vehicular capacity.

This was my morning muse.

Of course my mind would then meander to hypothesizing whether a congestion charge upon commuting vehicles would encourage public transportation and cut down on the environmental (and economic impact) of under capacity commuting. Cleveland, however is one of those cities that doesn't suffer from expensive downtown parking or even a highway infrastructure operating at designed capacity, so in essence leveraging a congestion charge would probably pull businesses out of downtown to relocate in the suburbs even quicker then they would be doing without.

At about this point in my commute my bus had begun to traverse Public Square which in recent weeks has had the main cross traffic shut down to repair a sink hole that collapsed under the intersection of Superior and Ontario. The circular one way route around Public Square is still in use however the main cross intersection is closed to vehicular traffic in essence solidifying the main portion of Public Square into one actual large urban PUBLIC SQUARE which can be safely crossed and occupied by pedestrians (barring construction interference). While this traffic pattern may not be permanent it may prove worthwhile to at least take the time and effort to study how the square functions without the main vehicle intersection operating. Whether or not it may be feasible to completely reclaim the square for pedestrian traffic only and create a venue of events to activate the space or perhaps program it for a hybrid use of pedestrian and public transit only (with commuter vehicle traffic confined to circulate around the square) could, in fact, become a fine point of study and eventually contention into whether the city wants to become a walkable city at all.

I would argue that if public square became one large pedestrian location instead of multiple disparate elements segregated by high speed and high volume vehicular traffic that it may become a collection place for residents and visitors which may create opportunities for businesses looking for the next high profile location. There are few locations in the city that could actually be described as multi-nodal with Tower City being the fulcrum for many of the GCRTA's public transit systems (bus, rapid transit and soon the BTR) so the inherent exposure to such a location is already relatively high however short of street level business the are may be. Of course it is difficult to not further quantify that statement by referencing the prevalent surface parking that currently proves more economically feasible than office, retail or residential structures (hence it's proliferation) which is why downtown feels so very vast and empty anyway.

Hopefully someone is looking into it.

*edited because something wacky happened during the upload ~ed

1/3 Movie Night - It needs to be at least three times as big!

1/3 Movie Night
Zoolander
Thursday, April 3
Bella Dubby
7.30pmish

Caught in the love triangle between beauty and art our protagonist, Derek Zoolander must do battle against the status quo to find love, a nice outfit and himself in this epic Ben Stiller classic. Perfectly poised to blush away those ugly gray winter blues.

Brought to you by LAUNCH Cleveland 1/3 movienight, trying to be beautiful since 2008!

Yes, it was a bike rack.

I only post this picture because I found it funny and I don't think anyone else 'got it'. Yes, they covered a bike rack with a "Cleveland Road Apple" or Orange Barrel. Good one guys.

Cleveland Headlines You May Have Missed

April Fool's day always takes me by surprise. I usually sit and think about all the fun photoshopped images I could have made to create some faux headlines if only I had 'had the time'. Since I was either too forgetful or too lazy to make some fun pictures I will instead post the basic premise of some PD headlines I was eventually planning to get around to making.

Huge hole in Public Square to be filled with cheese steak wrappers from Jimmy Dimora's car.

Ameritrust Tower sold to Marcel Breuer's zombie. Plans mixed use high-end condo development.

Space alien's claim Cleveland as own after misinterpreting FREE stamp. Leave after evaluating infrastructure.

Bicycle rack discovered in Downtown Cleveland, immediately hidden with orange barrel.

Current rate of downtown exodus may save Cleveland Public Schools as enrollment drops to 17.

Canadian tourists perpetuate myth that Canadians are all polite by responding "It's charming and everyone is really nice." when asked to describe their visit to Cleveland.

When asked about his lack of response regarding the local economic and housing crisis Mayor Frank Jackson had nothing to say.

Cleveland City Council member indicted on not having enough felony convictions to hold a public office.

Cleveland bloggers given opportunity to direct city. Internet collapses as no one has anything to look at except for pictures of cats in strange hats and pornography.