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· History · Board · Staff · KCDC in the News |
Telling tales of the city:
Directors of U.S. urban-design centers
confab for the first time in St. Paul.
On Aug. 20, St. Paul's urban-design center, one of 23 in the nation, sponsored the first meeting of directors of such centers to talk about what they do and how they do it.
Four out-of-towners and a half-dozen staffers of the St. Paul design center toured downtown (where the design center's work has been credited with such ideas as linking the Science Museum to the riverfront), discussing the pitfalls and pleasures of advocating good design.
"There's an identity crisis for every design center, whether you're inside a city or inside a university," said Layne Cubell, a member of Seattle's CityDesign office.
CityDesign is part of a labyrinthine governing structure in Seattle, where no fewer than 54 departments and commissions deal with various design-review and -planning agendas.
The new Civic Design Center in Charleston, S.C., founded by longtime Mayor Joseph Riley, is also part of city government.
"We are urban-design firemen" running to address the next hot issue, said its director, Michael T. Maher. The center's mayoral connection makes it vulnerable to the vagaries of the next election, he said.
The Kansas City Design Center, in contrast, is a nonprofit concern created by three university programs. From its position outside City Hall, it researches issues and educates the public about design questions, executive director Daniel Serda said. One of its most successful programs is an invitation-only leadership forum for public officials, developers and urban designers.
The directors of the University of Minnesota's Design Institute and its Metropolitan Design Center (the former Design Center for American Urban Landscape) also attended. Since taking over as director, Ann Forsyth has refocused the Metropolitan Design Center on creating sustainable environments for disadvantaged people and places, she said.
"The question we ask is, `How can design make a difference in these marginal places?'"
The Design Institute, headed by Janet Abrams, is not an urban design center, although some of its activities, such as last year's "Big Urban Game" - a city-scaled race of three giant objects - aim to engage residents in their cities. Abrams said she's "more interested in launching these explosive devices than in following something like the Midtown Greenway project," where the institute tried to inject artistic ideas into the rebuilding of city bridges over the greenway.
"That takes more time and patience than I have," she said.
The St. Paul on the Mississippi Design Center occupies a middle position between the private and public sectors. A nonprofit organization funded half privately and half publicly, it advises the mayor and City Council but has no official regulatory role.
(Minneapolis has no urban-design center. Planning staff and the City Planning Commission review projects as part of the city's approval process.)
If it seems as if St. Paul's recent new developments make sense, there's a reason. The city's design center was founded to push forward the ideas in the "St. Paul on the Mississippi Framework" done in 1997 by urban designer Ken Greenberg of Toronto for then-Mayor Norm Coleman.
The framework spelled out 10 principles for development, including making connections between places, preserving what is treasured and enhancing urban ecology.
"We don't want to use the framework as a checklist but to hear how a developer thinks they're meeting the guidelines," said Tim Griffin, the center's director for the past 3 1/2 years.
The center doesn't tout its positions or pursue controversy but takes a proactive, inside-City Hall approach. Griffin, St. Paul city planner Lucy Thompson and a staff of four review new projects at their earliest stages, make suggestions and then see the project three or four more times before an official site-plan review.
The ongoing conversation generally allows changes to be made without bruising egos. For instance, the center lobbied for the addition of a wide outdoor stairway to the Science Museum to give the public access to the riverfront.
At times the design center's recommendations are ignored or overruled. For example, the center recommended that 9th Street not be closed for Minnesota Public Radio's expansion on Cedar Street. The City Council overruled that stance.
In addition to politics, the centers' directors identified funding as their biggest challenge. The budgets ranged from $160,000 to about $700,000 and are subject to sudden change. All the directors said long hours substitute for adequate staffing.
Those attending the St. Paul meeting agreed that the interchange was worthwhile.
"We're planning next year's gathering," Griffin said.
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