Last Friday's Industrial Sites: An Interim Use Charrette provided a forum for discussing issues surrounding vacant industrial sites in Philadelphia. Charrette participants produced an exciting and diverse array of concepts for enlivening overlooked and neglected industrial lots, buildings, and infrastructure. The charrette was held as part of the annual Design on the Delaware and was a partnership between the Community Design Collaborative, the AIA Urban Design Committee and the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations.
Four multidisciplinary teams of designers, including architects, landscape architects, planners and public artists, were charged with designing temporary uses for four vacant industrial sites selected with help from the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation and The New Kensington Community Development Corporation. Volunteers from KSK Architects Planners Historians, Inc. provided the base materials, including site photos and precedents, and led the charrette teams.
The day began with a presentation by David Belt of Marco Sea, a builder and developer who has created temporary installations, such as a swim club made from dumpsters along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn and experimental designs to transform strip malls in New Orleans. Fueled by Belt's provocative talk, the charrette participants got a virtual tour of the sites and then split into teams for an intensive day of brainstorming and drawing.
They proposed temporary uses that ranged from public art installations, performance spaces and outdoor markets, even a rooftop urban campsite with areas for stargazing. One group's design for a sequence of sites along 10th Street in Chinatown included a series of large pillars, open community space, wind chimes made from recycled materials and lighting displays on a bridge overpass.
The concepts were revealed in a public presentation and a panel of experts from community and economic development, art and architecture, and planning backgrounds provided commentary and analysis. Panelists included: John Carpenter Deputy Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia, John Chin Executive Director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, Kevin Gray Director of Real Estate for New Kensington CDC, Prema Gupta Real Estate Manager for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Steve Jurash President and CEO Urban Industry Initiative, Aaron Levy Executive Director of the Slought Foundation, Nancy O’Donnell Associate Director of Philadelphia Green at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Nick Stuccio Producing Director at Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe, and Alan Urek Director of Strategic Planning & Policy Division Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites will use this creative and inspiring event to continue working towards design solutions for unused industrial properties in the city and help foster a discussion on temporary use and redeveloping industrial land.
To read more about the charrette, see the PlanPhilly article Infill Philadelphia: Boldness Redefines 'Community Center'
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Four multidisciplinary teams of designers, including architects, landscape architects, planners and public artists, were charged with designing temporary uses for four vacant industrial sites selected with help from the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation and The New Kensington Community Development Corporation. Volunteers from KSK Architects Planners Historians, Inc. provided the base materials, including site photos and precedents, and led the charrette teams.
The day began with a presentation by David Belt of Marco Sea, a builder and developer who has created temporary installations, such as a swim club made from dumpsters along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn and experimental designs to transform strip malls in New Orleans. Fueled by Belt's provocative talk, the charrette participants got a virtual tour of the sites and then split into teams for an intensive day of brainstorming and drawing.
They proposed temporary uses that ranged from public art installations, performance spaces and outdoor markets, even a rooftop urban campsite with areas for stargazing. One group's design for a sequence of sites along 10th Street in Chinatown included a series of large pillars, open community space, wind chimes made from recycled materials and lighting displays on a bridge overpass.
The concepts were revealed in a public presentation and a panel of experts from community and economic development, art and architecture, and planning backgrounds provided commentary and analysis. Panelists included: John Carpenter Deputy Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia, John Chin Executive Director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, Kevin Gray Director of Real Estate for New Kensington CDC, Prema Gupta Real Estate Manager for the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Steve Jurash President and CEO Urban Industry Initiative, Aaron Levy Executive Director of the Slought Foundation, Nancy O’Donnell Associate Director of Philadelphia Green at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Nick Stuccio Producing Director at Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe, and Alan Urek Director of Strategic Planning & Policy Division Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites will use this creative and inspiring event to continue working towards design solutions for unused industrial properties in the city and help foster a discussion on temporary use and redeveloping industrial land.
To read more about the charrette, see the PlanPhilly article Infill Philadelphia: Boldness Redefines 'Community Center'
