KNIGHT PROGRAM CHARRETTE IN DULUTH IN JULY 2005 OFFERS
INNOVATIVE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE
FOR STUDENTS, CITIZENS, AND KNIGHT PROGRAM FELLOWS
 

June 20, 2005 -- The Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami School of Architecture is holding a charrette—an intensive public design workshop—in Duluth, MN on July 13-18, 2005. The event is an innovative educational experience for both the charrette team members—15 architecture graduate students, 13 mid-career professionals who are fellows in the Knight Program, and UM School of Architecture faculty and staff—and the citizens and public officials of Duluth.

Duluth’s East Downtown, Hillside, and Waterfront Charrette will focus on several aspects related to revitalization. After decades of decline, Duluth is at a crossroads in its transition from a declining rustbelt community to one with a lively, diverse economy and a commitment to its urban wilderness character. The city is faced with problems including widespread poverty and a lack of development in the urban core and adjacent residential neighborhoods. The city seeks to bring back the focus of development—housing, jobs, and commerce—to the core area of the city.

This will be the fourth charrette conducted by the Knight Program in Community Building (work growing out of the program’s first charrette just received an award, see “Macon’s Beall’s Hill, Site of First Knight Program Charrette in 2001, Winner of 2005 Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism,” press release May 18, 2005 at www.arc.miami.edu/knight). While all charrettes are educational experiences for the community, are often likened to “community therapy,” and are noted for their ability to deal with many complex issues over a short period of time, the Knight Program charrettes are unique due to the composition of the charrette team. The Knight Program Fellows are a group of multidisciplinary mid-career professionals from all over the country with a wide range of expertise. While some of them are experienced charrette leaders, others will be participating in a charrette for the first time. The graduate students comprising the design team are given the opportunity to work in the “real world” and apply the skills they have been learning in the classroom.

“The Knight charrette is unique in having so many people from such varied backgrounds at the community’s disposal,” notes Kevin Klinkenberg, a 2003 Knight Program Fellow and principal
of the architecture firm 180° design studio in Kansas City. “It would be incredibly rare that a community could put together such a team (simply because of cost), all of whom carry a great deal of expertise. This allows a Knight charrette to penetrate a community far more deeply than what a typical consulting team would be able to do. It’s a tremendous learning experience for non-design Fellows, who get to see the power that a true community-based, intensive design process can hold. And students benefit in numerous ways. They get to work with a real client and apply skills learned in the classroom. I find it very rare that architecture schools really reach out to embrace the public and actually try to solve their issues. In this case, the students get to genuinely work with a community, and it gives them a big leg up.”

Duluth was chosen as the charrette site through a competitive process. In addition to the Knight Program, the charrette is co-sponsored by the City of Duluth and Duluth Local Initiatives Support Corporation (Duluth LISC).

About Charrettes
A charrette is a community-wide design process in which members of the public are invited to meet with urban designers, planners, and other specialists and are encouraged to participate in workshop sessions and share their opinions and ideas for the future development and refinement of their community—it is essentially a combination of an urban design studio and a town meeting in which the full spectrum of community problems, opportunities, and future alternatives are studied and debated. The goal is to create a plan that is practical and achieves consensus.

During the charrette, the 30-plus member charrette team will work with business professionals, local officials, city staff, local organizations, clubs, groups, churches, and residents from the city and surrounding area. The Duluth community will be invited to share opinions and ideas for the future development of the city.  Neighborhood residents, property owners, and other stakeholders will be invited to specific sessions, and all of the discussions will be open to the public. Ideas for new development and for improving existing neighborhoods will be drawn by the Knight Program team so participants can review and critique them, refining a community-driven vision for their neighborhoods.

About the Knight Program and the Charrette Team

The charrette will be led by this year’s Knight Program Fellows—an interdisciplinary group of 13 community development professionals from around the country who bring a range of expertise including community development, planning, housing, real estate development, arts management, transportation, architecture, and historic preservation. The design team will be comprised of graduate students enrolled in the Suburb and Town Design Program at the UM School of Architecture.

Two Knight Fellows will play major roles in coordinating the event and serving as community liaisons—Tom Cotruvo, executive director of the Duluth Economic Development Authority and a 2004-05 Knight Program Fellow and Pam Kramer, senior program director of Duluth LISC and a 2003-04 Knight Program Fellow. The overall effort will be headed by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture and principal in the firm Duany Plater-Zyberk, which has created plans for more than 200 communities worldwide. Plater-Zyberk is one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a reform movement based on the principles of traditional urbanism that advocates the planning and design of great urban neighborhoods that are walkable, diverse, and economically sustainable, with shopping, civic institutions, parks, and jobs within easy access of residents.

The Duluth charrette will be the fourth charrette conducted by the Knight Program in Community Building; previous charrettes were held in Macon, GA, San Jose, CA, and Coatesville, PA. For more information about the Knight Program in Community Building and for full reports of the charrettes, go to www.arc.miami.edu/knight. The Knight Program is funded by a grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. For more information about about Duluth’s involvement in the charrette, contact Jeff Papas, communications manager for Duluth, at (218) 730-5211 or jpapas@ci.duluth.mn.us.

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