For five days this month, an East San Jose shopping center will become an urban design laboratory for a team of experts from around the country.

The city's first ``charrette'' will bring architects, developers, planners and community leaders together to design the future for a large area near Eastridge mall. And, most importantly, the experts will take direction from local stakeholders -- residents, business owners, educators, non-profit agencies, churches and cultural groups.

Sound a lot like the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative?

Yes, in the sense that it's grass-roots community planning. But unlike the two-year planning process for the West Evergreen and King and Ocala neighborhood advisory committees, a charrette is an intensely focused planning exercise that brings all the stakeholders and experts to the table at one time. The result is a design that is specific, detailed and open to instant feedback from the public.

``We'll try to help people take it to the next level,'' said Charles Bohl, director of the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami's school of architecture. The Knight Program selected the area for its second charrette because of its diversity and potential. The program's first charrette was held last year in an inner-city neighborhood in Macon, Ga. The Evergreen-Eastridge charrette will be Nov. 13 to 18 at Eastridge Shopping Center.

Unlike the urban experience in Macon, the team of dozens of professionals and students will face the challenges of a suburban area targeted for a light-rail extension, development of vacant land, traffic calming, affordable housing and a new community center and sports complex. Add to that the difficulties of planning around Reid-Hillview Airport, a declining shopping center and cultural differences.

But all those complications also give rise to possibilities.

``If you go about trying to solve problems, you just get solutions to problems. But if you start with the vision and work back you have a chance of getting to that vision,'' said Kip Harkness of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency. The agency and city planners are also involved in the charrette. Sponsors include the Mercury News and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group.

Besides Bohl, the planning team will be led by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami school of architecture and a founder of the Congress for New Urbanism, a reform movement that advocates designing neighborhoods that are ``walkable, diverse and economically sustainable, with shopping, civic institutions, parks and jobs within easy access of residents.''

The sessions during the day will focus on transportation; the Eastridge Mall; land use policies and the airport; parks, trails and community facilities; business owners and neighborhood retail; schools, non-profits, churches and cultural groups; infrastructure, utilities and street design; and the Arcadia property, an 86-acre piece of privately owned land once targeted for housing.

At each session, local stakeholders will be brought in to guide the design. All planning sessions are public. In the evening, presentations will explain the process and recap the day's meetings. A reception and closing presentation on Nov. 18 will show the outcome.

Details and invitations to the charrette are going out in three languages to 5,000 people, but anyone is welcome. Resident and neighborhood advisory committee member Khanh Nguyen is doing some recruiting of his own.

``I've been trying to prepare the neighborhoods in terms of thinking what is it that you want,'' he said. ``A community center? What services does it offer, what does it look like, how does it feel? Expert architects, engineers and builders will be there. They'll come back with a picture of it.''

And residents will be able to look at the picture and say, ``No, that's not what we had in mind,'' Nguyen said.

For more information about the Evergreen-Eastridge charrette, contact Pat Colombe, a city principal planner, at (408) 277-4576 or e-mail her at pat.colombe@ci.sj.ca.us.