mOb Design Session Fall 2016

We are excited for our fall semester's worth of design session projects. Read about them below!

ON THE STREET

A Sign of the Times

Use the frame of the "Stonestreet Diamond" sign on 209 East Broad Street to create a new sign for Walter and Urban Corps new development. "The sign doesn't have to/need to say anything, it should just be a sign of the times and fit in the existing frame." Walter Parks' vacant lot near the intersection of Foushee and Broad Streets is also available for improvement or action.  There is a budget for improvements at both locations TBD based on proposals presented to Walter and his team.

Orleans Street

Transform Orleans Street into a 'great street' through a series of mOb-style interventions. The final terminal of the new Bus Rapid Transit System (completion scheduled for October 2017) will be located at Rockett's Landing. Orleans Street connects the community of the Greater Fulton Neighborhood to this high-speed transportation hub. The street requires urban / streetscape designs to transfigure the barren street into a more abiding space for pedestrians and neighbors.

• Find out more about the BRT here

VCU Honors College

The Honors College is looking to create a bolder profile by creating an unusual and inventive physical presence with their building. Work within their existing public spaces to create a striking and innovative connection between the street and the college. All elements of the building and public spaces are fair game.

FI Sky

Redesign an ignored outdoor courtyard space with FI Sky, a program that implements innovation for traditional classrooms. The site is on the southern side of Grace Harris Hall on West Main and Harrison. This project includes but is not limited to landscaping, plant selection, and educational spatial design. 

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Brooks Diner

Revamp the identity of an existing restaurant that is a beloved community gathering place. They will need interior design solutions but also are looking to expand and enliven their outdoor spaces through landscaping or an exterior dining area.

• Learn more about the Diner here

HI Richmond Hostel

HI Richmond Hostel is about a year old, and functions as both affordable overnight lodging and as a community center. HI Richmond is located in the old Otis Elevator Company building, which has also been used as a women’s prison from about 1980-1999. 

Currently, the basement is unfinished, somewhat of an informal storage area, and not zoned for permanent use. However, the basement does get traffic: they have hosted wilderness medical training classes down there, community theater and comedy groups use it regularly as a rehearsal space, and they sometimes hold larger meetings down there. 

They are looking for ways to activate and improve their basement in ways that both reference their building’s history, benefit the Richmond community, and speak to their larger organization’s mission (fostering a more tolerant world through travel).

• Check out the Hostel here

Neighborhood Assistance Officers

Rebrand the identity—uniforms, logos, badges, perhaps even the name—of the Neighborhood Assistance Officers. These officers are non-sworn, civilian, unpaid volunteers who provide critical support in varying capacities to the Richmond Police Department.

• Check out the NAO program here
• Check out the current uniforms here

RECOVERY & CONSERVATION

Richmond Behavioral Health Authority

Design sewn products using the research Kerrie and Cassandra have done over the past six months with hand-rolled custom fabric. This project will also require organizing workshops and further research.

• An article on Design Ignites Change about the program, Recovery by Design.
• Example of an outcome from last semester.

Giving to Extremes Medical Missions

Develop the visual identity for Giving to Extremes Medical Missions for their public media presence: professional and promotional materials across print and social media platforms. GTE is a group of physicians who conduct surgical missions in Central America, as well as train local doctors. They are a relatively new organization and don't have any visual collateral yet. 

• Check them out here.

Clean City Commission

Develop a grassroots litter prevention campaign for Richmond. The campaign will focus on two areas, both North and South: Highland Park and along Reedy Creek. This project will focus on one of these areas and encourages innovative, active, and whimsical (read: non-slogan) solutions. 

Storefront to open youth-led collaborative in Highland Park

A bright light is on in a row of empty storefronts in the Highland Park neighborhood. It’s a Wednesday evening and a group of high schoolers are hovering around a table with markers, tracing paper, and floor plans of the 3000-square-foot space on Meadowbridge Road. Architect and Storefront board member Allison Powell hands a marker to one of these students, who elaborates on an idea for punctuating the cavernous space with bright colors and vertical text on the pillars. Another student chimes in with an idea to fill the parking lot with hammocks for reading. Everybody agrees on one thing: don’t build any walls here.

Potential location of the Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC) in the Highland Park neighborhood, the 3000 block of Meadowbridge Road.

This is a snapshot of the early phase of renovation for the 6 Points Innovation Center (6PIC), Storefront’s newest initiative supported by the Robins Foundation. Storefront will partner with Groundwork RVA, Saving Our Youth Virginia, Boaz & Ruth, and other organizations to create a new space for after school programming that operates at the intersection of design education and community engagement. Participants will enter the 6PIC as agents of change, and set the agenda for the community through design, planning, and organizing strategies. To start, the founding 6PIC team has been working closely with our team of architects to develop a conceptual design for the space.

Concept rendered by architect Burt Pinnock, based on sketches from the founding 6PIC team.

To make 6PIC a reality while sustaining our location in the Arts & Cultural District, we need your support. If it’s $500 or even $5, your donation is an investment in the ability for young people to connect more fully with urban planning and design. Storefront believes that design is not a luxury. Everyone should be able to realize the potential of the city — from the front porch, to the back yard, to the sidewalk, to the neighborhood.

Farmstrong Seeks Assistance with Shed Conversion

This volunteer opportunity has been filled as of April 14, 2016. Stay tuned!

Can Storefront help the Green Team plan a rehabilitation of the shed that would be useful and inspire pride to Armstrong’s farmers?

Farmstrong is an agricultural site in the east end located at 2300 Cool Lane on a property that is privately owned, and serves the community of Armstrong High School, which is located directly to the east of the site.

The site is currently not producing crops, but by spring will have a variety of produce, flowers, and cover crop.  The Armstrong Green Team are the primary caretakers of the Farmstrong site.  The Green Team, composed of 12 high school students who primarily live in the neighborhood of north Church Hill, Creighton Court, Mosby Court, and Fairfield Court, been working on the site for one year.

On the site sits a shed, which was once a refrigeration unit for a flower vendor on Cool Lane.  The shed is functional as a storage area for tools, however, it needs help.  It is dark, has the appearance of being full of spiders, and is not the proud shed that the Green Team aspires to use.  

mOb Design Session Spring 2016

Every semester, Storefront's community design apprentices at mOb (Middle of Broad) take on community-initiated projects under the guidance of a professional mentor, VCUarts faculty, and Storefront staff. This semester, mOb students representing Fashion, Graphic, and Interior Design departments at VCUarts will be taking on 16 projects. The projects focus on creative design strategies for new urban mobility, historic preservation, socially engaged art practices, community gardens, and more. For the first time, we will also be welcoming students from the School of Engineering. Read more about the projects below:
 

BIKES AND ______. 

Lewis Ginter Mobile Education Station
Prototype a mobile education station for Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens that could be tested on campus and used in funding proposals.

Bibliospokes
Work with the Richmond Public Library to design a trailerable library, to be hitched to an electric bicycle, and taken to events around the city. Work on the Bibliospokes identity may also be included within the project scope.

• Here's what they're working with.

• Here's more information on the program.

Existing Bibliospokes trailer.

Rag & Bones Bike-in Theater
Transform an underutilized parking lot into a bike-in theater.

• Learn more about their programming here.

• Check out the site here.

Bike-in theater site (Rag & Bones to the left).

Bike & Pedestrian Plan for Spoonfed
Apply the principles of the bicycle master plan to the public and private spaces around Spoonfed, a restaurant in Westhampton.

• Check out the site here.

• Skim the Bicycle Master Plan here.

PARKS & URBAN AGRICULTURE

Farmstrong Shed
Work with Armstrong High School Green team to rehabilitate a former refrigeration unit — now used as a shed — to better accommodate gardening tools.

• Here's an article on Farmstrong.

• Read more about the client organization, GroundworkRVA.

Community High Greenhouse
Work with Community High Green Team to develop a plan to rehabilitate a vacant greenhouse.

• Here's the Green Team's facebook page.

• Check out the project site here.

James River Park System Wayfinding
Expand upon the outcomes from Fall 2015 to develop robust prototypes for a wayfinding system for the James River Park System.

• Here's what they did last semester.

Outcome for new signage system developed by mOb in 2015.

Poetry for Trash
Socially engaged art project that enters the conversation of litter with poetry. Build professional signs that can be installed in public space, which offer instructions for participation in the Poetry for Trash project.

• Their website explains the project far better than I do.

RECOVERY

Richmond Behavioral Health Authority
Determine the placement of posters created from last semester, oversee their production and installation.

• An article on Design Ignites Change about the program, Recovery by Design.

• Example of an outcome from last semester.
  

Rams in Recovery
Design a space in the Well for Rams in Recoevery — a student-run group for students overcoming substance use disorders.

• More about Rams in Recovery.

After-Care Dental Instructions
Develop after-care instruction for patients undergoing complex dental procedures, who often must comply with after-care instructions. This is a common problem among health care providers who serve urban populations like Richmond.

Camp Kesem Magic Booth
Create a magic booth as a fundraising tool for Camp Kesem, a camp for children who have parents with cancer.

• More about Camp Kesem here.

Grace & Holy Trinity Meditation Scrapbook
Redesign a book on meditation, which has existing content compiled by Candy Osdene.

PRESERVATION & REUSE

Cookie Factory Water Tank
Design a water tank wrap for the Cookie Factory Lofts.

Water tank at former Interbake Building at 900 Terminal Place.

Greensville County Training School
Communicate the vision of Marva Dunn to transform the Greensville County Training School into a community center.

• Citizens United to Preserve Greensville County Training School.

• Read more about the fascinating history of Rosenwald Schools here.

Remains of Greensville County Training School in Emporia, Virginia.

Pop-up RVA Recap

In September 2015, Storefront piloted the Pop-up RVA initiative, as an opportunity to test the pop-up friendliness of Richmond. The success of the project illustrates a united vision of neighbors who see pop-ups as a strategy for reactivating Richmond’s many dormant commercial corridors.

A few months after the event, we are taking a detailed look at the process we underwent to activate almost 4000 square feet of vacant commercial space at North 2nd & East Broad Streets. This recap also explains the challenges and benefits of having a pop-up in Richmond, while suggesting a path forward.

Assist JRPS with North Bank Park Redesign

THIS OPPORTUNITY HAS BEEN FILLED.

 

The James River Park System is seeking assistance with the development of a conceptual plan to improve the entrance to the North Bank Trail at the terminus of Texas Avenue in the Maymont neighborhood. While many improvements have been made along this portion of the North Bank Trail to improve connectivity to Texas Beach, the entrance is currently characterized by its parking lot, which leaves little room for paths that prioritize the many runners, cyclists, hikers that move through this entrance. We are seeking a team of landscape architects to re-envision this entrance. JRPS hopes to leverage the outcome of this consultation as they seek funding to implement this project.

 

Cards For the Snarky Urbanist in Your Life

Contribute to Storefront's Design Education program, receive a deck of Cards Against Urbanity — RVA Edition

Cards Against Urbanity is a project of the tech startup GreaterPlaces.com & DoTankDC. This group of professional planners and architects believe everyone can positively shape the places they live — and have fun at the same time. What started as people complaining about their jobs over rooftop drinks became a spinoff of the popular card game, Cards Against Humanity, which aimed to rearrange their frustration through humor, and often, accidental education.

After several packed house Cards Against Urbanity events with creator Lisa Nisenson, friends and neighbors of Storefront for Community Design were inspired to create an expansion pack tailored specifically to RVA. With the blessing of the creators of Cards Against Urbanity, Storefront is making these cards available to support our Design Education programming, which raises the awareness of designʼs potential to shape the city.

Each deck includes 234 total cards (72 black fill-in-the-blank cards and 162 white response cards). This deck is designed to mix with the original Cards Against Urbanity deck, which is available to download somewhere on the internet. Also on the internet are two great pieces from Next City and Style Weekly about the success of the cards as a way to understand the nuances of RVA urbanism. And as the instructions read, if you donʼt know what something means, you should really be paying more attention.

Make a walk-in donation to support Storefront's Design Education programming, and receive a deck.

Help Ezibu Muntu Design a New Space

This opportunity has been filled.

Ezibu Muntu African Dance & Cultural Foundation is a professional organization of dancers, drummers, and entertainers dedicated to invoking a better educated positive understanding of African culture, values, traditions, and the cultural arts. As Ezibu Muntu develops a capital campaign for their aging building in the heart of the Arts & Cultural District, they seek assistance in prioritizing improvements, which range from repairing leaks, to expanding their studio space, to improving their façade. Contact Storefront to help maintain Ezibu Muntu as a safe haven for creative expression for developing children and aspiring artists.

Design with a lively hive: Application for Spring 2016 mOb Design Session opens

Storefront's Design Session program engages professional and emerging designers to provide conceptual assistance on community-initiated projects. Through a partnership with VCUarts called mOb (Middle of Broad), Storefront offers a unique track of design assistance that engages a lively hive of 30 students representing the fashion, graphic, and interior design departments (with a handful of students from The School of Engineering and other departments). These are Storefront's community design apprentices. Each semester, interdisciplinary student teams work alongside professional mentors and directly with clients to arrive at a set of design deliverables. Projects can range in type, scale, and feasibility. Some of these projects have included:

• Identity for the Partnership for Smarter Growth
• Little Libraries of Highland Park
• Interior design for TheaterLAB's venue, The Basement
• Graphic identity for community strategist Lillie A. Estes
• Design of fences and sheds for 1st Avenue.
• A seatbelt cover for Massey Cancer Center chemotherapy patients
• And more!

When applying to become a client of mOb, consider the following:

• Anyone can apply — nonprofits, businesses, individuals, and even state and local government agencies have been clients.
• mOb is not a design-build studio. Students can, however, provide prototypes and offer conceptual deliverables to help with the initial phases of the design process.
• Projects should be compatible with a semester-long timeline (January 2016 - May 2016).
• While secured funding is by no means a prerequisite for applying to participate in mOb, some knowledge about budgetary constraints helps students make informed design decisions.
• Participants of Design Session are asked to contribute to the mOb + Storefront partnership on a pay-what-you-can basis. These contributions go toward studio supplies for drawing, printing, and prototyping, and significantly improve the quality of project outcomes.
• Applications to become a client of the mOb studio are open until January 4, 2016. Spring 2016 clients will be notified by January 11.
   

Questions? Contact Storefront's Program Director Tyler King (tyler@storefrontrichmond.org), or stop by our studio at 205 E Broad St.

Review: Richmond Speaks Building-to-Building

By Lauren Licklider

The most basic element of community design is the human-to-human relationship. A community identifies a need. The design of that need grows out of consensus, engagement, and scores of volunteers. Storefront’s usual “people first” approach was called into question (or, temporarily put to rest) through a lively panel discussion on the exhibit, “Richmond as a Work of Art,” which focused on the dynamics of the building-to-building relationship across our city’s unique landscape.

"Richmond as a Work of Art" installed in 201 East Broad Street. Courtesy of Storefront staff.

The exhibit was designed by Emma Fuller (a Richmond native) and Michael Overby, both architects and professors based in New York. Throughout the month of October the exhibit (which debuted this past summer at the Richmond Public Library) filled two empty storefronts at North 2nd & East Broad Streets through a partnership with Storefront and Cultureworks.

From left: Trask, Tsachrelia, Slipek, Martin, and Pinnock. Courtesy of Storefront staff.

Fuller assembled a panel of cultural leaders who came from a mix of backgrounds: architects Dimitra Tsachrelia of Steven Holl Architects and Burt Pinnock of Baskervill, the muralist Ed Trask, Style Weekly architecture critic Edwin Slipek, and the Valentine’s director Bill Martin. The panel led a spirited discussion that revealed a hunger for new platforms to publicly discuss design, and with that, the critiques inherent to meriting architecture that it is inextricably tied to both historic and contemporary injustices.

The location of the panel discussion at the VCU Depot building unearthed this tension early on. Before its award-winning 2014 renovation by Commonwealth Architects, the VCU Depot served as a commuter train station between Richmond and Ashland from 1907–1938. Before panelists could lament bygone rail or dote on the building’s architecture, Martin reminded the panel of the two sets of doors from the building revealed during the renovation. On one set, the words Whites Only were scrawled out. The other? Blacks Only.

The Depot in 1907. Courtesy of VCU News.

“The memories of these buildings aren’t always romantic,” Martin said. “If you were white, your experience in this building meant something very different than if you were black.” Can you appreciate the Depot’s classical symmetry without acknowledging that it served as a handy device for segregating waiting rooms? Essentially, Martin argued, buildings represent a singular moment, but great public and cultural buildings often reflect the values of a privileged class.

Flashing forward, and a block away, how does the VCU Institute of Contemporary Art reflect our values today? Tsachrelia is a project architect of the building and brought a wealth of insight to the discussion, sharing with the audience the process her team took to make decisions about how the ICA would look and what purpose it would serve. “Not everything is about the past,” she said. “The ICA is about the future, about defining what we as a community want to be through a place.”

Sketch of the ICA. Courtesy of ica.vcu.edu.

The ICA will house revolving exhibitions, performances, films, and educational programming while also serving as an incubator for the school’s renowned public arts program. Its location — a half-block of a lackluster stretch of Broad Street — is pivotal, suggested Slipek. Projects such as the ICA exist within the larger context of university and urban planning goals. Even though it has barely risen out of the ground, the downtown Arts & Cultural District thrives in anticipation of its new sculptural bookend. Coffee shops have sprung up, a neighboring gas station has been demolished, and even the VCU Depot was brought back to life in anticipation of the ICA.

Things exist the way they do because they were planned that way, Slipek mused. Everything from the uber-chic ICA to a crumbling homes a few blocks away. Nothing is accidental. In Richmond, Fuller acknowledged, our architectural works speak to one another; the cityscape has an ongoing conversation between time periods, architectural styles, and values. Add a social justice perspective into the mix, and design of the city can also be read as a physical manifestation of social struggle. Almost all of our panelists conceded that there is a natural tension between creating a vision and serving the community. That said, where does community engagement fit into the process of creating of great works of architecture?

“While no great building has ever been built by consensus, it has been built by compromise,” prompted Burt Pinnock. He’s the architect for the Black History Museum in Jackson Ward, scheduled to open in February 2016. He went on to suggest that while many buildings stem from one person’s vision, that vision only gets community support when their voice is heard. Public forums, design competitions, and open dialogues between designers and the public are all incredibly useful tools when used the right way.

The Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia (housed in the former Leigh Street Armory). Courtesy of the blackhistorymuseum.org.

Another useful tool? Art, added Trask. His murals often memorialize the voices that have been lost in the shuffle of Richmond’s development. “The art I put on these walls is used as a conversation starter to bring up the untold stories and past lives of these buildings.” One of his recent projects included collaborating with a small neighborhood school to paint a mural on the entire exterior of its recently adapted building. While he brought a concept to the table, the teachers and students shared in the process of painting. The forgiving and temporal medium of paint makes more community involvement possible, and muralists can achieve results with communities at an architectural scale. 

Courtesy of edtrask.com.

Storefront's Program Director Tyler King closed the panel with a question: “Is it utopian to think that we can create beautiful works of architecture the community loves, that doesn’t also encroach on communities who have historically been ignored? Maybe,” he said. “But if great works of architecture cannot first be imagined through consensus, then how will they ever materialize?”

Architecture gives us an identity. It asks and answers important questions: Who were we? Who are we now? Who do we want to be? But perhaps the more important questions stem from something bigger at play: Who had a voice? Who didn’t?

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Lauren Licklider is the Marketing Manager at Baskervill, and at Storefront, she consults on community design projects, helps plan events, and serves as a communications committee member.