This year has been a great one! We brought on new team members and board members, created a new Advisory Council, enhanced programming, and built our strategic roadmap for the future. We are extremely grateful for what we have accomplished with our small team, Board of Directors, and community partners. Thank you for helping Storefront for Community Design inspire equitable community-driven design in the built environment.
We've got big things in store for 2023! Until then, we thought it would be fun to share the top read blog posts of 2022. It’s great to see many of our posts and resources from past years resurface with the changing landscape of our city. Enjoy and have a Happy New Year!
City Builders Share Ideas for Equitable Transportation
image: City Builders Design program participants present ideas for transportation solutions.
Imagine a city where ALL residents have access to shared bike systems, safe streets, improved intersections, multiple modes of transportation, and parklets for outdoor activities. This semester our City Builders Design program participants took a walk through the city to learn about equitable transportation and discover solutions for Richmond.
Take a walk with us as we venture through our semester of discovery and design!
Stop 1: History and Policy
We connected with Kelli Rowan and Brandon King from the Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility (OETM) to learn about why transportation matters. We talked about the history and inequitable policies in transportation. They even brought in a RVA Bike Share bike to talk about a new pilot project in the city’s Southside.
Stop 2: The Design Process
We discovered the steps of the design process to create signs. We learned how to communicate a message with limited colors, shapes, and graphics to express things universally, just like a STOP sign!
image: Meeting with the Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility (OETM) to learn about why transportation matters and learn about RVA Bike Share.
Stop 3: Reading an Intersection
We observed the intersection of N 2nd St. and E Broad St. Participants and design mentors created a list from what they observed and discussed the similarities and implications of the different elements in an intersection. We discussed the need for traffic lights, trees and plants, transportation options, crosswalks, and sidewalks.
Stop 4: Exploring Design Professions
We visited the Hanbury Community Design Laboratory to tour their office space and learn from architects and engineers in the profession. One of our design mentors, Heather Madden, discussed her job as a Transportation Engineer. She also presented an aerial image of the Richmond Arts District along Broad Street and taught us how to read a map in plan view.
Stop 5: Engaging the Community
We stopped by a GRTC bus stop to speak with community members about their experiences. We learned the importance of listening to bus riders and understanding the different perspectives they have.
image: City Builders visited Hanbury Community Design Laboratory, a local architecture firm, and learned about design professions.
image: City Builders designing solutions in preparation for their final presentation.
Stop 6: Discovering Creative Solutions
We stopped by the Brook and Marshall mural and parklet project, a recent Golden Hammer Award winner. We talked about the purpose of a parklet, measured the size of it, and learned about the different amenities they may include, like seating and tables.
Stop 7: Designing a Solution
In the last few weeks of the semester, we created teams to design safety solutions for the high traffic area at N 2nd. St. and E Broad Street. City Builders participants collaborated with design mentors to create fun ideas for the intersection.
In the last class, we celebrated our City Builders’ achievements! We held a party where they shared their ideas to board members, parents, design mentors, and community partners.
The first team had a showstopper consisting of bright colored turtles in the crosswalk to caution drivers to slooowww down. They also proposed painting the utility/sewer lids, replacing a few abandoned buildings to create a parking deck, adding greenery to bus stops, and removing trees that were too close to the corners to avoid accidents.
The second team presented the removal of a parking space to create a parklet for Storefront staff, mob students, tourists, and community members. The parklet was designed for meeting space, greenspace, hanging out, and relaxing.
Congrats on an amazing night and semester!
Thank you Design Mentors and Volunteers!
We share our gratitude to our design mentors and volunteers who have helped our team inspire equitable community-driven design. A huge THANKS goes to Perry, Heather, and Glenn for sharing your talents and architecture/engineering expertise as design mentors (and Jim as our honorary mentor). You made an impact on our City Builders and we appreciate you for that.
Storefront Launches Roadmap for 3-year Plan
In May 2022, Storefront for Community Design announced a bold, new vision and a three-year strategic plan. We will firmly focus on transforming our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and expanding our design education programs to inspire community-driven design in the built environment.
This is a living, breathing plan that we will continue revisiting over the months and years ahead. Since kickstarting our plan in July, we've been building an intentional roadmap that prioritizes actions and creates measurable goals. We are excited to share it and begin collaborating with you as we continue to realize our vision.
Storefront Celebrates Community Impact in 2022
It’s been an amazing year! Our small staff, volunteer base, and scores of community partners incorporated new and creative ways of engagement and problem solving that increased access to design resources and advanced equity in the built environment.
In FY 2022, Storefront for Community Design collaborated on 26 projects that have the power to serve over 92,000 Richmond area residents. We provided volunteer services in our design education and low-cost design and planning assistance programs valuing over $132,000. Download our FY 2022 Program Impact Report and take a look at our project highlight from each program.
Notes from the Field: November Program Highlights
Storefront for Community Design inspires equitable community-driven design through our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and design education programs. Check out our September Notes from the Field to learn about recent updates from our programs.
Design Education: City Builders Design Workshop
We convene project-based learning opportunities that focus on real world issues in the built environment and encourage youth and young adults to discover and design solutions that create effective change in their lives and communities. Learn more about City Builders Design Workshop.
Summer Session: Design Camp
Storefront for Community Design hosted a week-long summer City Builders Design camp that invited youth from all over the city to join. The goals of the summer design camp were to learn about design process and gain exposure to design professions. Using the graphic novel No Small Plans, participants explored urban planning while following a group of teens in their discovery of Chicago’s past, present, and future. They were also tasked to explore the Jackson Ward community and design an empty lot at N 2nd Street and Jackson street.
Storefront Recognized with AIA Virginia's Highest Honor
Storefront for Community Design received the American Institute of Architects Virginia (AIA Virginia) Chapter’s Architecture Medal for Virginia Service at the Visions for Architecture celebration on November 4 at the VMFA. The award is the highest honor that AIA Virginia hands out and recognizes an individual or organization that makes an “unusually significant contribution” to Virginia’s built environment, or awareness of the built environment.
In a letter to Storefront informing them of the award, AIA Virginia noted they wanted to recognize Storefront for its influence and contributions to uplifting underserved populations through the power of design. “AIA Virginia is delighted to honor Richmond’s Storefront for Community Design,” said Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA, Interim Executive Vice President at AIA Virginia. “Since 2011, Storefront has been a stalwart non-profit design hub that seeks to make design programs and resources accessible to all. Leveraging their large network of volunteers, they have prioritized equitable growth, benefiting Richmond and the broader metropolitan area.”
Since 2011, Storefront has convened over 370 low-cost design and planning assistance projects and over 20 design education initiatives to community members, businesses, nonprofit organizations, local governments, schools, and neighborhoods. Last year, Storefront celebrated 10 years of community impact and recently launched a new strategic plan that will focus on more community-driven design. The organization plans to serve over 200,000 residents in Richmond through community design over the next three years.
Recapping the 2022 Golden Hammer Awards
Storefront for Community Design and Historic Richmond hosted the 2022 Golden Hammer Awards on October 27 at Hardywood Brewery. As Richmond-area non-profits with interests in historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization, we were delighted to co-present the awards for the sixth year and recognize professionals and community members improving our neighborhoods through restoration, adaptive reuse, new construction, placemaking, and historic preservation. The Golden Hammer Awards were started in 2000 with a goal of honoring excellence in neighborhood revitalization projects throughout Greater Richmond.
Our nominees completed projects in many of Richmond’s well known historic districts - Jackson Ward, the Museum District, Scotts Addition, Monroe Ward, Northside, Manchester, the East End, the Carillon, Monument Avenue and Downtown’s central business district – but this year we see, for the first time, projects focused on the revitalization of public housing and public investment in areas of South Richmond. The focus on the public housing projects developed in the city during the era of Urban Renewal contrasts with parallel efforts by private developers and county governments to revitalize suburban areas that were developed during a period of white flight from Richmond’s city center.
A church, a gas station, an early downtown “skyscraper,” a school, an Art Deco commercial storefront, a fraternity house, a 1970s shopping mall, the riverfront, and multiple iconic civic institutions - these unique and authentic elements of our historic built environment are now seeing new life thanks to the work of our nominees.
Storefront Receives Architecture Medal for Virginia Service Award
Storefront for Community Design is honored to be awarded the 2022 Architecture Medal for Virginia Service. As the AIA Virginia’s most prestigious public award, the Architecture Medal for Virginia Service honors an individual or organization that has made an unusually significant contribution to Virginia's built environment or to our understanding and awareness of the built environment. Strorefront for Community Design will be celebrated at Visions for Architecture on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
Notes from the Field: September Program Highlights
Storefront for Community Design inspires equitable community-driven design through our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and design education programs. Check out our September Notes from the Field to learn about recent updates from our programs.
Design Education: City Builders Design Workshop
We convene project-based learning opportunities that focus on real world issues in the built environment and encourage youth and young adults to discover and design solutions that create effective change in their lives and communities. Learn more about City Builders Design Workshop.
Summer Session: Design Camp
Storefront for Community Design hosted a week-long summer City Builders Design camp that invited youth from all over the city to join. The goals of the summer design camp were to learn about design process and gain exposure to design professions. Using the graphic novel No Small Plans, participants explored urban planning while following a group of teens in their discovery of Chicago’s past, present, and future. They were also tasked to explore the Jackson Ward community and design an empty lot at N 2nd Street and Jackson street.
A mOb jOurnal
When I started at VCU, I knew I was passionate about sustainable design, but I wasn’t sure what professional path that would lead me down. Biology, engineering, interior design, architecture, and urban planning are all fields that have a significant impact on the built environment, but urban and regional studies was unlike any one of my interests alone. It represented designing with community values at the core of every intention.