Last week, Cocoa Beach residents attended a series of public meetings and an open design studio to imagine a future vision for the northern gateways into the City. The Plan Cocoa Beach Charrette began on January 20th with a Kick-off Presentation and Hands-on Design Session in which over 80 community members gathered around tables to draw their thoughts for the area. Throughout the week, a design studio at the Cocoa Beach Country Club allowed people to stop by and bring new ideas to the table. The draft plan focuses on the SR 520 intersection with A1A and the surrounding properties and highlights the numerous opportunities to create a memorable gateway to the City. The draft plan also envisions giving visitors a sense of arrival while building upon the Cocoa Beach character, especially with improvements to streets and parks.
Street Design Book Released to Critical Acclaim
Reviews are pouring in for Victor Dover & John Massengale's new book Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns. "Authoritative... eloquent... beautifully written... generously illustrated... magnificent..." (Better Cities & Towns) and "This book is exactly what we need at this time" (International Making Cities Livable). In the transformative, illustrated guide, the authors take a closer look at streets—both old and new—to demonstrate what works and what doesn’t. The publication features more than 150 streets with illustrations and a discussion about why they are successful and how they were created. More than 500 photos and drawings (most never before published), reveal the details behind beautiful, walkable places.
Seven50 Report Presented at Final Summit
Leaders from the seven-county region of southeast Florida gathered last week for the last in a series of four public summits held to engage a wide-ranging conversation about the future of the region.
Louisiana Governor Unveils Vision for Baton Rouge Water Campus
Governor Bobby Jindal announced at a press conference on Tuesday, December 17 that a new "Water Campus" will be built in Baton Rouge Louisiana. Dover-Kohl has been working with the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to design the 30 acre campus that will be the new home of The Water Institute of the Gulf. The campus is expected to grow into a major center for the science and research of river deltas.
Leading Experts Contributed to STREET DESIGN
To write our book STREET DESIGN: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns,John Massengale and I traveled a lot, measured and photographed streets we admired, and waged endless late-night debates about why they were successful. Meanwhile, Megan McLaughlin, Emily Glavey, and Kenneth Garcia were indefatigable researchers, combing the literature to probe the stories behind the streets in the book’s case studies. But we also received a boost from a phenomenal group of colleagues who suggested example streets, contributed photos, or pointed us in the right directions. Twenty-two of them went on to write short essays that add greatly to the diversity and depth of content in the book, and we are extremely grateful.
Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns
Victor Dover and co-author John Massengale have recently completed their compelling book, Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns (Wiley 2014). In the transformative, illustrated guide, the authors take a closer look at streets—both old and new—to demonstrate what works and what doesn’t. The publication features more than 150 streets with illustrations and a discussion about why they are successful and how they were created. More than 500 photos and drawings (most never before published), reveal the details behind beautiful, walkable places.
Street Design identifies crucial elements that many modern road designs lack and includes step-by-step instructions for designing new streets and fixing existing ones—so that they become a more desirable, more valuable part of their respective village, town or metropolis. Also included are favorite streets and street-making stories from Lèon Krier, Gianni Longo, Gabriele Tagliaventi, John Norquist, and more than a dozen other leading design experts.
Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns is essential reading for anyone who wants to make their community more livable. Discover why some streets are not merely routes to someplace else, but the great addresses to which other routes lead.
To pre-order a copy, visit www.amazon.com. Available in January 2014.
DKP's Regional Plan to Adapt & Mitigate to Sea Rise Highlighted
Seven50, the Plan for Southeast Florida for the next 50 years, was cited in a New York Times article entitled, "South Florida Faces Ominous Prospects From Rising Waters." The article describes the very serious challenges Southeast Florida faces in the era of sea level rise.
Seven50 Hosts Next Generation Leaders
Seven50 took a step towards planning for the future last week, hosting an event for involved young community members in Miami. New Leaders Lean Forward: Building the Region’s Creative Class for a Next-Generation Future sought to start the conversation on what kind of growth and collaboration will be necessary for Miami and the entire South Florida region to flourish in the upcoming 50 years. Creative entrepreneurship has been exploding with the emergence of collaborative spaces and resources for start-ups, and the event showed the eagerness of the community to grow and produce. Six panelists from many prominent interest groups spoke to a passionate, involved crowd, as the event was streamed and live tweeted to great success.
Panelists
Norberto “Tito” Gil, CEO and Co-Founder, Map Your Startup
Lauren Reskin, Owner, Sweat Records
Marta Viciedo, Founding Partner at Urban Impact Lab, Chair of TrAc (Transit Action Committee)
Estrellita Sibila, Land Development Attorney, Estrellita Sibila, PA
Leah Weston, Law Student and Organizer, Emerge Miami
Moderator
Karja Hansen, President, Urban Environment League
Join the conversation at www.seven50.org & @seven50plan.
Northgate Redevelopment Moves Forward
The largest redevelopment project the City of El Paso has ever taken on is moving closer to reality. The 30 acre site in Northeast El Paso was originally a shopping center built in the 1960s that had lost its economic advantages to newer retail models. The mall complex sat vacant and unused before the city purchased it for demolition. As part of Plan El Paso, the city’s new comprehensive plan, Dover-Kohl designed a mixed-use walkable neighborhood anchored by a new transit terminal to replace the vacant structure.
The new transit terminal will be a major stop for one of the city’s new bus rapid transit lines. The city recently received a federal grant to build the transit terminal that will make it possible to move quickly and efficiently between the new mixed-use development and Downtown El Paso.
The city, meanwhile, is in the final stages of selecting a developer for the rest of the site following an RFP process for which three different developers submitted plans to implement the plans drawn up during Plan El Paso. The mixed-use transit-oriented development could break ground as early as next year.
Park(ing) Day 2013
Dover-Kohl & Seven50 will be joining the FAU School of Urban and Regional Planning in West Palm Beach this Friday for Park(ing) Day. Park(ing) Day is a worldwide event that seeks to highlight just how much public area is preserved for the sake of automobiles. Participants claim a parking spot for a day and transform the space into a park, to show just how little is needed to make a big impact.
Join us on Friday, September 20, at 203 Clematis St. to see how easily public space can be used to service a community.
Learn more about Park(ing) Day