Park(ing)'s on Us--Vehicle not Required!

Come PARK with us this Friday--just you, not your vehicle! Dover, Kohl & Partners is hosting its first parking space, joining thousands of organizations across the country, and throughout the world, Friday, September 18.

PARK(ing) Day calls attention to the need for more urban open space, and helps generate critical dialogue on how public space is utilized and its impact on urban human habitat--at least for the day!

PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global movement, with organizations and individuals creating new forms of temporary public space in urban contexts around the world.

If you're in the neighborhood, stop on by. We'll be set up from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in front of our office, located at 1571 Sunset Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33143.

For more information about Park(ing) Day, visit parkingday.org.

"Zoning for Character" Workshops Being Held this Week

Dover, Kohl & Partners has been leading a series of workshops this week in San Marcos, Texas. These “Zoning for Character” workshops are allowing property owners and residents to learn additional details about the new “character”-based zoning districts and regulating plans being proposed in each of the six Vision San Marcos Intensity Zones.

Beginning in October 2014, the City of San Marcos, Texas and Dover, Kohl & Partners joined by The Street Plans Collaborative, helped re-envision downtown utilizing tactical urbanism—yielding low cost/high gain, long-term change. The Dover-Kohl team effectively engaged the city, the public, and transportation engineers and, in the end, the City of San Marcos presented a recommendation of changes in full detail that were publicized in the SMTX project, ready for permanent implementation.

As one of the fastest growing cities in the nation—for cities with a population of over 50,000 people—Long Range Planning Efforts, including the Code SMTX process to update the Land Development Code, are necessary steps in helping the City ensure positive growth within its community.

The remaining two workshops will be held today as follows: 

San Marcos Activity Center - Room 2

Thursday August 20, 2 - 4pm

Thursday August 20, 6 - 8pm

To learn more about CodeSMTX and the City's Long Range Planning Road Map , visit their website.

CNU 23 Art-Room Sessions Now Online

Art-Room session videos from this past April’s CNU 23 event are now available online. An engaging and instructive part of each yearly CNU, the Art-Room sessions aim to inform and educate participants in a wide range of topics including techniques, tools, and interdisciplinary themes from illustration to urban design.

Dover, Kohl & Partners’s James Dougherty—a leader in new urbanist design & illustration—has served as both organizer and a presenter of these sessions for the past three years.

The session topics include: “Modeling New Urbanist Building Types in SketchUp,” “Presentation Rendering Techniques for SketchUp,” and “The Art of Courtyard Design.”

You can view the videos here.

Walton Family Foundation Announces Design Excellence Program

A new initiative, the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, was recently announced by the Walton Family Foundation. The foundation aims to promote the highest level of design excellence for public buildings and spaces. 

Victor Dover, principal of Dover, Kohl & Partners, is among the distinguished panel of professionals who form the program’s selection committee. The panel will review the submissions of local, national, and international designers to be considered for future work within the program.

Designers interested in the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program will be able to apply through Sept. 16. The program expects to support up to three projects per year. 

You may read the foundation’s complete release, and also visithttp://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/design to learn more.

In Production: Video Courses on Form-Based Codes

Victor Dover and colleagues were in Los Angeles last week, filming an upcoming series of educational videos for the Form-Based Codes Institute (FBCI) and Planetizen.  

Victor and Joseph Kohl were co-founders of the non-profit FBCI, which started operations in 2004 and has become a leading think tank and an effective educator on reforming land-development regulations. Form-based codes are an alternative to conventional zoning; they help communities build more of the places people want (and less of what they don’t).

For more information regarding FBCI’s upcoming courses and webinars, visithttp://formbasedcodes.org/courses-webinars.

The Warehouse District Design Workshop is in Full Swing!

ReZone Albany’s Warehouse District Design Workshop is in full swing. Beginning Tuesday, the workshop opened with a presentation and guided questions to foster community ideas on what the area can become, drawing from examples of renaissance occurring in similar industrial-type areas.

Working closely with Clarion, Dover-Kohl is helping lead this event, and the team is making substantial progress. Throughout the Open Design Studio, held yesterday and continuing today, the community has been stopping by and holding discussions with the planners, and seeing how the potential for change is being materialized through engaging illustrations that capture and further advance this new vision.

“This is the first major public event of the ReZone Albany initiative to redraw Albany’s outdated zoning map,” said City of Albany Mayor Kathy M. Sheehan. “The public, the planning department staff, and the design consultant [are] working together to draft a vision that will responsibly build upon what already is a fast-growing neighborhood. For a positive vision to be created, and for the Warehouse District to reach its full potential, we need the community to participate.”

The workshop will conclude Friday May 29, where the Work-in-Progress presentation will describe the work that has been accomplished throughout the week by this collaborative effort between the public and design team. This is the first of likely several more future events planned that will focus on 3-5 more areas of the city as part of this initiative.   

To read more about what's been taking place during the workshop in the news, go to:

http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2015/06/01/one-early-version-of-the-next-warehouse-district#main-content
http://www.twcnews.com/nys/capital-region/news/2015/05/26/druthers-in-albanys-warehouse-district.html
http://m.timesunion.com/news/article/Albany-wants-input-this-week-on-the-warehouse-6284615.php

For more information regarding the City of Albany's rezoning and visioning efforts, visit: www.rezonealbany.com.

The Warehouse District Design Workshop Begins Today!

Beginning today May 26, Dover-Kohl is leading the Warehouse District Design Workshop, a four-day visioning, zoning, and form-based coding discussion that will inform the City’s ReZone Albany initiative. This workshop will focus on the Warehouse District, gathering input from members of the public in order to arrive at a collaborative solution, with future workshops focusing on other areas within the City of Albany. 

The rezoning and visioning effort is being led by the City of Albany’s Department of Planning, with participation by various other department, boards and commissions, and professionals comprised of responsible, well-known leaders in the community to ensure alignment with existing community and economic-development plans. 

The workshop will be held at  981 Broadway Albany, NY, 12207; and the schedule is as follows:

For more information regarding the City of Albany's rezoning and visioning efforts, visit: www.ReZoneAlbany.com

Victor Dover to Serve as Moderator for the Streetsmarts: 2015 Transportation Summit

Victor Dover will be this year's moderator for the StreetSmarts 2015 Transportation Summit. 

The summit is a regional event focused on creating safe, livable, connected, sustainable streets for people of all ages and abilities. The event allows participants to collaborate with elected officials, regional experts, and industry leaders to exchange best practices, share innovative ideas. 

Hosted by the City of Fort Lauderdale, the summit will showcase a variety of transportation influencers from multiple disciplines who will host important discussions on topics such as improving pedestrian and bicycle safety, aligning policy, stimulating behavior change, and sharing tri-county successes. 

The Streetsmarts summit will take place on Wednesday, May 20, 2015 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and will be held at: 

The Broward Center for the Performing Arts | Huizenga Pavilion
201 SW 5th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312

For more information about the event, visit: 
StreetSmarts Summit

Enjoy the Weekend - Mobilizing begins Monday!

Map for Mobile is the first comprehensive planning process for the City of Mobile, AL to be conducted in over 20 years. It is an intense eight-month process to develop a long-range plan that will build off other recent planning endeavors for the city and the region. Map for Mobile will serve as a guide for long-term preservation, revitalization, and growth so that the city can achieve the goals and aspirations of its citizens. 

Dover-Kohl will be leading the Designing the Future Workshop from May 18-21. The interactive, hands-on workshop will focus on design, character, and livability that builds on the ideas communicated by the public during the Focus on the Future Workshop (held on March 30). Throughout the process, the public can drop-in and talk to the team of urban designers as they work in a studio open to the public to translate Mobile’s ideas into plans for better streets, public spaces, and new, walkable centers of community life. 

The complete schedule is as follows:

The event will take place at The Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds - 1035 Cody Rd. North Mobile, AL 36608. Attend one or both programs at 6:30 p.m. on May 18 and 21. You can also stop by during drop-in hours on May 19 and 20. 

For more information, visit MapForMobile.org, or for further questions, please contact Shayla Beaco at 251.208.5894 or MapForMobile@cityofmobile.org. 

The Folly Road Charrette Begins Tomorrow!

From May 7-13, Dover-Kohl will be leading a team and working with the community to develop a plan for the future of Charleston, South Carolina’s Folly Road Corridor, from Center Street on Folly Beach to the Wappoo Cut Bridge. 

The charrette will kick off with an interactive, public hands-on design workshop, where participants will discuss and draw ideas. The design team will then set up a studio in the corridor where they will work rapidly to synthesize input, draw ideas and create a draft vision and plan. The studio will be open to the public throughout the week for drop-in discussions. Another public session will occur at the close of the charrette where participants will review the draft ideas to give feedback.

The charrette schedule is as follows:

Periodic updates can be found at: BCDCOG.com. In addition to the charrette meetings, interested community members can also participate and continue the conversation online at FollyRoad.MindMixer.com.