Design forum III was a great success, thanks to the efforts of our architects, landscape architects, and a good turnout from the community. The evening focused on the streetscape experience, and started off with a preferencing exercise that involved community members placing color coded dotes on image boards to highlight shared desires, and of course things that were less palatable, on an aesthetic level.

Next, the group reviewed the streetscape from a more user-oriented perspective, writing down items and treatments that came to mind when they envisioned interacting with the site. These notes (Post Its, actually) were grouped by common themes.

One of the overarching themes that became clear through the exercises was the desire for green, enviting space. Softscapes as opposed to hardscapes. “There is plenty of grey and industrial in Soma,” and there was a strong desire to “see Yerba Buena Garden extend west,” through the use of street trees, vegetation, and potential pocket parks. Security and maintenance, family usability, and of course dog friendliness were other themes.

Thank you to all who attended. Full notes from the evening are available here. We will be incorporating this feedback into our design, and hope to share it with the community in the not too distant future.

Cities, and the built environment, have often been a muse for many of our greatest writers. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities comes to mind, as does Ayn Rand’s epic, The Fountainhead, still inspiring today’s youth, and championing the spirit of individuality, through the lense of architecture.

SPUR recently highlighted the biography of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Toronto’s poet laureate, and city planning consultant. Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the Creative City provides a vastly different, and refreshing, perspective on the nature of living in a changing city. “There is a paradox in the civic nature,” says Di Ciccio. “The citizen resents densification, yet wants to be seduced to public encounter.” This is the heart of the question we face every day. Ultimately, Di Cicco hits the nail on the head. “There is one essential philosophical criteria for urban design, and it is the notion of “welcome.”  We may never be able to say it as eloquently as a poet laureate, or for that matter just a simple poet, but this notion of “welcome,” for our prospective buyers, and existing neighbors, is urban development at its most fundamental.