Neighborhood Innovation : In The News

Check out Kensington urban farmer Nic Esposito's Notes From the Urban Homestead series in Paradigm Magazine.

For many people, the concept of farming in any city is strange, let alone in this neighborhood. No matter that there’s a family who lives out of their car, or a heroin addict who sleeps in the park all winter, or a woman who prostitutes herself just for a bed to spend the night and maybe a hot shower: I’m the weird one on the block. But that doesn’t bother me. We all have to fit somewhere in this world.

Original source: Paradigm Magazine
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Philadelphia architect, fine artist and teacher Joseph G. Brin interviews Industrial Design Society of American North East District VP Elect Stephan Clambaneva in advance of the organization's conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on April 13-14.

The workshop is called a “Sense of Philadelphia.” We intend to conduct a workshop to develop a “sensual” map of Philadelphiia.

Participants will split into groups and explore how to make the intangible tangible by using the five senses and the Great City of Philadelphia as inspiration. Using their sense kits each participant will capture his or her sense in a bottle, or in this case, a petri dish and in about two hours, the teams will manage to use these to generate a variety of potential new products or services that highlight, showcase, help experience or, in some cases, illuminate those quintessential sensual experiences only Philadelphia can offer!

Original source: Metropolis Mag
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Baltimore Ave.'s Dollar Stroll in University City makes MonkeyDish's list of 50 great ideas among national restaurant innovations.
 
Each Stroll has attracted over a thousand patrons who don’t mind waiting in line to sample the familiar at shops such as Milk & Honey Market, which specializes in local cheese, produce and their own urban honey, and far-away cuisines at Desi Chaat House and Vientiane Cafe.

Original source: MonkeyDish
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It has been 40 years since new ship construction at Navy shipyards ended, and Area Development delves into redevelopment at a few, including the transformation in South Philly's Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The 167-acre historic core of the Navy Yard, with more than 2.5 acres of waterfront, is actually on the National Register of Historic Places. The core offers opportunities for renovation of existing buildings for commercial use, and for the conversion of older loft space to residential use.

Original source: Area Development
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Architizer takes a look at Beautiful Streets, which uses pairwise surveys to compare 200 randomly selected streets in Philadelphia.

The site model may seem a bit antiquated (the dubious ethics behind its content is beyond dispute at this point), but here we are, with Beautiful Streets, which pairs two randomly selected Philadelphia streets and asks the user to decide which is more beautiful. "What makes a beautiful street, or a pleasant neighborhood?," the site asks. "Maybe that’s hard to define, but can you tell a beautiful place from somewhere that’s not so hot?" What turns out to be another outlet of fleeting distraction can actually provoke some interesting insights.

Original source: Architizer
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The Atlantic Cities takes a broad look at wayfinding, or environmental graphic design, including our city's 17 year-old Walk!Philadelphia pedestrian wayfinding program.

If you've been to downtown Philadelphia since, you may have appreciated how easy the convention center was to find. But you probably did not appreciate that someone had to design your path there.

"My parents never understood what it was that I did," Labouvie laughs. "People know what advertising is. They know how to sell products. But understanding that there are best ways of moving through cities, that there are cues that will help you do that, people don’t understand that until it’s really pointed out."

Original source: The Atlantic Cities
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Philadelphia sisters Claire and Nikka Landau and friend Jason Tucker have established PhilaSoup as a monthly dinner bringing together dynamic educators to fund the most ambitious and innovative projects, reports NPR.

On a recent Sunday night, the trio of friends welcomed about 45 teachers and other members of the local education community to a cozy gathering at the University Barge Club, a 19th-century boathouse on the banks of the Schuylkill River. As folks walked in, they were asked to fill out name tags -- with their names and the names of their favorite children's books.

"Teachers all over Philadelphia are doing terrific projects," Claire said. "It's really exciting to gather and break bread with teachers from across the city doing exciting things."

Original source: NPR
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The New York Times looks at the Philadelphia Media Network's move to Market East and the sign ordinance that will effectively create a digital district in Center City.

Philadelphia Media Network will have two digital signs on Market Street and two on Ninth Street, and each sign will be about 14 feet wide and 45 feet long, said Joseph F. Coradino, the president of Preit Services and Preit-Rubin, the commercial development and management subsidiaries of the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, the company that owns both the Gallery and the old Strawbridge site.

The sign ordinance has limits. For example, it will allow digital signs to appear only on properties that have 100 feet or more of frontage on Market Street.

"This is not Times Square, where the goal is to basically cover buildings with signs," said Paul R. Levy, the president of the Center City District, a business improvement group and an early supporter of the ordinance. "Our goal here was to integrate the signs into the existing architecture."

Original source: The New York Times
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Berwyn-based B Lab is leading the push for Benefit Corporation legislation in Oregon, reports Sustainable Business Oregon.

The legislation would provide a legal framework for companies to register as a company dedicated to providing a public benefit. The designation would be available as an option alongside C Corporation or S Corporation.

Similar legislation has been passed in California, Vermont, Hawaii, New York, Maryland and New Jersey and is pending in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and the District of Columbia.

Original source: Sustainable Business Oregon
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The Architects Newspaper is a fan of green developer Onion Flats and its project known as The Ridge, which includes plans for the nation's largest Passive House, a net-zero energy building.

Onion Flats plans a new five-story structure to include 8,700 square feet of retail on the ground floor that will anchor a plaza along the river, and 126 predominantly one- and two-bedroom units above. McDonald said The Ridge’s design is an interpretation of the classic Philly townhome and its sociable stoop. Residences are clustered around a second-floor garden serving as a communal gathering space, reinforced by an open interior circulation system of elevated platforms. Special attention was paid to creating a building that uses a minimum of resources, generating its own power from a 200-kilowatt solar array, and includes a completely permeable, green-roof covered site.

Original source: The Architects Newspaper
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Smart Planet brings us up to speed on Postgreen and its new home construction innovations.

With one house sold and three in the works, the Avant Garage project on Memphis Street is among Postgreen’s most expensive undertakings. (The base price of an Avant Garage house is $355,000.) Each home has a roof deck and a two-car garage. To cater to the neighborhood’s artists and professionals, the garage situates vehicles in front of each other, rather than side-by-side, and has a second door opening to the backyard. The idea is to create space suitable for a studio or workshop.

Original source: Smart Planet
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The American Planning Association's Sustaining Places blog takes a look at how zoning code reform in Philadelphia is promoting sustainability.

Early in the zoning reform process, the new Zoning Code Commission agreed on a set of seven broad goals for the new code. Four of these goals addressed code structure and administration: simplify base districts, simplify overlay districts, simplify approvals, and improve readability and reorganization. The other three goals aimed more at the substance of the code: protect neighborhoods, promote sustainability, and promote quality and design.

Original source: American Planning Association Sustaining Places blog
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Drexel University materials scientists Alexander Moseson and Michel Barsoum have created a low-tech, low-energy cement they hope will reduce carbon output as developing countries build more sidewalks, roads and housing.

Potential demand for lower-carbon building materials has sparked a race to replace Portland cement featuring a handful of manufacturers and scientists. Some claim to sequester carbon within the cement itself. Others use alternative fuels. Still others tap unconventional feedstocks, such as magnesium silicate, that require lower kiln temperatures.

Moseson and Barsoum are trying the latter, mixing recycled iron slag or fly ash with readily available limestone. "We literally used a bag of garden lime from Home Depot," Moseson said. Instead of a coal-fired kiln, they use a bucket with a spoon at room temperature.

Original source: Daily Climate
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A couple months ago we wrote about honoring Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Yorktown, a community on the verge of rebound, and now the American Planning Association has awarded a 2012 National Planning Award for Yorktown's recently completed community-driven master plan Yorktown 2015: A Blueprint for Sustainability and Survival.

"Yorktown 2015 capitalized on the energy and creativity of Yorktown’s residents by engaging them and using their input to create an action plan," said Marie L. York, FAICP, APA Board Director and 2012 Awards Jury Co-Chair. "Despite the small size of the community, participation was overwhelming, with more than 260 Yorktown residents participating in surveys, meetings, and groups to help shape this plan."

In addition to robust traditional community outreach and engagement components, Yorktown 2015 participation was enabled through a more innovative method. Interface Studio, conceptualized, designed, and fabricated a storytelling booth--the Yorktown Chatter Box--that invited community members to step inside and speak into a soup can telephone [actually a functional audio recording device] to tell stories about their memories of Yorktown, share their hopes for the future of the neighborhood, and describe the characteristics of the neighborhood they feel would be most important to preserve.

Original source: American Planning Association, PA-Southeast Blog
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