Industry News | |||||||||||
Mayors Join Designers to Create Livable Communities | |||||||||||
by Aaron Koch |
|||||||||||
The Mayors Institute on City Design convened mayors and design professionals from across the country October 2325 in La Jolla, Calif., to discuss the importance of design in communities. This unique program, which has brought together more than 500 mayors with a diverse group of design and development professionals since its inception in 1986, is carried out in partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the American Architectural Foundation. The La Jolla event opened with a dinner at the prestigious Salk Institute and a keynote address by former Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls, who spoke about how her experience at the Mayors' Institute in 1996 supported her efforts to redevelop Cincinnati's waterfront. At that time, she said, Cincinnati's busy highway disconnected the city's downtown from its waterfront, which was characterized by a patchwork of parking lots and obsolete stadiums. During her four-year tenure, Mayor Qualls oversaw more than $1.3 billion in public investment that transformed the waterfront with two new sports stadiums, underground parking, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and a freeway redesign that has reconnected the street grid and made the area accessible to pedestrians. Universal issues Help
from designers Billie Tsien, AIA, Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Associates, New York City, led a tour of the meeting venueher firm's award-winning Neurosciences Institute facilityand gave a presentation about the building's design process. Tsien also described her work as the only architect on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board and discussed her firm's recently completed American Folk Art Museum, the first new museum to be built in New York City in more than 30 years and recipient of the Arup World Architecture Award for Best Building in the World, 2002. The goal of the Mayors' Institute is for participants to return to their cities with greater insights on how, as mayors, they can implement solutions that will improve the quality of life in their cities. The program holds six three-day sessions a year in locations around the country. For more information on the Mayors' Institute on City Design, visit their Web site or email their information center. Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. |
|
||||||||||