community design - mtg II

Despite the threat of torrential rains, 11 dedicated community members attended our second design workshop for Brigham Street Park Community Design Project. We all introduced ourselves at the beginning of the meeting and said where we were from. This helped the group get to know each other, as they will be the tireless work-horse champions of this project who will work to get it built.

I started the presentation with a board that depicted my synthesis of the community surveying effort. I explained the methodology and the demographics of all participants. We had 81 participants total, which were surveyed through four different means: 1) the first community workshop, which had four interactive information gathering stations, 2) three school workshops where we met with three classes of fourth and fifth grade students from the area, 3) street surveying at the site and along the main avenue and 4) online surveying through the Sheepshead Bay / Plumb Beach Civic Association park project web site. We got a good cross-section of age and ethnic groups.

Secondly, I explained my design process. I told them it was my goal to meld the Community Priorities with the Site's Priorities, the latter of which were learned from the site analysis I had done. This process then informed the critical issues that the site had to confront and what the ecological, social and cultural program should be.

I presented two conceptual designs that I felt addressed different aspects of the priorities determined. My strategy was to make the concepts very different with regards to particular subject matters, so that their feedback would provide more specific direction. For example, one design was active recreation heavy and the other was passive recreation heavy. They chose the design that was passive recreation heavy and this helped me refine the argument for that design through the schematic design process.

After I presented, the discussion began. Gene, our community leader, suggested we take a vote on which they preferred, so that our discussion could be tailored to moving a particular design forward. They unanimously voted for the Brigham Boardwalk / Storm Water Park concept. The community members shared what they felt was working in the design and what they were still unconvinced about. As we discussed refinements, they picked the two aspects that they liked from the City Meets Nature concept.



It was an awesome learning experience and very gratifying to work with them in pushing the design forward. They continue to impress me with their dedication and their sophistication in the kind of space they'd like.