The Rochester Regional Community Design Center Needs YOUR support!
The RRCDC is Rochester's only citizen-driven, professionally directed non-profiit organization committed to revitalizing our region by advocating design excellence for our built environment.
The RRCDC, along with volunteer design professionals, will help you organize, plan, and facilitate your community design charrette. The RRCDC offers charrette techniques that emulate the excellence of nationally recognized models. We offer the Design Center Studio Space for planning and organizing meetings. We will produce drawings and reports to help communities bring their visions for their built environment to reality.
Town of Brighton Monroe Avenue Corridor Community Design Charrette - July 2010
On Saturday, June 5, 2010, the Town of Brighton hosted the Brighton/Monroe Corridor Community Design Charrette to engage stakeholders and gather ideas that might serve as a basis for the creation of a Community Based Vision Plan. The event attracted over 70 residents and stakeholders, and over 30 local design professionals who served as facilitators. The charrette material, provided on the following pages, will be analyzed, synthesized, and incorporated into a final Vision Plan that will be produced by the RRCDC with direction from the Brighton Steering Committee during the post-charrette process.
This Preliminary Report contains general background about the project, including descriptions of the history and physical aspects of the Brighton Monroe Avenue Corridor, the charrette planning process and the charrette event. It also contains materials produced at the charrette event, including complete, typed transcriptions of the charrette notes and samples of the charrette drawings. The transcriptions and drawings are the direct output of the community members at the charrette and have not been altered except for formatting to fit these pages.
Click here to view the Town of Brighton Charrette page.
Click here to view Images of the Charrette day.
Rochester, NY "A Vision for the Future", a Community-Based Vision Plan for Downtown Rochester - May 2008
In January 2007, the RRCDC coordinated and facilitated a three-day professional design charrette for Center City Rochester which was held at Midtown Plaza in downtown Rochester. The charrette built on previous work including the 2000 Rochester Downtown Design Charrette, the 2004 Center City Master plan, and work done by the Urban Land Institute in 2005. The purpose was: 1) to generate ideas for the development of strategic sites in 5 geographic focus areas in the downtown, 2) to identify guiding principles as a design approach to revitalization of the built environment in the downtown, 3) to create a Center City Vision Plan to help guide future projects in the downtown, 4) to create an environment for economic rejuvenation and sustainable development in the downtown. Partners and participants included the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation (RDDC); AIA Rochester Chapter; representative from the city and county; 138 local design professionals; resource teams made up of community leaders and stakeholders; and citizens who were invited to share their ideas. During the course of the year following, five design teams and approximately 55 design professionals, worked to refine plans and design schemes for sites in their focus areas. The RRCDC team worked on the overall issues related to items like circulation, connectivity, public realm improvements and green space and assembled this report document, "Rochester, NY, A Vision for the Future." It is intended that the report and drawings produced serve as a basis for and are integrated into a strategic plan to be taken forward.
Download PDF (48MB - low resolution - supplements and foldouts available in printed version only)
Visit here for additional information.
Susan B Anthony Neighborhood Community Vision Plan - October 2008
A community-based Vision Plan for the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood was prepared by the RRCDC, in collaboration with the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Steering Committee, in order to provide written and visual urban design plans that reflect the goals and ideas of community members for revitalization of their neighborhood, the commercial district and the underdeveloped and underutilized areas surrounding the district. This Vision Plan incorporates ideas suggested by approximately 60 community members who attended the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Community Design Charrette, held on June 9, 2007, and expresses these ideas as elements of good design and planning for healthy viable communities. The process of creating the plan began in 2006 when the neighborhood association began working toward the charrette with the RRCDC. Post-Charrette work to create a Vision Plan began in the spring of2008 and proceeded through the fall. The Vision Plan features overlays on base plans, each including recommendations for design and development strategies for areas within the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Charrette area. The Vision Plan also includes detailed drawings which show how the implemented scheme would look and feel from a userâs perspective. The primary recommendations in the plan are based on guiding design concepts which were expressed as important by community members at the charrette
Download PDF (7.4MB)Marketview Heights/ North Union Street Corridor Community Vision Plan - July 2008
IIn collaboration with the Marketview Heights Steering Committee, comprised of residents from the Marketview Heights neighborhood, Rural Opportunities, Inc., and Housing Opportunities, Inc., the Rochester Regional Community Design Center (RRCDC) prepared this community-based vision plan for the North Union Street Corridor from East Main Street to Central Park. The document serves to provide a written and visual urban design vision reflecting the goals and ideas of community members for revitalization of their neighborhood and the corridor.
This report incorporates ideas suggested by nearly 40 residents and stakeholders at the Marketview Heights Mini-Charrette held at Dr. Freddie Thomas Learning Center in October 2007. The document expresses these ideas as elements of good design and planning to create a healthy, viable community, and as inspiration for the corridor’s future development. The mini-charrette was proposed as the first phase of implementing the Marketview Heights Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy which was completed in February 2006. The formal planning process for the mimi-charrette event began in April 2007 and involved a steering committee comprised of diverse neighborhood stakeholders from the Marketview Heights Collective Action Project. Following the mini-charrette, the process of creating a vision for the North Union Street Corridor was carried out during late 2007 and early 2008.
The North Union Street Corridor Vision contains maps which include design and development recommendations for four nodes in the corridor between East Main Street and Central Park. Ganeral design concepts expressed as important by community members at the mini-charrette are reflected in these maps. These include: 1) develop short-term, immediately achievable projects. 2) Improve pedestrian realm experience. 3) Create a unifying identity for the corridor. 4) Capitalize on vacant lots.
These concepts were instrumental in developing the vision and will serve as a guide for the community as they work to create positive change throughout the corridor.
Download PDF (20MB)