pocket parks in "the pearl"

Sometimes a city has the opportunity to do something creative with large tracts of land, turning the space of vacated properties into a prime asset.

Youngstown is building a mixed-used residential/commercial neighborhood adjacent to the univeristy and downtown in Smoky Hollow, but many design elements and construction have yet to be accomplished. What places can they emulate as the project moves forward?

Atlanta created the uninspiring Atlantic Station on the grounds of an old steel mill, a tacky collection of disneyland-esque buildings, a destination adjacent to the interstate north of Midtown with an "in and out, but not staying" existence.

Portland's emerging Pearl District, anchored by many LEED certified buildings and free wi-fi throughout, is a nice mix of old and new, livable and walkable designs of which Youngstown may learn from.

The rest of this post shows photos from three separate smaller "pocket" parks in the Pearl, possible role models for downtown youngstown, wick park, and the smoky hollow. The Pearl's wikipedia article has a good aerial photo of what the railroad yards used to look like.

The Pearl's Tanner Springs Park is located between the light rail lines on 10th and 11th avenues. The space is fascinating, in that this small space (less than an acre) retains an almost rural quality although it is located right in the heart of the neighborhood. Here we have some decorative stone patterns, with a water element flowing from it:

Further down the path, the manicured portion of the park decends into marshy, unmowed wetlands. Large steps from the sides of the park provide a place for people to read books and relax.


The path set away from street level then flows into small pond, filled with orange fish.


The floating path also follows this wonderful serpentine metal wall on the east boundary of the park.


Check out this up-close photo of this textured element:

Further south, Jamison Park, provides a more family-friendly atmosphere, heavily used by children and people walking their dogs. The high sculptures around the perimeter help to anchor the streetcar power lines.


The wonderful central element of this park is a fountain that has the effect of a tidal pool, with its waterfalls filling in and draining a bricked-in area for children to play in.


As the water fills in and empty, people relax and the place has the feeling of a clean urban beach.


Finally, tucked in between three buildings are these concrete columns, left exposed after a previous demolition and wrapped with art. I love how the rebar is sticking out of the top:




Lots to consider and learn as Youngstown goes about planning its park spaces in the future.

Perhaps the next City Parks Commissioner, whenever that position is filled, can lead the charge on similar types of projects in city parks.

In the meantime, it's up to the public to brainstorm and help push the city and stakeholders along to this level of quality for future design.

this is the new standard

Saturday morning, about 75 or so people arrived at Park Vista to discuss the future of Wick Park.

While other news stories and blogs have provided a recount of the day's events (see further below), this meeting was the beginning of a multistep process - a process to engage the public, united with other stakeholder organizations and the city of Youngstown, to make one pocket of the city a much better place.

The evolution of the project, to be chronicled on the website www.wickparkproject.com (purchased over the weekend, with content to come) will use information technology to further engage the public.


The Wick Park Revitalization Project is becoming another component in Youngstown's ongoing efforts with "open source community development".

Simply put, this is the new standard

No more evading the public for planning public spaces.
No more inept leaders of wayward departments.
No more closed door meetings.

This is the new standard of how future projects should progress.


By incorporating aspects of the polder model, Youngstown's methods of open source community development aim to bring more and more people into the discussion of what the civic space will become.


pictured above are the breakout sessions where individuals described what components they would like to see in the park in the future.

And looking around the room...





What will the final project look like?

Get involved, add your opinions to the mix, and find out.

Second public meeting to be announced in the weeks to come...

Defend Youngstown: 1st Meeting Complete

Valley24.com: Reinventing Wick Park

Vindicator: Wick Park workshop draws 80 participants

Tribune Chronicle: Wick Park Effort Begins

u mich city planning ideas now online

Over the summer, city planning graduate students from the University of Michigan came to Youngstown to participate in a design studio. For parts of three days, they met various stakeholders including university and business representatives, city government, and youngstown bloggers, among others.

Then they came back.

Four teams of students presented their ideas and concepts at the downtown convocation center, and recently these presentations have been put online.


You can access the content of the four presentations here. A warning though, the file is a 25 MB pdf because of all the pictures contained within.


Here is just a sample of their ideas, many of them easy to implement and some of them are complex in scale. I particularly liked the presentation that brought the water element into various parts of the downtown.





Please note: this project was a design studio for a university class. It is NOT final design ideas set in stone. Do not get angry if you do not like certain components, because they are at a very preliminary stage of planning and imagining.

However, if you like certain concepts of these plans, be loud about it. Share them with your neighbors and tell others what you think. Perhaps by being loud with your opinions, some of these ideas can become a reality.

And thanks to the students for coming to Youngstown and sharing your great ideas.

the little white paper that could

hello.

a little "white paper" was passed out at today's meeting at City Council Chambers at 3pm.

It was completed a few hours before the plans were officially released to the public today, and is stamped with a date and time of completion. Version 2.0 is the most recent and proper version. It can be accessed by clicking on the green button below:



Additionally, the button will appear on the right hand side of this blog for a while.

- - -

But the paper should now be read with a few caveats.

First, during today's meeting, it came up that not every single one of the mature trees near the sidwalks will be removed. However, all if not most of the mature trees in the medians will be removed.

Second, it was stated that in addition to parking, the medians need to be removed to access the deteriorating wires used for lighting connections. That point was not included in version 2.0 of the paper. However, one attendee mentioned that the wiring could possibly be deactivated and left in the ground with the medians, as an alternative electric source can be connected to power the lighting. Is this a possible solution to part of the problem?

Upcoming posts will be include links to media coverage, in additional to providing some suggestions for compromise and ways to ameliorate public involvement.

Videos were up at wytv.com and wfmj.com as of 9pm.

- - -

But even with those caveats, the story remains the same.

For the entirety of this project, especially since 2005, public input has rarely been sought and public disclosure has rarely been provided.

These criticisms of the process are independent of the final design.

- - -

And if you're reading this blog for the first time and don't have a clue what I'm speaking about, please read the report.

It's not a perfect document, but it gives an alright overview of the issue at hand - one which concerns many people who care about the future of downtown youngstown.

Public Planning Meeting will be the first of many

Tomorrow (Wednesday) kicks off an important step in the Youngstown 2010 Planning Process - The very first public planning meeting will be held at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center at Fellows Riverside Garden (7pm) to discuss ideas about what is currently being called the Garden District.


This neighborhood, the first of nearly 130 within Youngstown City limits to be planned, is bordered on 2 sides by Mill Creek Metroparks. It is also hugged by Calvary Cemetery to the west and Mahoning Avenue on the north.


Public meetings like these are priceless to the City Planning Department as it gives them an opportunity to hear directly from the residents of that area. Without that valuable input, it can be difficult to determine exactly what the best plan for an area is.

If you live in the area, if you don't live in the area, if you want to move to the area, or if you have ever passed through the area to get to Fellows, please try to contribute to this discussion. You can have a say in what happens here.

The format will be somewhat informal, with the Planning Department presenting several preliminary thoughts, ideas, and observations about the neighborhood. These rough ideas are meant to initiate discussions by the public about what may or may not work in this particular neighborhood. From there, the Planning Department will have some material to work with to generate new and improved plans, which will again be presented in a public forum at a later date.

Be there and be vocal.

- - -

In addition (and because it wouldn't be a Youngstown Planning Meeting if they didn't use Youngstown-based technology) participants will be using Turning Technologies' audience response system.

During the presentation, the public will have the ability to voice 'Yay' or 'Nay' the ideas with the touch of a button.

---

'Garden District' Public Planning Meeting

June 27, 2007 7pm

D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center

Fellows Riverside Garden

is the grass greener in glasgow?

Today's entry from Chris Varley's Tech Futures blog explores the writings of Joel Kotkin's The New Geography, which remarkably is currently piled with Manuel Castells' The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective and Lewis Wolpert's Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast on top of my computer monitor.

Within the post, he speculates on the rise and fall of cities as times and technology change, comparing Cleveland to other industrial powerhouses in the United Kingdom. Here is one exerpt:

"There is much in particular we can learn from Glasgow, which seems to be about 10-20 years ahead of us on the curve. I don’t mean by that statement that they are better than we are, or even that they got their “act” together faster or better than we have. Time takes its toll and moves at its own pace in different places during different periods."

To explore that idea from an urban planning perspective, here are a few pictures of Glasgow from April of last year.

What lessons can we learn?

- - -

Outside the Gallery of Modern Art sits this statue of the Duke of Wellington. For some reason, people started placing a traffic cone on top of the statue, which was promptly removed. After a while of finding more and more traffic cones on top of the statue, authorities just decided to leave it up there.

And now he has a scarf too.


Here is a sculpture right next to the public bus station:


My new theory about predicting the "cities of the future" is that people will be attracted to cities where the central bus station does not make you feel like you have been dropped off in the middle of nowhere, or worse, a war zone. I had to switch greyhounds in Akron once, a good distance from the downtown. (in other news, due to funding cutbacks, Youngstown's bus system is losing its night service, its service to sister city Warren, and the downtown trolley. I wonder how many people will have to quit their jobs due to this predicament)

lesson one : art can be whimsical, even if it is functional

- - -

As a stranger in a strange land, I needed to find my way around the city.

Here's a map kiosk on John Street, with all the color-coded points of interest in downtown Glasgow:



Looking further down John Street (aptly named) . . .


lesson two : proper signage expands our connectivity to downtown

- - -

Not looking for heroin but instead for a place to nap, I strolled into the Glasgow Necropolis.


And inside, sprawled around the greenspace, was an assortment of figures:




and lesson three : greenspace adjacent to downtown, even when filled with dead people, is a welcome addition

our incubator: designing & thinking outside the box

An insightful interview with Jim Cossler, the Chief Evangelist of the Youngstown Business Incubator, was posted a few hours ago on the Defend Youngstown blog. You can read the entire interview here. A few of the most interesting highlights are included below, supplemented with some visuals of the buildings involved:

"YBI is currently at 105% capacity, because we have actually had to give up some of our conference space to accommodate the phenomenal growth of our firms. We have even been forced to use our entire basement here. The new center, which is being built immediately adjacent to our facility, will allow us to move some of our most successful firms out into it, freeing some space for a healthy list of startup ventures that have been eager to move in and join us."

"Beyond this fully funded project, we have another $2.75 million in secured funds for further development within the block. At this moment, I believe that we will be directing those dollars toward the renovation of the Semple Building, which sits between the new Center site and Home Savings & Loan. The Semple project can be completed by mid to late 2008, and will house YBI graduates and other tech companies that we might attract to Youngstown."


"Further down the road, our sights our set on renovating the Wells Building and adding it to our campus. There is no time frame set for this project, as we have not yet secured the entire amount of funding necessary for it. Doing so will require very active and aggressive work from our entire local legislative delegation."



Check out the crown on this building. Hopefully the terra cotta will be saved and cleaned in the future.

We lost a beautiful facade during the (see below) for the Youngstown Technology Center - the first expansion project Cossler mentions for the emerging Youngstown Technopole - which will now open in March 2008 instead of December 2007 because the review committee rejected the initial six proposals. The second attempt at the bidding will begin soon.


As we say a final goodbye to pieces of our history, piece by piece, who knows if there will be more beauty in what follows in its place?

- - -

What next, then?

Assuming all of these ideas come to fruition (the Semple & the Wells renovations) what should be the next step in the distant, but rapidly approaching future?

- - -

One problem the incubator has right now is its connectivity to the university.

Not many computer science undergrads are familiar with what's occuring downtown. In fact, when does entrepreneurism ever get thrown into the faces of the students?

Perhaps that future step needs to be even closer in proximity to the students, by incorporaing a new building directly on campus - creating a contant message to everyone at the university that innovation and entrepreneurism happens in Youngstown.

I can see it right now, at the corner of Rayen and Wick, right where the ugly parking lot sits across from the Main Library and south of the current location of the business school.

- - -

Recently a design competition was held to build the deuxième Centre Georges-Pompidou in the city of Metz, France. You can see the winning entry here, with its sweeping views of the beautiful cathedral in Metz.


It's my favorite church in Europe - and a great place to sleep under if you miss the 3am bus back to your apartment (another story).


One of the losing designs however, was created by the architect Dominique Perrault. It looks like an open box.

So what about incorporating this open-box design into a building that is supposed to represent out-of-the-box thinking?



Let's borrow this design for a moment and have some fun with envisioning what can be inside:

I can imagine four stories within this new building.

1st floor - space for companies accepted into the incubator network.

2nd floor - space for the ramped up and highly improved computer science department at the university, including office space for professors, research faculty, and graduate students.

3rd floor - space for enterprenurial classrooms. Each classroom will contain the presentation and multimedia equipment necessary to hold a new series of classes - classes required for every business student, engineering student, industrial artist student, and computer science student at the university. Classes that mix all of these majors into teams competing or working on select projects with applications in industry.

4th floor - that's for the readers of this blog to answer.

In the comments section, please contribute to what else you believe this building needs . . .

now that the bids are in, a few considerations

Last week, the Business Journal reported that six companies submitted bids to build the Youngstown Technology Center downtown. The building, which is slated to open by December 2007 will house companies that are looking for room to expand from the current solitary Youngstown Business Incubator building. As this second building is built, the renovation of buildings three and four for the complex is anticipated to begin.

The bids received ranged in cost from...
$4,549,000
$4,800,000
$5,013,000
$5,135,911
$5,962,145
$6,198,500

Indicating there is a gap of about $1.5 million between the highest and lowest bid.

Let's hope the final choice incorporates not just the lowest cost, but also good design.

- - -

Sure, cost is important. In fact, it's very important.

But looks are important as well.

I try to host architects and city planners in downtown youngstown on a fairly regular basis.

To borrow a line from the Princess Bride, when they see the design of the Childrens' Services Building, they claim: "Dear God, what is that thing?"


Maybe a below the belt comment, but really...a lot could have been done to make that building a little more inviting.

People don't necessary dislike all aspects of the entire building (the brick is kinda nice) , but most criticism is centered on the windowless ground floor and the sheer feeling of nothingness as one walks from the DeYor center to Hazel Street. It hard to believe that building is now a fixture on our main street for what will probably be at least 50 years.

And that's what I would like to stress upon those making the decision, if they ever read this blog, or if their buddies do: that the Technology Center will probably be on our main street for a long time.

A real long time.

Maybe the extra cost associated with a nicer building if it makes the site more attractive, that is actually welcoming to pedestrians and tourists, is money well spent.

UPDATE:

well, coming on the heels of this blog entry, the news broke that the CIC rejected all 6 of the bids.

According to the Business Journal, "The technology center is funded by a $2.5 million grant through the state of Ohio Board of Regents, a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s economic development administration, $248,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and $750,000 already spent on demolition and remediation from the states Clean Ohio Fund." These values add up to about $5.5 million dollars.

Alternatively, the Youngstown Vindicator had the amount come to $5.9 million in state and federal funding.

So when you figure in the cost of demolition ($768,500) between $4,729,500 and $5,131,500 seems to be remaining.

The executive committee of the Youngstown CIC, rejected the proposals Monday because they “omitted required characteristics and/or were in excess of the amount available for construction.”

wow. Maybe we'll be getting a big box store on Federal Street now.

And the second round of bidding may be much more interesting now that all of the other initial bids are known.

I guess we should just hope that some respectable design emerges from all this. Maybe the city can throw in a few bucks from their pool of money for facade grants. Or maybe another 200K is floating around out there.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

shrinking cities symposium: today and tomorrow in SF

Here's a question: what do Youngstown, Paris, and Leipzig have in common?




Well, according a news story from the San Francisco Chronicle that trickled into my inbox ealier this week, these three regions are what's being labeled as a "shrinking city" by academics and practitioners.

In the Youngstown case, as in many American cities, the urban core is left hurting while industry and residential development quickly escape to the suburbs, creating a doughnut of wealth.

In the Paris case, as in many European cities, the inverse happens as rings of poverty and crime surround the relatively affluent center.

And in the Eastern Germany case, the pattern of deindustrialization and urban flight resembles a checkboard as its structure.

These typologies, and other issues, will be discussed on February 8th and 9th at the University of California Berkeley. There, the newly-formed Center for Global Metropolitan Studies within the academically-recognized Institute for Urban and Regional Development will be hosting a symposium named "The Future of Shrinking Cities".

Click here to see their two-day agenda.

- - -

More than 20 scholars from a dozen countries will be presenting at the symposium (which is free and open to the public in case anyone wants to make a quick roadtrip).

Presenting some research about Youngstown will be the organizer of the event, Professor Karina Pallagst (Ph.D. City and Regional Planning - University of Kaiserslautern) in her paper, "The End of the Growth Machine."

(side note: Kaiserslautern is a cool place - I did a blog about this part of Germany and its similarities to Youngstown as we were there for the USA World Cup matches some months ago.)

All of the abstracts of the speakers at the symposium can be seen here.

- - -

It's always interesting to see how academics are looking at Youngstown. From Sean Safford's (now at University of Chicago) work on social network theory contributions to economic development, to some of the speakers at the San Francisco event, our city is a unit of analysis - sometimes for better or for worse reasons.

In this case, Youngstown is being recognized as a global leader in sustainable development strategies, and many of today's researchers will be looking at us in the future to see how our strategy paid off.

And as the story concludes, some places are being noticed by the world.

"Examples of shrinking cities fighting back include Youngstown; Dresden, Germany; and South Korea's Taeback Mountain region."



Perhaps something we can stand on a pole and be proud of!

The Gateway District

Story 1: Several weeks ago, the Market Street/Midlothian intersection was brought up as a potential site for improvement during a community design session in Boardman township. The following graphic identifies the amount of open space that occurs at this vital gateway between both the city and the township. The intersection proper is currently home to two vacant lots, a partially vacant bank that is 'For Lease' and Sami's Quick Stop. The northwest corner will soon be anchored by a new library to serve the area.



Story 2: Market Street is an important corrider that runs through both the City and the Township and both have identified this stretch as vital to their communities' future success.

Story 3: Mayor Williams has expressed interest in using Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDD) "as a way to promote regional, economic cooperation." He has recently appeared on the David Betras Show more than once discussing and debating this economic strategy and its ability to be used effectively in our city. JEDD's are a North East Ohio invention (by current mayor of Akron, Don Plusquellic) that allow a city to receive a portion of the taxes from the development on township property, without the threat of annexation. The result is a mutually agreeable development.



Conclusion: Now, like some Guy Ritchie movie, wouldn't it be great if all three of these story lines came crashing together to create one harmonious and enlightening ending? I see this intersection as having great potential for some sort of development. Do you agree? Maybe there is a different way to create a welcoming gateway into the city that is anchored by a brand new library.

Thoughts?

youngstown in nytimes magazine: an update

more and more blog writings just keep on popping up!

is a particularly interesting comment from one of the readers of Pittsblog:

Robert Bruegmann in his book "Sprawl" briefly discusses the growing suburban development around Youngstown, and notes that anti-sprawl zealots (like me, I suppose) point to these communities as evidence of all that is wrong with current development trends. Why are developers throwing up all these subdivisions when you the population of Youngstown proper keeps plummeting? The answer to Bruegmann is that the presence of these communities is the only thing that keeps the remaining middle and upper-middle class families from fleeing the metro area; and eventually, it is these people who are most likely to revitalize the city itself. It's definitely a different take on the relationships of suburbs to cities than many Pittsburgh residents maintain.


Photo courtesy of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society from Metropolis Magazine.

here is a review of blogs out there that reference the nytimes story:

"CEOs for Cities" - Chicago, IL
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"Blogging Ohio" - various cities in Ohio
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"BLDG BLOG" - Los Angeles, California
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"Antirust" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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"Space, Place, and Identity: Brand Avenue"
- - link - -

"Resilience Science" - Montréal, Quebec
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"Pittsblog: Learning from Youngstown" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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"Blueprint for New Orleans" - Lafayette, Louisiana
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"Reurbanize Buffalo" - Buffalo, New York
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"Downsizing Pittsburgh" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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I'll add more to this post as they come up . . .

youngstown in today's nytimes sunday magazine

Hi readers,

As it is many people's custom to read this blog with their cup of coffee and pancakes religiously every sunday morning, maybe this weekend you'll want to do something a little different, and purchase a copy of sunday's new york times.

You see, every December the New York Times Magazine looks back over the year through the "mountain range" of intellectual concepts and ideas, and presents some of them to the world.


This year's version has this article about "Creative Shrinkage" and its subject is Youngstown and the 2010 plan.

some clips from the story:

"Few communities of 80,000 boast a symphony orchestra, two respected art museums, a university, a generously laid-out downtown and an urban park larger than Central Park. "

"[Jay] Williams’s strategy calls for razing derelict buildings, eventually cutting off the sewage and electric services to fully abandoned tracts of the city and transforming vacant lots into pocket parks."

"The city has also placed a moratorium on the (often haphazard) construction of new dwellings financed by low-income-housing tax credits and encouraged the rehabilitation of existing homes."

"Instead of trying to recapture its industrial past, Youngstown hopes to capitalize on its high vacancy rates and underused public spaces; it could become a culturally rich bedroom community serving Cleveland and Pittsburgh"

"Youngstown’s experiment has not gone unnoticed. Williams’s office has already fielded calls from officials in a few of the many American metropolitan areas."

- - -

As indicated in the blog entry before this one, there are many afforable houses to purchase in the city of superior craftsmanship and design. If you are looking to downsize from your house in the suburbs, or looking to invest in a quality housing stock, maybe a house in Youngstown is a great concept.

Our city is moving in the right direction, and we would like to have good people who enjoy good living to be our neighbors.

Care to join us?

Why West Federal Street Shouldn’t Look Like East Federal Street

While the new Federal Plaza has certainly been well received, the removal of the West Federal Street median (Vindy article here) for the purpose of additional parking seems unwarranted. While there has been a marked increase in downtown activity as of late, I have yet to notice a shortage of parking. Do we really need the extra spots on the street? Is there a way to satisfy any additional parking needs with a deck that serves the west end of town? The things that have me concerned about the total removal are:

1) The disruption that will be caused to new businesses on West Federal.


At this tender moment in Youngstown’s re-emergence, when every single event held in downtown contributes to its renaissance, the severe disruption to traffic and to the walkability of Federal Street during the long construction process threatens to drive people away. It offers them a reason to avoid downtown.

2) Variety is the spice of life.


To make West Federal look like East Federal (as depicted above in this doctored photo) is to take away a big part of its character. “But West Federal didn’t originally have a median,” you say? True, the boulevard is not a part of our own historic architectural language, but it is there now, and, compared to its cousin “Federal Plaza (circa 1970’s)” it is a sensitive addition. Besides, having different features and design styles throughout a city is a way of marketing to diverse groups and thereby creating a lively street. Which brings me to…

3) The median offers a way to manage the space.

The best explanation for this can be found in “How to Turn a Place Around” by Project for Public Spaces, Inc. The following pictures and text were borrowed from that book:


A main street is not a highway. One should not fear crossing the street so much that the activity needs to occur in groups.


Crossing the street should be an easy comfortable activity. Even if you have to wait.

4) The median has trees

And I mean mature, well-established ones, not just little saplings. I will spare everyone the tree lecture, but be aware of the difference between full grown trees and new plantings from a visual and physical characteristic standpoint. A sapling won't shade your car when you are parked next to it on a 90 degree day.


While there are many more nit-picky arguments for why the median should or shouldn’t stay, these four have a tremendous impact on the urban design of the street and, in turn, its success or failure. Their implications should be considered very carefully before moving forward.

P.S. - Other improvements associated with this project (new curbs, lighting, and paving) are certainly welcome.

drinking in nürnberg

The city of Nürnberg was a big suprise to me. Besides being the place where those crazy Nazis held their enormous rallies, today's Nuremberg [the name in English] is a combination of historical medieval walls and buildings mixed with modern design, home to the most outstanding collection of art in Germany, the birthplace of the pocketwatch, and home to the best pierogie I have ever eaten on this side of the Warsaw Pact states.

And it was a great place to have a drink.

You'll see what I mean when you see the design of their drinking fountains they have all over the place.



Just push the button at the base, and water flows out. A great combination of form and function. Here is my foot in action:


The fountains were also a source of amusement and debauchery when walking around town at 3:30 in the morning. They provided some must-needed ammunition to attack friends from England, Australia, and Scotland . . .


And Nürnberg was the city with the largest number of wig shops I have ever seen.


man, this place has everything.

strolling through stuttgart - part II

The next day after a night out at Winter Fest Summer Fest, I made it over to the new Mercedes-Benz-Daimler-Chrysler Museum in Stuttgart.

Really a stunning building. It just opened in May of this year.



Upon entry, you take these elevators to the top of the building. After seeing a stuffed horse and the world's first automobile, you slowly descend around the perimeter of the building seeing the history of the company and its place in German and world history.


Along the way, you have a handset which tells stories, highlights inventions, and provides historical information. I am not really a big car nut, but I spent 5 hours there.


And then, as all modern museums do, the end of the tour dumps you out into the gift shop.

But this gift shop was nuts.

In addition to the Mercedes-Benz polo shirts and blingish keychains, there were four floors of Mercedes cars that one can sit in, look over, and begin leasing. Cars were available to drive off the lot.



crazy. Maybe we should build a Avanti Museum.

strolling through stuttgart - part I

Also last week I made a visit to Stuttgart, Germany's 6th largest city. There are 600,000 in the city and about 3 million in the metro area.

Stuttgart is home to the headquarters of Daimler-Chrysler, Porsche, and Bosch. The few days I stayed there, they were in the middle of the summer festival in what is left (not much actually) of the historical part of their downtown. It was odd because during the "summer festival" temperatures did not go above 50 degrees. It was mid August and everyone was walking around in ski jackets and scarves. Here is a photo of the central fountain with the opera illuminated in the background:


Small candles surrounded by multi-colored paper lit all the paths near this square. It looked great. Here is a closeup of these candles . . . a nice, non-expensive way to add color to the environment at night:


As the music played at the various stages in this area, the buildings changed color as well. Here is a quick movie of the what the place looked like.



Just around the corner is a new art museum in the downtown. I love the architecture. Maybe the new building for the Williamson School of Business at YSU can incorporate parts of this building for its design. The new structure can really have that "beacon on a hill" look.


I really like how the stairs are situated around the building. The galleries are furthest in, and like a shell, the stairs are further out right next to the glass exterior.



And in the cafe at the southern entrance, there was a great piece of morphing art. Cycles of persian rugs and turkish carpets were created over and over again as hipsters listened to a dj playing drum and bass in the background. very cool.

interactive art in karlsruhe

Last week I made a stop in Karlsrhue to visit some colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe Germany. Karlsruhe is the center of a metro area about the same size as that of Youngstown's.

For a city of Karlrhue's size, it seems to have a remarkable about of arts and cultural institutions. One is the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Center for Art and Media Technology) and I had the chance to visit. Here is a photo of the outside of the building:


Three very large floors were dedicated to interactive art. There was even art in the men's bathroom.


One of the coolest pieces I saw was a screen projecting bubbles onto a wall. As a person made a swipe at the bubbles, the bubbles made noises as they bumped off your silhouette. Check out this clip:



Karlsruhe has a large chateau/castle in the middle of the city and many of the main streets emminate from this building. Kinda like the Capitol in Washington DC.


In the stone street in front of this building, they did some neat design. During the day, all of these stones look the same. But at night, certain stones light up and illuminate the ground. I'm still not sure how they did this, but it was really cool.


And one last picture is dedicated to this advertisement in the window of a store. I'm not sure what they were selling (it wasn't toilets) but it certainly caught my eye.

new floral display in metz

About four months ago, I wrote an entry describing how some cities in Europe add floral displays to cover their open plain spaces during the summer months. This week, I returned to the city of Metz in France to further investigate exactly how these displays were constructed. (click here to read the original post)

This year the city of Metz decorated the space in front of their main train station with a mix of flowers, grass, stones, and sculpture:


This year's design celebrates the arrival of the high-speed TGV train to this part of Eastern France, cutting the travel time to Paris from 3 hours to 1.5 hours.


This display really hightens the beauty of the surrounding buildings.


During the rest of the year, this space is a completely flat surface. When starting construction, the designers place what looks to be a series of beams which are 3 to 4 inches in depth around the perimeter of the planned area.


This bracketing allows for a series of sprinklers and pipes for watering to be placed, as well as rich planting soil to be contained within the planned space.


The design is even more remarkable from the air. On the observation platform, one can see the swirls and curves of color below.


Buses operate right next to the displays, as they shuttle passengers throughout the city.


People are given enough space to walk between the arrangements.


So can something like this be designed and constructed in the central square along Federal Street next our historical structures? Every year, a new design can be utilized. After a few years, professional photographers would have amassed enough photos of this to create images to be sold on posters and postcards.

Should an idea like this become a reality in our downtown?

master plan for the downtown

"everything that you do should be predicated on the fundamental premise that Youngstown is a city with a future."

So said Allan Mallach of the National Housing Institute when he spoke at the the first installment of the Youngstown 2010 - Wick Neighbors Neighborhood Reinvestment Series.

Mr. Mallach presented a number of interesting ideas about how to bring investment to city neighborhoods. One of our neighborhoods is the downtown.

Consider the statement in yesterday's Vindicator and the future of the downtown neighborhood:

"The city is seeking a CIC resolution in support of
allowing the Youngstown Municipal Court to have first option on any development at the former Masters building complex on West Federal Street."

This story made me think of the benefits and drawbacks of placing yet another government structure on Youngstown's main street. I have made no secret in the past of my opinion that the Children Services Building on Federal Street is a poorly designed structure because of its brick wall with no entry or function that runs along the entire front of that building.

The front of the building effectively makes that segment of Federal Street a dead zone, closed to future commerce and accessibility for the next thirty years.

And while the New Court of Appeals on the the other side of the street in a nice building and it replaces some abandoned structures, it's a government building as well. Government buildings, like the possible future Youngstown Municipal Court at the Masters site, will be visited regardless of location in the downtown because people need their services.

So is now the time that we begin to save the space along Youngstown's main street for private sector investment, mixed-use housing with retail in the ground floor, or other structures that are more friendly to foot traffic?

Or perhaps a compromise of function can be utilized: we can have retail and restaurant space facing Federal Street, and the court complex be connected to this, facing another street front. There seems to be a lot of space in that recently demolished city block.

Maybe it is time that we develop a master plan for the downtown.

By drawing together business owners, downtown workers, city residents, urban planners, landscape architects, and other stakeholders to create a plan of action, similar to the Youngstown 2010 process, that can be used to guide the future land use downtown.

my question for each of you is:

What do you want Downtown Youngstown to look like in ten years?

Can a downtown master plan help us to reach that goal?

new life for youngstown’s crab creek

A fascinating new set of ideas about urban design in Youngstown appeared this week on a special website of Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. Students from the architecture faculty at the Dresden Technical University in Germany produced some truly stunning concepts for the possible future of design in the city.

Their work encompassed two geographical areas in the city: the Crab Creek river basin and the land adjacent to the convention center downtown.

The Crab Creek runs south from Trumbull County separating the north and east sides of the city, eventually merging with the Mahoning River near the downtown. Miles of industrial property runs along banks of the Crab Creek, which currently has no public access. Their plan includes opening the river to the public again by incorporating features such as pedestrian and bike trails, an “industrial garden”, and an “adventure site” for younger children. You can see their entire presentation here.


I really like the industrial garden idea. It includes illuminating old loading hoppers along the river as a central focal point, incorporating old railroad ties for benches and landscaping, and reusing older buildings for restrooms and meeting and exhibition spaces.

The second presentation (found here) includes ideas for what to do with the land sandwiched between the Market Street Bridge and the South Avenue Bridge near the convocation center. It included building a ramped walkway to the river above the railroad tracks and an amphitheater among others.


One additional presentation on the website gives an overview of the reuse of industrial property in the Emscher Area of the Ruhr Valley. Remember my World Cup blog last week about the area around Essen feeling like Youngstown? – well this presentation backs up that idea. It includes examples of using creative lighting, recreational areas, residential developments, and commercial successes to enhance existing industrial areas.


They close with these important conclusions:

- derelict industrial areas have value
- protect existing structures
- new uses are essential
- new implementation methods are needed
- establish a financial framework before beginning
- place emphasis on long range solutions

So can these concepts on paper become reality?