Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good makes U.S. debut at the Chicago Cultural Center
May 24 to September 1, 2013Popuphood plans to join the Chicago exhibition with a special workshop in July but we wish we were in Chicago to see the grand opening of the Venice Biennale's US Pavilion's first exhibition on its united states tour! Below is the press release with details of the stateside exhibition of this caliber. Soon the Chicago programming will be updated here: programming calendar.If you missed Venice here is a fantastic gallery here of the exhibition at the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. We hope to see you in Chicago in July! "American urbanism always seems to circle back to Chicago: grid, fire, skyscraper, Burnham, rivers reversed, White City, sociology, Jane Addams, the Daleys, the projects, community organizing, urban renewal, greening,”
-Michael Sorkin, New York architect, president of the Institute for Urban Design, and founder of Terreform.
“Our ambition has always been to travel Spontaneous Interventions, continually updating the exhibition contents to include more recent developments in the tactical urbanism movement, and using the show to spotlight local urban issues and activities.” –Curator Cathy Lang Ho
Check out the great write up our friends at Monocle did of the Venice experience! http://www.monocle.com/film/design/13th-venice-architecture-biennale-part-one/
http://www.monocle.com/film/Design/13th-venice-architecture-biennale-part-two/
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2013
Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good
makes U.S. debut at Chicago Cultural Center, May 24 to September 1, 2013
(New York, NY) — The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special
Events (DCASE) is bringing Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the
Common Good to Chicago for its first U.S. appearance. The exhibition—the official
U.S. presentation at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice
Biennale (2012)—will be installed in the ground-floor Michigan Avenue Galleries of the
Chicago Cultural Center from Memorial Day (May 24) to Labor Day (September 1).
Spontaneous Interventions, organized by Cathy Lang Ho on behalf of the New York
nonprofit Institute for Urban Design, is devoted to the growing movement of
architects, designers, artists, and everyday citizens acting on their own initiative to
bring improvements to the urban realm, creating new opportunities and amenities for
the public. The exhibition received over 178,000 visitors in Venice, and earned a
Special Mention from the Golden Lion jury, the first time the United States has been
honored in the history of the Venice Architecture Biennale.
“We’re so pleased that Chicago is the first destination for this thought-provoking
display as the City has always been at the forefront of architecture and design,” said
DCASE Commissioner Michelle T. Boone.
The Chicago installation will recreate the lively exhibition design of pull-down banners,
created by Brooklyn design studio Freecell and Berkeley-based communication
design firm M-A-D. The contents of the exhibition have been updated to include more
recent and more local projects. Among the 84 projects that will be presented, more
than a dozen are from Chicago, including several that also appeared in Venice.
"American urbanism always seems to circle back to Chicago: grid, fire, skyscraper,
Burnham, rivers reversed, White City, sociology, Jane Addams, the Daleys, the
projects, community organizing, urban renewal, greening,” said Michael Sorkin, New
York architect, president of the Institute for Urban Design, and founder of Terreform. “We
are honored to bring a view of a new, democratic design movement that is growing
across the country but with deep roots in America’s most essential city."
In conjunction with the exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, Spontaneous
Interventions will include a pop-up “outdoor living room” in Millennium Park, designed by
Chicago-based MAS Studio, led by architect Iker Gil. The space will serve as an outpost
for the exhibition and a venue for exhibition-related programs, including talks, panels,
tours, workshops and more. The space will feature a colorful canopy and seating made of
salvaged lumber by local artist/woodworker John Preus of Dilettante Studios.
“Our goal is to use the exhibition as a framework for understanding a larger movement, in
which citizens all over the world are devising and implementing clever, low-barrier urban
interventions to make their cities more inclusive, sustainable, pleasurable, and safer,” said
Cathy Lang Ho, a New York–based design journalist and curator. “For this reason, we
have organized a rich roster of programs that will place the trend of tactical urbanism in
the context local urban issues and citizen action.” Program director is Samantha Topol, a
Chicago editor and writer.
2
All summer long, programs will take place at the Cultural Center, in the pop-up pavilion in
Millennium Park, and at various offsite locations. Many of the programs are organized in
partnership with Chicago-based designers, nonprofits, community organizations, and city
agencies. A calendar of events will be posted to www.spontaneousinterventions.org in May.
Artists and organizations featured in the exhibition:
Candy Chang, Change Administration (Aurash Khawarzad), Center for Urban Pedagogy,
COMMONstudio, CROP, Design 99, DSGN AGNC (Quilian Riano), Alexander
Eisenschmidt with Cheng+Snyder, envelope a+d (Douglas Burnham), Experimental
Station, Theaster Gates, Fritz Haeg, Hester Street Collaborative, LA Green Grounds,
Latent Design, Public Media Institute (Ed Marzewski), Moving Design (Ric Valicenti and
John Pobojewski), Neighborland, OpenPlans, Rockwell Group, Stamen, Street Plans
Collaborative (Mike Lydon), Team Better Block, Jordan Seiler, WORKac, and many others.
About the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE):
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) is dedicated to enriching
Chicago’s artistic vitality and cultural vibrancy. This includes fostering the development of
Chicago’s non-profit arts sector, independent working artists and for-profit arts businesses;
providing a framework to guide the City’s future cultural and economic growth, via the 2012
Chicago Cultural Plan; marketing the City’s cultural assets to a worldwide audience; and
presenting high-quality, free and affordable cultural programs for residents and visitors.
About the Institute for Urban Design
Since 1979, the New York–based Institute for Urban Design has served as a central
platform for debate among architects, planners, policy-makers, developers, academics,
journalists, and urbanists. The Institute, directed by Anne Guiney, operates as a think tank
and advocacy group, drawing on the collected experience and knowledge of its large
fellowship to bring important issues into wider public debate through lectures, events, and
publications.
Sponsors
The organizers of Spontaneous Interventions are grateful for the sponsorship of Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill (engineering), Better Life Technology/BLT G-Floor (graphic floor), Applied
Image (environmental graphics), Avery Dennison (adhesive materials), Coloredge (banner
printing), Fenner Drives (pulleys), and Gladding Braided Products (ropes).
For more information, please visit cityofchicago.org/dcase or spontaneousinterventions.org.
# # #
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Samantha Topol, info@spontaneousinterventions.org. Email inquiries only, please.
A free interactive workshop on saturday for the whole family to explore memory and imagination while building a physical model in the heart of Oakland’s civic life on the green lawn in front of City Hall. The first in our Civic Brown Bag panel Series with a special presentation on Latino Urbanism by James Rojas, and panelists Kiran Jain and Jamie Parks moderated by Sarah Filley, Cofounder of Popuphood. FB inviteJames Rojas holds an MA in City Planning and an MS in Architecture Studies from MIT. He works as a city and transportation planner, and is the founder of the Latino Urban Forum, a non-profit dedicated to increasing awareness of planning and design issues facing low-income Latinos. He has written and lectured extensively about how culture and immigration are transforming the American front yard and landscape. PLACE IT! is a design-based urban planning initiative... that uses model-building workshops and on-site interactive models to help engage the public in the planning and design process. Innovation: I met James as fifteen urban innovators from cities across the country convened in Philadelphia for “Crafting Corridors: Reinventing the Urban Street”, an afternoon salon hosted by Next City and sponsored by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. His presentation on latino urbanism contained a brilliant analysis of culture, memory, and street-scaping that rang true as a longtime resident of one of the most diverse cities in the country. Oakland. We talked I immediately invited him to kick off our ongoing investigation of our new location in the Plaza.
It seemed fitting to begin the dialogue at the onset of National Public Works Week and invite Jamie Parks, Senior Transportation Planner, City of Oakland, California and Chair of the TRB Bicycle Research Sub-Committee.
Kiran Jain, will also join in us in the conversation to round out our conversation and frame the workshop in terms of both policy and possibility. Kiran Jain is the Senior Deputy City Attorney for real estate, land use and urban development in the Oakland City Attorney's Office. In 2010, she was appointed to the League of California Cities' Municipal Law Institute and co-organized "Cities on the Cutting Edge," exploring municipal innovation in an era of severe budget cutbacks. Kiran is an advisor to Kiva.org, serving as the tech nonprofit’s first attorney. Currently, she is leading efforts to bring Kiva Zip, a direct peer-to-peer lending platform, to Oakland and onboard the City as its first municipal trustee to increase access to capital for local entrepreneurs.
Kiran is a member of the Governance Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future and is also a Leading by Design Fellow at the California College of the Arts focused on redesigning bureaucracy, deploying tools and methods to empower the entrepreneurial bureaucrat and improving citizen experience design within City Hall. Image Credit: Eric Mertens
Oakland, CA www. the daglab.com
Our Mission in the Plaza? The City’s Office of Economic & Workforce Development enlisted Popuphood to envision a use of the vacant space at 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza to enhance positive social and economic impact through their business incubation and revitalization. The space will act as an innovative lab for retailers in the heart of Oakland’s civic life adding to the vibrant retail culture along down town Broadway corridor. Additionally, Popuphood will invite communities to participate in the global conversations of collective impact, and creative placemaking emphasizing a multi-sector public and private approach. By hosting initiatives in collaboration with the City of Oakland they will amplify significant social networks, build civic dialogue, and incubate social capital and assist in strengthening Oakland’s emerging creative economy.
PSFK is an international agency which publishes annual trend reports on design, retail, gaming, healthcare, the future of work, and more. We are thrilled to be included in 2012 and 2013 as part of a global conversation of Innovative Retail and Derelict Revival. This recent post is part of a new initiative call My Ideal City, an experiment to crowd source solutions form around the globe for the bi-lingual planning of Bogota Columbia. This is part of a larger trend of user generated and crowd sourced marketplaces for innovative solutions for the future of cities. And hey, we'll go to Bogota to be part of the solution! Here are a few excepts from the post: The project represents a movement to re-imagine previously neglected areas as opportunities to promote commerce and exchange.
| | Across the world, many developers are running projects aimed at counteracting urban decay. As cities struggle to find available land for new development projects, there is a counter-movement that is reinvigorating existing urban infrastructure and buildings that in many cases have been neglected and fallen into disuse.
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Image: Oakland City Hall, 1917, This majestic Beaux-Arts building was the first government building designed as a skyscraper. The Lionel J. Wilson “Flatiron” building is at the corner of Broadway. Oakland/history/CityHall_300.jpg
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Popuphood Pops Up In The Plaza For One Year Of Innovation. Project Launch, Presenting Pop-Up HUB Oakland.
April 3rd, 2013
Oakland, California, USA, - Award-winning Popuphood will launch Pop-Up HUB Oakland on Monday, April 8 as the nationally-recognized social enterprise opens its first office on the ground floor of the historic Lionel J. Wilson Building, 150 Frank H, Ogawa Plaza (14th & Broadway), Suite 1B. In collaboration with the City’s Office of Economic & Workforce Development, PopupHood and HUB Oakland are innovative approaches to small business incubation and community revitalization that serve as a national model.
Company: POPUPHOOD
Founded in 2011 by Sarah Filley and Alfonso Dominguez Popuphood is award winning social enterprise incubating small businesses and revitalizing neighborhoods, block by block. They apply design thinking at city scale by rethinking retail and its role accelerating community driven renewal. Their pilot in Old Oakland has received international press and recognition as thought leaders in retail curation and marketing of previously vacant spaces and acting as change agents to transform them into vibrant destinations. This programmatic and multi-sector approach to local economic development creates employment opportunities, pathways to permanent leases and increased livability in urban neighborhoods.
Economic Development: THE CITY OF OAKLAND
The City’s Office of Economic & Workforce Development enlisted Popuphood to envision a use of the vacant space at 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza to enhance positive social and economic impact through their business incubation and revitalization. The space will act as an innovative lab for retailers in the heart of Oakland’s civic life adding to the vibrant retail culture along down town Broadway corridor. Additionally, Popuphood will invite communities to participate in the global conversations of collective impact, and creative placemaking emphasizing a multi-sector public and private approach. By hosting initiatives in collaboration with the City of Oakland they will amplify significant social networks, build civic dialogue, and incubate social capital and assist in strengthening Oakland’s emerging creative economy.
Launch: POP-UP HUB OAKLAND
Their first Partner is HUB Oakland. Popuphood offered them a Pop-up opportunity to launch their inspiring co-working space, an entrepreneurial incubator attracting a community of socially minded people. The shared mission and values between Popuphood and HUB Oakland centers around small business incubation, social impact, and collaboration. This shared physical space mirrors the aligned values of both organizations and enables HUB Oakland to launch their membership campaign while hosting events while the permanent location is under renovation.
Monday April 8th starting at 6pm they launch a kickstarter campaign as Pop-up HUB Oakland in the new space in partnership with Popuphood. The diversity and innovation in Oakland will bring a unique addition to over 50 connected communities (HUBs) that enable global collaborative ventures for a better world. HUB Oakland is looking ahead to their permanent offices at 23rd and Broadway, slated to open Fall of 2013. More Information at www.HubOakland.net Contact: Sarah Filley, Cofounder Popuphood Lionel J. Wilson Building, 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Suite 1B, Oakland, California sarah@popuphood.com www.popuphood.com 510-375-7705 # # #
Exhibition: CREATIVE DISRUPTION – Oakland First Friday, at HATCH Gallery 492 23rd St May 3rd, 2013
Join us for a final exhibition of visual reflections from students at California College of Arts sharing their user research process as well as early prototypes of some community engagement tools. The exhibition of Creative Disruptions will showcase community arts engagement at multiple locations and storefronts throughout Oakland First Friday in the KONO district. Please check our website at www.popuphood.com for updates and locations. Class Tumblr Official Press release: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
POPUPHOOD PARTNERS WITH CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF ARTS (CCA) TO ENGAGE KOREATOWN NORTHGATE (KONO) IN OAKLAND.
Oakland, California, USA
April 3rd, 2013
KONO has procured Popuphood to creatively engage the community, strategize marketing the vibrant arts scene, and curate retail as part of coordinating a lager multi-sector approach to renewal. Geographically the district is defined by Telegraph Avenue between 20th and 35th Streets in Oakland, Ca. These 15 blocks, recently branded as KONO, reflect the lively and diverse character of the district. Koreatown Northgate includes an important Korean-American commercial center, Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center and a growing variety of multi-ethnic restaurants and shops and home to Oakland First Friday, a large monthly event showcasing local arts and entertainment defining a unique cultural and economic renaissance.
Company: POPUPHOOD
Founded in 2011 by Sarah Filley and Alfonso Dominguez Popuphood is award winning social enterprise incubating small businesses and revitalizing neighborhoods, block by block. Through retail curation and marketing they activate previously vacant spaces and transform them into vibrant destinations. Their pilot in Old Oakland has received international press and recognition. This programatic and multisector approach to local economic development creates employment opportunities, pathways to permanent leases and increased livability in urban neighborhoods. To rethink retail and its role in renewal they invite communities to participate in the global conversations of collective impact, and creative placemaking.
Class: CREATIVE DISRUPTIONS
To further their research and expand their capacity Sarah Filley has co-designed Creative Disruptions class with faculty member Liz Ogbu. Ogbu's professional and academic work has focused on how to leverage design to address larger issues around social, economic, and political inequities. She is also regarded as a leading voice in issues of sustainable (social, economic, and environmental) design as well as the spatial conditions of challenged urban environments. Ogbu has authored numerous articles and papers as well as spoken throughout the country and internationally. Popuphood is a community partner in the ENGAGE at CCA initiative at California College of the Arts (CCA). Housed within CCA's Center for Art and Public Life, ENGAGE at CCA connects faculty and students with community partners through semester-long projects that focus on specific needs defined by, or identified in collaboration with, their partner. Through this blend of project-based learning and community engagement, ENGAGE has contributed to the health of over 55 organizations by channeling the creativity, skills, and passion of students in fine arts, architecture, design and writing. For more information, please visit: center.cca.edu/engage
Contact:
Sarah Filley, Cofounder Popuphood
Lionel J. Wilson Building, 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Suite 1B, Oakland, California
sarah@popuphood.com www.popuphood.com 510-761-6123
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We are sooo excited to announce this event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts! Join us Saturday April 27th for the public face of the ongoing Future Soul Think Tank we here at Popuphood have been participating in for the last several months. Alfonso Dominguez and myself are both doing individual projects that night and we want you to be a part of this ongoing "field of inquiry." It has been an inspiring and deep engagement with bright minds from Oakland and beyond which is setting the stage for a pivot point institutional engagement, come get down. Saturday, Apr 27
Be a part of YBCA’s first-ever Public Square—a confluence of art experiences happening throughout YBCA. From participating in classes to attending performances to engaging with exhibitions, YBCA Public Square incorporates an entire day of activities that allow everyone to passionately engage in creative expression no matter your area of interest or energy level.
Public Square: Future Soul Edition will feature 50 Cent Tabernacle, 11 AM-5 PM; Field of Inquiry, 5-7:30 PM; David Dorfman Dance: Prophets of Funk, 8 PM; and one of YBCA's renowned late night parties with DJ Rich Medina and J. Period, 9 PM-1 AM.
OVERVIEWField of Inquiry
Sat, Apr 27 • 5-7:30 pm
Entire YBCA Campus
Free
Part of YBCA's Public Square: Future Soul Edition on April 27.
For nearly a year, YBCA has pulled together a creative brain trust of some of the Bay Area’s most courageous thinkers and asked them to envision ‘What will soul look like in the year 2038?’ For one night, the group unveils its individual and collective responses, installing performance, food, design, muralism, holistic health, technology, and funk throughout the entire campus at YBCA. Part academic exercise, part intentional community, part JB Horns and Aretha Franklin tribute, YBCA and the Future Soul Think Tank invite you to our first public Field of Inquiry.
The Future Soul Think Tank is a new platform for a creative brain trust, designed to bring together the Bay Area’s most courageous thinkers, designers, entrepreneurs, community organizers, and artists into a collaborative cohort as part of YBCA’s Creative Ecosystem. The Future Soul Think Tank has spent its first year working with the question,“What will soul look like in the year 2038?” The question was developed in conjunction with Prophets of Funk, a performance by choreographer David Dorfman that celebrates the music of rock icons Sly & the Family Stone, which will be presented as part of YBCA’s 12-13 performance season. In addition to receiving honoraria for their participation in inquiry meetings and free tickets to YBCA performances that are part of the Future Soul curriculum (including Clas/sick Hip Hop), all Future Soul cohort members are given a free basic membership to YBCA, with benefits that include free admission to our galleries, subscription to YBCA’s monthly calendar, and exclusive invitations to member events. Additionally, each member is given a stipend to develop a physical, interactive, or immersive response to the question, “What will soul look like in the year 2038?”
ARTIST BIO
Future Soul Think Tank participants include: Daniel Alarcón (author); Freddy Anzures (industrial designer); Kamel Bell (co-founder and director, Ankh Marketing); Evan Bissell (artist and educator); Brandon Brown (co-founder, thePeople); Kimberly Bryant (biotechnologist and engineer, founder of Black Girls Code); Brett Cook (artist); Hodari Davis, (national program director, Youth Speaks, co-founder Life is Living); Duane Deterville (visual artist, writer, and scholar); Alfonso Dominguez (architect, co-founder of popuphood); Ashara Ekundayo (social entrepreneur); Allison Elgart (legal director, Equal Justice Society); Sarah Filley (designer, co-founder of popuphood); Zakiya Harris (change strategist); Aleta Hayes (dancer, choreographer, instructor, Stanford University); Esther Healey (licensed midwife); Chinaka Hodge (playwright; screenwriter at the Sundance Film Lab, Oakland); Marc Bamuthi Joseph (performer, educator, curator); May-Li Khoe (dancer, software designer); Dr. Susie Lundy (culture and performance scholar, b-girl); Christina Knight (playwright, art historian); Jered Lawson (co-founder and executive director, Pie Ranch); Dani McClain (communications strategist); Martin Luther McCoy (singer, songwriter); Michael Orange (innovator and cultural developer); Sean San José (actor, director); Bryant Terry (chef, educator, cookbook author); Visra Vichit-Vadakan (filmmaker); Rickey Vincent (educator, author, and professional funkateer); and Jillian C. York (director for international freedom of expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation).
Participating on the panel, moderated by Ann Guiney during the opening night of the 13th Annual Venice Biennale was a chance to talk with Mike Lydon, Douglas Burnham, James Enos and Andrew Howard about "Getting it Done," the heart of the matter is who pays for it and what are the mechanisms for evaluating these "Spontaneous Interventions"? When and how should we contemplate integration, replication, and policy? As the movement matures from Tactical Urbanism to Urban Prototyping festivals, to Citymart we have an exciting opportunity to refine these questions as well as our strategies. On a lighter note it may be time for a panel entitled "beyond the shipping container." "What we’re really commending here are the people who have managed to get their project funded somehow, get people behind
them, and find a team to work with them. There is
a heightened desire to be a good citizen. The power
really is in the street." Cathy Ho the US pavilion’s commissioner. http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/press
15:00-16:00 RELAY: Getting Things Done
Description: Thematic panel discussion including exhibition participants on the subject of translating an idea or small-scale project into realized civic program.
Moderator: Anne Guiney, Institute for Urban Design
Panelists: Andrew Howard, Better Block; Sarah Filley, popuphood;
Douglas Burnham, Proxy; Mike Lydon, Street Plans Collaborative; James Enos,
Periscope Project
| | "City you love most in the world?
Venice: the most amazing, refined city. There are so many layers of beauty and history: the Grand Canal; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection museum; the Fortuny Museum, the Venetian glass, the most refined food at Harry’s Bar; the designs on St Mark's Basilica floor; the special sound of no cars. It’s a place of joyous discoveries."
Christine Barro-Vogue
BY GENEVRA LEEK29 TH AUG 2012
From online to pop-up to permanent: Six months ago we sat down with Yoko and Kayoko and talked about their business. We were impressed. They explained that their online japanese kitchen and barware website had international contributors sharing insights into Japanese culture and lifestyle. We liked the idea of linking this global community to a flagship shop in Old Oakland. They expressed that they wanted to be a part of the energy in Oakland right now and they wanted to be a part of Popuphood, siting the awesome Popuphood neighboring shops as a main reason. They were a solid and delightful team with great products, a growth strategy, and an amazing community of people online and off to assist them to realize their vision. We are so happy that these women are going to be a permanent addition to Popuphood in Old Oakland! Come celebrate, details below: From the Umamimart website: In August, Tomo gifted us a daruma to celebrate the opening of Umami Mart. It is tradition to draw in one eyeball when you receive it while making a wish, then fill in the other when the wish comes true. Our wish was to sign a lease in six months.
And we did it! We signed a lease! WOOOOOO-HOOOOO!!! Who knew that Oakland was starved for a shop that specialized in Japanese kitchen and barware??? It’s so necessary. Well, you asked for it, Oakland, and we’re all yours for the next TWO years. Yoko and I have so many ideas of what we want to do with the space, but to kick off our two-year commitment, we want to say thanks to our community and supporters who have made our lease-signing possible. That’s YOU! Let’s sip bubbly and kampai!
WHAT: Umami Mart lease-signing celebration!
WHEN: Tuesday 3/19, 6-8pm; Champagne toast at 6:30pm!
WHERE: Umami Mart
815 Broadway
Old Oakland, CA
BART: 12th Street
Google Map
This is a FREE event! RSVP to hello@umamimart.com
See you next week!
Popuphood is pleased to announce our scope has expanded form one block to fifteen blocks with-in the Koreatown Northgate Community Benefits District (KONO CBD). We have completed the first phase of assessment and look forward to diving deeper with research, outreach, and creative engagement. To further these goals I proposed Creative Disruption in collaboration with Liz Ogbu, Faculty and Scholar in Residence at California College of Arts. Popuphood will act as the community partner to the Engage Community Arts Program building community and connecting students from Oakland’s prestigious arts institution to local urban innovation.
Creative Disruption is a multidisciplinary class that will spend the next two months utilizing creative forms of research and engagement. We seek to understand the needs and desires the diverse constituencies of the Koreantown-Northgate as well as propose opportunities for engagement. The semester began in January and continues through May, 2013.
More information, What is KONO?
Koreatown Northgate (KONO) is defined by 15 blocks between 20th and 35th Streets along Telegraph Avenue in Oakland California. This district has a unique opportunity to capitalize on its central location between Berkeley and Downtown Oakland. It is positioned between Temescal and Uptown, two neighborhoods that are in the midst of a cultural and economic renaissance. Temescal boasts new bars, restaurants and a new retail corridor. Uptown has gained momentum with the restoration of the Fox Theater and the ever popular Paramount Theater. The recent branding of KONO reflects the lively and diverse character of the district. Historically, Korean-American business property owners have been the largest investors in the district. More recently the Monthly Art Murmur and First Friday Events have brought National exposure to the galleries and potential of this creative corridor.
Who is the awesome Liz Ogbu?
Elizabeth (Liz) Ogbu's professional and academic work has focused on how to leverage design to address larger issues around social, economic, and political inequities. Ogbu is also regarded as a leading voice in issues of sustainable (social, economic, and environmental) design as well as the spatial conditions of challenges urban environments. She has authored numerous articles and papers as well as spoken throughout the country and internationally.
What is next?
We will be looking at retail in this district yet we have chosen a broader initial approach with an assessment phase, which we have just completed. Stay tuned for images, thoughts, and insights from these super talented students!
-Sarah
| | image from Next City website. | I am thrilled to be heading to Philadelphia to present Popuphood's model. It gives me a chance to reconnect with Ariella Cohen, she is the executive editor of Next City, "a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting cities and informing the people who work to improve them." As facilitator she invited me to participate on her panel during the Reclaiming Vacancies conference in New Orleans last year. More recently, she visited California and we gave her a tour of Old Oakland's Popuphood shops. I am particularly interested in checking out their new space: "a storefront for urban innovation." This concept of blending art installations, engagement and civic dialogue has a wonderful precedent with SPUR and Gaffta which use exhibitions to engage the audience with complex issues around urban planning and the future of cities. We are working on a similar concept, a popup office of inovation slated for downtown Oakland in March! Stay tuned...As it is my first time in Philadelphia, tweet me your recommendations @popuphood. I look forward to learning what strategies are working there and sharing what we have learned during our first year. I will be presenting The Culture of the Interim and following that a Round table title: Pop-ups as an small business incubation strategy. More about the event below. (from the Next City website)SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH, 2013 | 12:00PM - 7:00PMFollowing decades of decline, commercial corridors have reclaimed an important role in the revitalization of our cities. Community leaders, policymakers, artists and developers are investing time, energy and money into animating these corridors to again serve their neighborhoods. On Saturday, February 16, fifteen urban innovators from cities across the country will convene in Philadelphia for “Crafting Corridors: Reinventing the Urban Street”, an afternoon salon hosted by Next City and sponsored by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. And you’re invited.
- Meet the Vines Brothers, who wear their love for St. Louis on their sleeves — literally. Hailing from the great state of Missouri, Jeff and Randy will tell us how their love affair with St Louis’ Cherokee Street began and how their business, STL-Style, has become more than just a storefront.
- Learn how New York-based Project for Public Spaces (PPS) has used Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper (LQC) experiments to activate space and build consensus. David Nelson will also present PPS’ recently released Rightsizing Streets Guide.
- Hear about the revival of Passyunk Avenue. Sam Sherman, Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation’s executive director, will share how this street, which cuts across the grid and through the heart of South Philadelphia, is breaking the mold.
- Plus, hear from the creative minds behind Station North Arts & Entertainment District, Baltimore; Icy Signs, Philadelphia/Brooklyn; the Livonia Avenue Initiative, New York; Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia; Central Market Partnership, San Francisco; CoSign, Cincinnati; and many more!
The salon is open to the public. Registration is required.The complete line-up of presenters will soon be announced, so be sure to check back for updates.
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