Improving Municipal Urban Design Decision-Making by Using Digital Tools

Since joining the CRP Department in 2005, assistant professor, Umut Toker has been boosting the department’s capabilities in computer applications for planning, particularly 3-D digital modeling. He recently developed a 3-D model of downtown San Luis Obispo–which will eventually include the whole town–and is working on models for Arroyo Grande and Atascadero. These models, funded by the City of San Luis Obispo and SLOCOG, are powerful tools for development control, and will facilitate community participation

Downtown Delano Urban Design Plan: CRP 203 Work in Spring 08

DownTown Delano urban Design plan

Promoting Sustainable Development Through Participatory Design in a Small Town:: Mebane, North Carolina: 2nd Phase

The goal of this project is to generate appropriate design guidelines and implementation strategies for development in key locations of downtown Mebane, North Carolina. One of the main objectives of the project is to enhance community participation in this process. The appropriate goal setting technique in this regard is chosen as charrette process, i.e., the rapid pace at which the design is finalized with a guiding principle: consensus (Sanoff, 2000). The charrette process is planned in three phases. In the first phase, objectives and strategies were determined based on the identified problems. The second phase elaborates on design implications of these strategies. Finally, in the third phase the appropriate design guidelines will be generated for the development of downtown Mebane. Following the first phase of the process, which was presented in the ARCC spring 2001 conference, second phase is prepared, illuminating the third phase

MAKING A SMALL TOWN LIVABLE:: PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH A NEW URBANIST APPROACH IN MEBANE, NORTH CAROLINA

A contemporary nexus of urban development discussions is the concept of sustainability, which is often presented as a viable remedy to many of the contemporary urban ills, i.e., diminished livability that is mostly blamed on suburban sprawl. Not only large metropolitan areas experience sprawl. Numerous relatively small towns have also been undergoing this kind of spatial transformation as their cores are emptied in favor of suburbs. Town of Mebane, North Carolina, is one such small town. Today, downtown Mebane is home to manufacturing plants, retail stores, institutional buildings, and residences as well as empty lots and boarded-up buildings. Its architectural scale is still charming and its gridiron network of streets is capable of accommodating various modes of traffic although precedence is given to the car. Furthermore, some of the downtown buildings are worthy of consideration as historic landmarks, although many have been clad with metal panels, disguising their authenticity. This paper is a progress report on the first of three phases of an urban design actionresearch project on downtown Mebane, being undertaken by NC State University Architecture Faculty and Doctoral Students. The goal of the project is to generate sustainable urban development principles, guidelines and standards that promote urban livability. This phase involves an inventory of the town's physical, social, environmental and economical resources with New Urbanist "lenses" to develop specific sustainable urban development goals for the town's future and strategies to achieve these. In the subsequent phase of the project, proposals will be developed with citizens' input through citizens' charettes. It is envisioned that the process and the consequent proposal developed for Mebane is presented as a model to other small North Carolina towns that are striving to alleviate many of the ills of sprawl in the last phase of the project

Research Based Decision Making in Architectural Programming of Workplaces:: Case of Pamlico County Government Offices, North Carolina

Social, economical and technological developments in the recent decades, especially in the early days of the twenty-first century have consistently revealed the importance of knowledge as a base for decision-making processes. The ever-increasing dependence of productivity and competitiveness on knowledge in many fields has resulted in perception of knowledge as a commodity itself (Castells and Hall 1994). Consequently, the emphasis on knowledge generation has been identified by extensive research based applications in many fields and many societies. Within the field of architecture, knowledge generation and knowledge-based practices have started to be complementary to decision making and design processes especially in the last decades. The connotation of architecture with "art and design” has been accompanied by increased knowledge generation efforts, which has also brought architecture a connotation with "science”. The resultant forces have complemented the term "architecture as art” with another: "architecture as a knowledge-based tool” (Toker and Rifki 2001)

An interview with Professor Nabeel Hamdi, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom on “community design today”

Publisher's Versio

Three Cal Poly Teams Compete in the Ninth ULI - Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition

Every year the Urban Land Institute runs the prestigious Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition open to interdisciplinary teams of graduate student nationwide. In this article, faculty Hemalata Dandekar and Umut Toker, who jointly coordinated the entries of three Cal Poly student teams, describe the projects and reflect on the pedagogical effects of their efforts

ARCHITECTURE AS A KNOWLEDGEBASED TOOL:: THE ARCHITECTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF WORKSPACES

In these early days of the twenty-first century the pace of innovations in technological developments is phenomenal. A common example: the personal computers that we were using five years ago – which did not even exist about twenty five years ago – are now –for all intents and purposes useless today. The speed of technological innovations and product development has reached such an extent that almost every one of us has some outdated "technological” tool, which is yet to be "upgraded” to the latest technology. While many disciplines are in constant state of inquiry – both for understanding the factors that necessitate these fast paced developments, and ways of supporting and utilizing the developments themselves, is architecture merely accommodating these technologies – i.e., is it simply a "spectator”? Or, can architecture be a discipline or realm to support these fast paced technological developments and innovations, - i.e., is it a "player”? Which role is more appropriate for architecture, or which positions for architects can highlight architecture as an important force of this era of constant and rapid technological change and development

Traver Concept Plan: A Participatory Process

In the summer of 2006, faculty Vicente del Rio and Umut Toker developed a series of community workshops in Traver, Calif., towards a participatory concept plan envisioning local development and future growth. In this article they discuss the active involvement of the community and the successful results of this planning process