Award Winners
Orwigsburg Public Library (Orwigsburg, PA) A proposed community library that completes an existing block along a publc square that adds to local context and vernacular.
Lawrenceville Comprehensive and Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan (Lawrenceville, IL) A future development plan that preserves original infrastructure and utilitzes attainable tactics by reinforcing the assets of the city as a path of rejuvenation.
Elgin Artspace Lofts (Elgin, IL). The project consists of two buildings, one a historic building that has been renovated and the other a new modern style addition connected by a one-story gallery space that could be used for art exhibitions.
South Elgin Bike and Pedestrian Plan (South Elgin, IL) A plan focusing on promoting walking and biking as reasonable options for everyday trips that is implemented through various strategies.
2014 Charter Award Jury (from left to right):
James Broughton (Fitzgerald Associates), John Greenfield (Streetsblog Chicago), and Emily Talon (Arizona State University), Jennifer Settle (MGLM Architects, Jury Co-chair, not pictured), and Jerremy Foss (Manhard Consulting, Ltd, Jury Chair, not pictured).
Bristol Place Redevelopment Master Plan (Champaign, IL) A well thought out neighborhood plan proposing multiple housing types and connectivity to the surrounding area as a catalyst for regrowth and establishing a sense of place.
CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS - 2014
BEST BLOCK, STREET AND BUILDING
Elgin Artspace Lofts
Elgin, IL
BKV Group
In an effort to draw new residents to the downtown district the city decided that one important ingredient to attracting new residents was to strengthen the downtown art community, which would also add to the number of people living and working downtown. The City viewed this mixed use multifamily housing project as a spark for growth and activity.
The project consists of two buildings, one a historic building that has been renovated and the other a new modern style addition. The two buildings are connected by a one-story gallery space that could be used for art exhibitions.
The 55 residential units offer a mix of affordable live-work units for individuals and families from studios to two-bedroom apartments. These units were so popular, they were at capacity within the first month. There is also a 6,000 square foot retail space fronting Spring street that adds to the pedestrian experience.
The site was chosen for it’s proximity to the city center to the north and the connection to an existing residential neighborhood to the south. This places it within a 10 minute walk to surrounding amenities, local bus routes, and a half mile from the Metra. The design of the development blends the context of the city center (T5) and the neighborhood (T4) together by matching the scale of the new modern addition to the historic building, maintaining the urban street edge and adding value to the pedestrian experience.
CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS - 2014
BEST BUILDING (STUDENT)
Orwigsburg Public Library
Orwigsburg, IPA
Benjamin Glunz
This project was part of a one-year graduate level course about Morphology, Traditional Architecture, and urbanism and was broken up into two phases, the first studying the original layout of the town and how the town grew and changed through time. The second phase focused on the building itself. The building has been proposed on a site that is adjacent to the main town square, the center of the historic district and on the only remaining empty lot. The lot has been vacant for 15 years and seemed to be the right place to locate a prominent public building.
By reviewing the layout of the town, a clear understanding surfaced of the existing urban context and choosing the proper site for this building. Locating the building on the square filled in a hole that has been missing for years and completed the area adjacent to the square. This location also provided a public amenity within a 10-minute pedestrian walkshed for the majority of town residents. The architecture chosen also fits in with the surrounding style. The building itself has been imagined as having multiple functions as well, serving as a library first and foremost, a community center, and containing a coffee shop and café.
CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS - 2014
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD, DISTRICT, AND CORRIDOR
Bristol Place Redevelopment Master Plan
Champaign, IL
Farr Associates & The City of Champaign
The Birstol Place Redeveloment Master Plan, adopted in 2014, consists of 27 acres within the Bristol Park neighborhood of Champaign, Illinois. The existing walkable street grid is retained and extended through the plan. An alley system has also been introduced to provide rear access to buildings, which aids in homes fronting the street and adding value to the pedestrian experience. A new boulevard along Clock Street has also been introduced to add on-street parking.
The Bristol Park neighborhood is considered the most distressed portion of the city. Housing values are currently considerably lower than the city’s mean housing price, which raised concerns with sustaining the neighborhood. Building of equity within properties is next to impossible with the current conditions.
The plan proposes acquisition and demolition of all properties and redevelopment with a mix of affordable housing types following the master plan and obtaining a LEED-ND certification. It also proposes an expansion to the existing Bristol Park, an anchor to the community, from 1 acre to 3.5 acres, which will aid with flood protection from the Boneyard Creek by reutilizing the space.
The proposed buildings include single-family detached homes and two 3-story affordable senior multi-family buildings along Clock Street. A new 10,000 SF fire station along the northwest side of the site will be multi-functional by serving as a storm shelter facility and a community space. The downtown train station is close to the development and there are multiple amenities within a 15 minute walk.
CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS - 2014
BEST REGION: METROPOLIS, CITY AND TOWN
South Elgin Bike and Pedestrian plan
South Elgin, IL
Sam Schwartz Engineering & the Village of South Elgin
The Bristol Park neighborhood is considered the most distressed portion of the city. Housing values are currently considerably lower than the city’s mean housing price, which raised concerns with sustaining the neighborhood. Building of equity within properties is next to impossible with the current conditions.
The plan proposes acquisition and demolition of all properties and redevelopment with a mix of affordable housing types following the master plan and obtaining a LEED-ND certification. It also proposes an expansion to the existing Bristol Park, an anchor to the community, from 1 acre to 3.5 acres, which will aid with flood protection from the Boneyard Creek by reutilizing the space.
This plan was adopted in June of 2014 by the Village and was supported by funding from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and focuses on providing a path for the Village to provide more transportation choices for it’s residents and fit within the GO TO 2040 Plan.
The existing roadway infrastructure does not support or encourage traveling by bike or by foot, causing most residents to drive for most of their daily trips. Current development practices also yielded new roadways within neighborhoods that were not connected to existing ones. This led to a network of disconnected streets that hindered bicycling and walking by creating long meandering routes that add significant lengths of time to these trip types which potentially causes people to avoid choosing biking or walking.
The main goal of the plan is to change the current built environment to promote walking and biking as reasonable options for everyday trips and thus giving residents transportation choices that inherently influence residents in an economic, environmental, and healthy way. The CNU/ITE Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares Manual was used to steer the proposed network patterns and to establish the basis of the recommendations.
The plan does this through three categories: Mobility network, crossings, and policies. The mobility network proposes a connected bicycle network by advancing bicyle and pedestrian planning thru a new method of analyzing the mobility of a neighborhood’s transportation network. This is done with a GIS tool to compare the level of mobility between modes and to evaluate a specific mode before and after plan implementation. In this case, the plan specifically analyzed a comparison between bicycle and vehicle mobility. This is somewhat revolutionary since the existing typical Level of Service analysis used does not convert well to bicycles and pedestrians. The crossings reviewed existing conditions and showed how to biking and walking could be improved. The policies category guides growth to integrate bicycle and pedestrian mobility and safety with new roadway designs as opposed to retrofitting streets in the future.
CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS - 2014
BEST REGION: METROPOLIS, CITY, AND TOWN
Lawrenceville, Illinois Comprehensive Plan and Predisaster Mitigation Plan
Ratio Architects and the
City of Lawrenceville
This plan was adopted this past September and has an estimated completion date in the year 2024. The City has had some rough events occur in their past. The Texaco Refinery closed down in 1985 causing severe economic decline and leaving a Superfund site. Hurricane Ike caused the Embarras and Wabash Rivers to breach and cause severe flooding in 2008 that damaged 200 homes. A water main break within the Embarras River caused sewage to enter the city’s drinking water supply. These events had attributed to holding Lawrenceville back from redevelopment.
Due to this, the city received a grant to update their comprehensive plan and incorporate a Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan. The proposed plan today looks to implement ecological and economical sustainability by following the Sustainable Planning Priorities of the Illinois Disaster Recovery Service which include: transportation choices, affordable housing, enhancing economic competitiveness, supporting existing communities, coordinating policies and leveraging investment, and valuing neighborhoods by focusing and highlighting the uniqueness of Lawrenceville.
This plan looks to implement these strategies in a number of ways. One is by highlighting the city’s compact urban form and focusing on restoring the strong city center. Another is by consolidating resources and initiatives by making connections between local government agencies, community organizations, and preservation initiatives to promote collaboration of shared interests. Planning for corridors of recreational trails within nature areas and areas adjacent to floodplain will detract development from flood prone areas on the fringe and into the urban core while creating new greenspace that integrates into the existing urban fabric. Lastly, the plan emphasizes investment in mixed use, infill development in the downtown by providing recommendations and guidelines for infill building types.
2014 CNU ILLINOIS CHARTER AWARDS JURY MEMBERS
James Broughton
James Broughton is an architect and Design Principal with FitzGerald Associates Architects in Chicago who focuses on urban design projects serving multiple building forms and functions. The firm also designs numerous adaptive re-use projects that often include some form of historic preservation. James strives to support and implement the urban planning principles of the CNU Charter while blending his sensibility for multiple styles of architecture. He believes there is a place for modernism within the new urbanism context, and vice versa.
As a member of the AIA Committee on Design, he has the opportunity to travel twice a year to cities around the world - Amsterdam, Shanghai, Rome, Tokyo, Prague, and Berlin for example - and experience firsthand urban areas that display established traditions of livable, walkable, sustainable urban design. The upcoming year has him traveling to London and Oslo. Europe, in his opinion, has found a way to blend historic buildings with the new. “ The old looks old, the new looks new, and it all coexists quite well together when basic principles of urban design, scale and proportion are maintained.”
Some recent adaptive reuse projects James has been involved with include: Lofts@1800 – a 99 luxury lofts condominiums in the North Center neighborhood; Storkline Lofts – a 148 unit affordable apartment building in the Little Village neighborhood; the Tailor Lofts – a 135 unit student apartment building in the West Loop; and the Somerset Hotel – a 160 unit mixed-use retail building in Uptown.
New construction projects include: Winthrop Club – a mixed use 15-story high rise with 99 luxury condominiums in Evanston, Illinois; Midtown Square – a 4-story 156 apartment mixed-use building in Glenview, Illinois that won a 2013 CNU Illinois Charter Award for Best Block; The Madison at Racine – a 9-story 216 apartment mixed use retail building with parking in the West Loop. Upcoming projects on his list include a 23-story 227-unit apartment building on the Near North Side of Chicago, a corporate headquarters in Skokie, Illinois, and multiple transit-oriented-developments in the city and suburbs.
CNU Illinois is happy to have James involved in the 2014 CNU Illinois Charter Awards as a jury member. His passion for urban planning principles, experience with real and successful places, and his diverse background in architecture will be an enormous benefit in determining the winners this year.
John Greenfield
John Greenfield is a writer and editor for Streetsblog Chicago, a local branch of a national blog. The blog discusses transportation issues with an emphasis on shared public space, multiple modes of transportation, and the efficiency of those systems and how they affect everyday life. Streetsblog strives to tackle local and national issues while highlighting and drawing attention to examples that work.
Prior to joining Streetsblog, he wrote a daily blog with Steven Vance called GridChicago.com (who he also works with at Streetsblog Chicago) that addressed all transportation mode issues in the Chicagoland area. John also has logged time with the Active Transportation Alliance as a consultant to the Chicago Department of Transportation for the bike parking program.
We are excited to have John’s knowledge and expertise to evaluate the Charter Award project nominees this year! He has an eye for relating transportation issues to the contexts of the built environment and the effects on how society functions in the daily grind.
Emily Talen
Emily Talen is a professor of Urban Planning in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She is also an Elected Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, American Planning Association. Emily holds a Ph.D. in Urban Geography, a Masters degree in City and Regional Planning and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology. To top it all off, she is also the co-editor of the “Journal of Urbanism”.
The Congress of the New Urbanism is no stranger to Emily as she is one of the most respected, recognized, and accomplished members. She has presented numerous times at the national conference over the years and her latest publication was rewriting the 2nd Edition of the Charter of the New Urbanism in 2013.
Some of her recent book publications include: City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form – 2012; Landscape Urbanism and it’s Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City – 2013; Urban Design Reclaimed: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Planners – 2009; Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods – 2008. Emily has also written numerous journal articles which are listed on her ASU website.
Her current activities include preparation of a new book: “Neighborhood: The Measure and Meaning of an Urban Ideal”, to be released in 2015. Emily is also researching and archiving urban codes, available online through the “codes project”. In her words, “the website is an anthology of the codes, laws and related documents that have created, or sought to create, particular urban forms.”
CNU Illinois is honored to have Emily Talen participate as a juror this year. Her knowledge of new urbanism principles will add strength and validity to the 2014 CNU Illinois Charter Awards winners.