Westminster Design Day

Overall the Westminster Design Day went smoothly and a lot of good ideas came out of it. One of the things that made this possible was that prior to the charrette most of the people involved in design day had been divided into 3 teams (downtown, gateway/connections, historic districts) and those teams had determined what tasks they needed to accomplish in that one day. This allowed each team to get going on their work without much wasted time figuring out logistics, etc. I worked with the gateway/connections group. We prepared a diagram illustrating existing and proposed circulation, gateway intersections/entrance improvements, and land use. To reinforce the suggestions on the diagram several sections/elevations were sketch out to provide a visual. These were really good. We had a slight complication in the charrette when storms caused the power to go out. Like the troopers that we are, most people continued to work and help the groups that needed assistance completing their renderings despite the lack of good lighting. Throughout the day several community members stopped by to see what was being produced and seemed to like what they saw. Unfortunately we were unable to hold the final presentation the evening of the charrette due to the power outage, but it was done at the city council meeting this past Monday. I heard from multiple sources that the community is excited about what was done on design day. Westminster is a good example of what an impact it can make to have an active mayor that is invested in the community.

Denmark

Working with Harry Chrissy on Denmark has been a good eye opener to how difficult it can be to come up with feasible solutions for communities that are experiencing the financial and social issues Denmark is dealing with. We easily could have spent the entire year working with Harry and the community and would have only touched the tip of the iceberg. Our second class visit was personally very valuable to my understanding of the community. Walking around downtown with Harry and observing what currently exist and the just the general character of the citizens helped my understanding of the things we could begin to suggest as a class to help move them in a more positive direction. Unfortunately, we only had the opportunity to provide some broad suggestions, but I feel like its a great starting point to get a community dialogue gong and hopefully lead to some improvements. Denmark is lucky to have resources like Harry and Jim Harrison who feel invested in the future of this place and are actively trying to get good things going.