PROJECT OVERVIEW

 

The goal of the GREATER CIRCLE SENIORS Design Charrette is to increase the opportunities for innovative affordable senior housing within three neighborhoods surrounding Cleveland’s University Circle. 

The four chosen sites each have their own unique strengths and challenges that will need to be addressed by the design teams. All the sites have real potential for development should exceptional designs emerge.

Final designs will be judged by a panel of experts as well as selected members of the community.  Judges include Robert Jenkens, Director of THE GREEN HOUSE® Project at NCB Capital Impact and Lillian Kuri, Program Director at The Cleveland Foundation; other judges to be announced in January.

Architects who participate in the Charrette and meet all design requirements will be included in dissemination activities.
Selected entries will be awarded cash prizes of up to $5,000.
The intention is to support the development of winning designs; therefore, there is the possibility of an actual contract being awarded.

Dates: April 16-19, 2009

Location: McGregor Campus – 14900 Private Drive, East Cleveland, OH

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NEIGHBORHOODS

Buckeye/Shaker
The neighborhood is the location of one of the nations earliest planned shopping areas and Cleveland’s best example of transit-oriented development, Shaker Square. Developed by the Van Swerigen brothers in the 1920s the neighborhood is distinguished by the rows of apartment buildings that line the rapid transit tracks that connect the neighborhood to downtown and the airport. West of North and South Moreland Boulevards the neighborhood is predominantly two-family houses. East of that line it is mainly single-family homes. During the early 1900s the Buckeye Road area attracted so many Hungarian immigrants it became known as Cleveland’s “Little Hungary. Click here for more information about the Buckeye/Shaker neighborhood. Click here for more information about the Buckeye/Shaker community.

Fairfax

After its annexation to Cleveland in 1872, the neighborhood underwent a period of rapid residential development which continued until about 1920. The neighborhood is predominantly residential south of Cedar Road and is a mix of one- and two-family houses and small apartment buildings. Industries are located along the rail lines that make up the southeast and southwest boundaries of the neighborhood. North of Cedar Road much of the neighborhood is occupied by the Cleveland Clinic and other institutional and commercial uses. Click here for more information about the Fairfax community.

Glenville

The neighborhood was originally incorporated as the Village of Glenville in 1870 and was annexed to Cleveland in 1905. Shady, thick glens through which little streams tumbled gave the area its picturesque name. During the late 1890s the area was known for its farm produce and was also a vacation spot for wealthy Clevelanders. Major development occurred in the neighborhood between 1900 and 1930. The neighborhood is predominantly residential with many streets a mix of single-family, two-family and small multi-family buildings. Click here for more information about the Glenville community.

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CHARRETTE LOGISTICS

Location

Please arrive on the McGregor campus no later than 1:00pm on Thursday, April 16th. The address is 14900 Private Drive, East Cleveland, OH. Once you have parked, please enter through the middle set of doors which will be marked by a large banner welcoming you to the facility.

 

There is a large auditorium, referred to as the Community Room, which will be converted into a design studio for the purpose of the charrette. Each team will have its own workstation within the room in which to do all their design work.

 

If you have any trouble finding McGregor or will not arrive by 1:00pm please call 216.851.8200 and let the receptionist know.

 

Site Assignment

You will receive your site assignment by noon on Tuesday, April 14th. You will be provided with general information about the site and neighborhood as well as maps and plans of the site. More information will be provided once you arrive at the charrette. The sites will be randomly assigned and will not be changed.

 

Registration

Once you enter the building there will be a registration table where your team provided with a detailed information packet about the site you have been assigned, a memory stick for printing/scanning/copying (it will also include an electronic version of the site information packet), i.d. badges (required for entry to the building and meals), and workstation assignment.

 

In order to preserve anonymity please do not tell anyone what firm you are with, wear any clothing/accessories displaying the name and/or logo of your firm, or do anything else that may identify the firm you are with. Instead, please either use your team I.D. number (which was assigned when you registered to participate in the event) or create a team name. Should you decide to use a team name please let Emily (contact information below) know what it is by noon on Tuesday.

 

Transportation

You are responsible for getting yourself to and from the charrette each day. However, McGregor will provide transportation to and from the site visit that is scheduled on the afternoon of Thursday, April 16th. This is not required – you may use your own vehicle (maps and directions to the sites will be provided). Please let us know whether you plan on traveling with McGregor to the site or if you will provide your own transportation.

 

Meals

McGregor will provide architect teams with three meals a day. With the exception of the welcoming lunch and awards brunch, all meals will available for 2 hours at a time and served buffet-style. There will also be a refreshment station available to design teams 24-hours a day; this will include snacks, soft drinks, and coffee. All meals, snacks, and drinks are free of charge to those participating in the charrette.

 

Please let us know as soon as possible if you (or a member of your team) have any special dietary needs – we will do our best to accommodate them.

 

Supplies and Equipment

Each team will have their own work station. Each station will include:

 

2 8ft. tables

2 rolls of tracing paper (12” and 24”)

1 set of Tombow Dual Brush Pens

1 roll of masking tape

1 flip chart with easel

1 package of markers

1 4’ x 6’ display wall

2GB flash drives

Post-it notes

2 power strips

 

In terms of technology, the following will be available:

 

There is wireless (Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g) available for Internet usage in the community room.  It will be configured for open shared access for the Charrette, and instructions and our help desk will be furnished for all.  There is only one access point in that room, with 2 radios.  An 802.11a and an 802.11b/g radio.  But, all teams and all machines will be sharing that one access point, and it will not be useful for much more than Internet browsing and emails (not for file sharing since one access point can not provide enough bandwidth for sharing of CAD files between 40 plus machines).

 

We will be renting 2 multi-function, 11 x 17 color copiers.  Each will have scanning capabilities.

 

Printing will be accomplished via USB flash drives.  The copiers have a USB port built in to them, and it can internally (from the copier's front panel screen) browse a USB flash stick and print PDF documents.  They will have to be PDF document files however.  So each team will have to print their CAD drawings first to PDF onto their flash drives, and then walk the drive over to the copier for printing.  We will furnish each team with up to 4 promotional USB 2 GB Flash Drives, for this purpose.

 

We will provide 1, 8-port Ethernet switch to each team, so each can network their own machines together.  We will provide the network switch, and the CAT5 patch cabling needed for each team.  This will allow each team to share their files amongst themselves (between laptops and desktops) and will also be uplinked to our T1 internet line for Internet access.

 

There may be some technical issues with each team, depending on your configurations of your IT departments, which we may not be able to get around.  Issues relating to security, firewall, Group Policy, Windows domain configurations and Administrator passwords; all of these items may be unique to your own IT Department, and we will not know your organizations' administrator passwords.  Please consult with your own internal IT Departments prior and see if they will be available to you/us for the event if need be.  Also, describe to them this event, providing them these technical details, they may have to temporarily loosen or change security and other technical configurations on your machines prior to bringing them to the event.

 

Design Criteria

The program for the housing development is that it should be designed to meet HUD and Fair Housing Standards.  Information about these requirements, and other general housing information, will be included in the information provided with your site assignment (on Tuesday, April 14th).   No specific requirements are given for the number of apartment units per site or building height restrictions.  In general, a minimum of 40 units are necessary to make a project financially viable.  Projects should be compatible with local conditions. Teams should remember that affordability (in terms of construction and occupancy) is a primary goal here, though high quality design is expected.

 

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SCHEDULE

The McGregor facilities will be open to design teams 24-hours a day during the charrette (Thursday through Saturday). Teams are not required to be on site at all times and participants may work in shifts. However, there are a few organized activities that the team’s attendance mandatory (these times are highlighted in yellow on the agenda). The entire team does not have to show up for these activities but there should be a reasonable number of team members present to provide representation.

  

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FINAL PRESENTATION REQUIREMENTS

Final designs will be presented on Saturday evening in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation must include the following elements:

    - Site plan with community context
    - Elevations for main facades and/or 3-dimensional renderings
    - Building floor plan(s)
    - Unit floor plan(s)
    - One or two slides that illustrate how the proposed plan meets each of the five design objectives; 
      sensitivity to needs/lifestyles of seniors, sustainability, affordability, innovation/creativity, and inclusion of 
      community.

In addition, teams will be asked to provide a written statement (1-2 pages) describing the vision, solution, and ideas represented in their design.

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JUDGES

Margaret P. Calkins, Ph.D. - Innovative Designs in Environments for an Aging Society (I.D.E.A.S., Inc.), President
After completing an A.B. in psychology at Kenyon College, Dr. Calkins recieved her Masters and Ph.D of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has recently served on several design juries seeking to identify state of the art facilities in both health care and long-term care. Dr. Calkins has served as Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health. She is also Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Institute on Aging and Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Robert Jenkens - National Co-op Bank Capital Impact, Vice President, Community Solutions Group, LLC; THE GREEN HOUSE Project, Director
THE GREEN HOUSE Project that Mr. Jenkens directs partners with long-term care providers to create small-scale homes, typically licensed as skilled nursing, to replace aging facilities - providing the most impaired institutional residents a non-institutional choice. Prior to THE GREEN HOUSE Project, Mr. Jenkens directed the Coming Home Program which concentrated on making high quality, private occupancy assisted living an affordable alternative to nursing homes. Both programs were funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Mr. Jenkens received his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning with an emphasis on innovative housing with services models. He received a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Jenkens is a founding board member of The Center for Excellence in Assisted Living (CEAL) and the recipient of the 2006 Dick Ladd Award for exemplary work in aging.

Lillian A. Kuri - The Cleveland Foundation, Program Director for Special Projects
As a director of special projects, Ms. Kuri oversees some of the foundation's priority initiatives, focusing most of her efforts on the revitalization of the University Circle area. She holds a Master of Architecture in urban design from Harvard, as well as a Bachelor's degree in architecture from Kent State University. Ms. Kuri is a member of the Cleveland City Planning Commission, serves as a board member for the Cleveland Development Advisors, and chairs the design jury for the Cleveland Arts Prize.

Sharon Milligan, Ph.D. - Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Associate Director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, Associate Professor
Dr. Milligan received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982 and joined the Mandel School in 1988. Since beginning her career in 1973, she has been continuously involved in the social work and public health field as a program developer, researcher, teacher, and consultant to government and voluntary social agencies for women, children, and the elderly. Dr. Milligan was the Principal Investigator in a study of technology for evaluating conditions and assets in low-income communities.

Bruce D. Murphy - KeyBank, Executive Vice President and President of Community Development Banking
Mr. Murphy leads KeyBank's construction lending nationally for affordable housing, commercial loans for small businesses, and residential mortgage lending in low-to-moderate income markets. He also leads the making of equity investments in affordable housing and tax credit projects. Mr. Murphy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and a Master's degree in Public Management from the Universtiy of Pittsburgh. He has also studied at the ABA Graduate School of Human Resources and the University of Michigan's Human Resources Executive Education Program.

 

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SPONSORS

            

            

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REGISTRATION

To register a design team for the GREATER CIRCLE SENIORS Design Charrette please e-mail the following information to Emily Fox (see below for contact information):

    - Firm name
    - Name of primary contact person
    - Contact information
    - Approximate size of design team that will attend the charrette

Teams must include at least one registered architect but may consist of engineers, landscape architects, interior designers, urban planners, students, and other design professionals. There is no cost to register.

A confirmation e-mail will be sent to the primary contact person within 24 hours of registration. This e-mail will include an Identification Number that will be used to preserve anonymity throughout the charrette. Please reference this ID number in all future correspondence.

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Please direct all correspondence to Emily Fox:

E-mail: emily.fox@mcgregoramasa.org
Phone: (216) 851-8200 x2052
Fax: (216) 851-6634
Address: 14900 Private Drive
              East Cleveland, OH
              44112

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