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Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Jai Agrawal

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Design by the People 
Consensus-Based Form & the Architecture of Social Impact

An entirely new force of digital democracy is surging tides of human behavior from San Francisco to Pakistan to the halls of Beijing. It is radically disfiguring entire industries and cultures, overturning governments and economies, and releasing collective imagination at a pace that is nearly beyond comprehension. This global web pulses brighter every moment, adapting with each beat to release more creativity, resourcefulness, and good will.

This inquiry will explore the formulation of a new kind of architecture born of social impact and public consensus. These themes will form the basis for a completely new architectural development process that will generate elegant and sophisticated proposals that carry maximum social impact, as well as shared design authorship with the public that it serves.

Jai is a social entrepreneur and architecture graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. His research into social justice focuses on the connections between design, policy, economic theory, and managerial philosophy. He plans to launch his company, Public Service Architecture, upon graduation in the Spring on 2014, given adequate investment.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Mike Burlando

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Graphic Design for Civic Pride: A New Flag for A New Philadelphia 

Flying a flag is one of the most accessible ways to demonstrate belonging to a group. Philly has a city flag, but it's not seen much outside of its official capacity. Is the failure of the flag to be widely embraced the fault of marketing or design? Could a better-designed flag that tells a story about where Philadelphia has been and where it's going become a new symbol for the city's rebirth? Cities and urban centers have long been major consumers of the world’s natural resources and energy as well as one of the largest producers of municipal waste. These factors are not only destroying large amounts of land in the creation of landfills, but are also a substantial contributing factor to global climate change. With populations in urban centers expected to increase drastically in the next 15-20 years it is unlikely that the impact cities have on the world will subside.

Contact

E-mail: michael.g.burlando(at)gmail.com

Michael Burlando is a designer, builder, photographer, amateur historian, and lover of all things Philadelphia. While earning his Master of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael restored an 1870's Victorian rowhouse. He's worked at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and at MGA Partners in Philadelphia, and now acts as a Project Manager for Columbus Construction. He lives with his wife and dog in Graduate Hospital, writes for Hidden City Daily, runs the revived Philly Skinny, and blogs at brlndoblog.blogspot.com. 

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Uri Pierre-Noel

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

ArtsTechPhilly: Where Arts, Tech, & Culture Meet Up

My presentation will (briefly!) outline Philly's art and tech resources, enumerate ways in which they collaborate currently, and explore why this is important for our community. I will also describe what ArtsTechPhilly does locally and nationally, present a sneak peak of our plans for next year's Philly Tech week and the two Hackathons we will be hosting, and pitch the who, why, what, and how to get involved!

Website: http://www.meetup.com/artstechphilly/

Twitter: @ArtsTechPhilly

A Brooklyn native turned Philadelphia resident, Uri Pierre-Noel is a Philly-based Creative Entrepreneur, Director of the James Oliver Gallery and Founder of ARTnude Philly, a Cancer Awareness Exhibition in partnership with the Abramson Center at the University of Pennsylvania. After a chance encounter in New York with ArtsTech Founders Jaki Levy and Julia Kaganisky, Uri launched ArtsTechPhilly with their support in 2012. ArtsTech's mission is to explore the ways in which social media and technology can help bring arts and culture to everyone.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Christopher McManus

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

CITYWIDE: A Collective Exhibition

    

Philadelphia has long been home to a vibrant arts and culture scene. While collective and artist-run spaces throughout the city have gained increasing local and national visibility in recent years, the spaces themselves have never before joined efforts to produce a collaborative event. CITYWIDE is multi-venue, one-month, exchange exhibition in November 2013. The project celebrates Philadelphia's legacy of alternative artist spaces and the vitality of the contemporary arts scene. It will showcase work over 20 collective galleries and feature over 200 local artists. The CITYWIDE exhibit captures the diversity of work ongoing now, creates opportunities for collaboration and criticism across gallery spaces and disciplines, encourages public inclusion, and brings outside attention to city artists and designers. For the first time, the project calls on independent spaces and galleries to collaborate in an exhibition, lectures, and publication; illustrating the potential for massive artist collaboration and opportunities for individual artist growth. The project aspires to strengthen the local artist community and create sustainable avenue for future collaboration.

Contact
E-mail: hairanddiamonds(at)gmail.com
Website: www.citywidephilly.com
Facebook
Twitter: @citywidephilly

Christopher is an artist who brings an interdisciplinary approach to his practice. He is a member of Vox Populi artist collective and currently managing the CITYWIDE project. His academic and professional background in art, science, and management has created various opportunities for work. Professional projects have ranged from project management and video work for high level United Nations Generally Assembly meetings to local public arts projects. His independently produced videos and animation have screened widely in international galleries and film festivals.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Troy Hannigan

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Visitability: Making Homes Welcoming to All

The sight of a single-family home with front steps is almost universal in Philadelphia, yet we seldom consider the downside. For able-bodied Philadelphians pushing strollers or carrying bikes and luggage, these steps create a hazard and an obstacle to ideal city living. But to those experiencing physical infirmity or disability (whether temporary or long term), stairs can make visiting family and friends difficult, if not impossible, and can also trap people inside their own homes. Visitability is what is next for Philadelphia! There is a national and local movement advocating for “Visitability”, designed to educate developers and consumers of single family homes about the importance of building homes in which people of all ages and abilities can enter, circulate, and enjoy. One interviewed resident said that Visitability is like buying an automobile…"I got used to all power windows and locks and now when I go out to buy a car, I need all of those amenities. It’s something that you just don’t think about, but from this point forward, I would look for those visitable amenities". Visitability must be the future of housing design in Philadelphia in order to provide homes that all people can access independent of age or physical ability, and to make everyone’s lives easier.

Contact: 
Email: troy.hannigan(at)gmail.com

Twitter: @troyhannigan

Troy Hannigan, Assoc. AIA is Project Manager at Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia, where he has been working in various aspects of affordable homeownership development for the past four years. Troy holds a Master’s of Arts in Urban Studies with a concentration in Community Development from Eastern University, where he completed a thesis research project entitled A Place for Visitability in the Market Place: A Post-Occupancy Study. He additionally holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Philadelphia University, where he co-founded a student organization within the chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students called AIAS Freedom by Design (FBD). PhilaU FBD utilizes the skills of architecture students to create design/build solutions for low-income, elderly and disabled individuals. He served two years as the Project Manager for PhilaU FBD, completing two projects including an interior ramp and an exterior path to grant freedom to a 20-year old with cerebral palsy. Troy is a member of the Associate AIA, the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, Urban Land Institute of Philadelphia, and serves on the Philadelphia Visitability Committee.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Roderick Coover

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

The Estuary Project: Imagining the Future of the Delaware River

TOXI•CITY, ESTUARY, and CHEMICAL MAP are three digital works that imagine the industrial port region of the Delaware River and around the industries along its tributaries in the age of climate change. The works address how industrial uses of the river, notably those of the energy industries and transportation industries, become inscribed in a visual language that ranges from geological maps to flood markers. They explore how the meanings of familiar markers change when ideas surrounding the water evolve. For example, what happens when the water is seen as a force washing salt and toxic elements inward toward the cities of the Delaware rather than a force washing toxins away. Cinematography from kayaking and walking the Delaware estuary was complemented by extensive research into environmental histories and land use. Results of this work include the film Toxi•City, which is a data-base fiction film imagining life in a future flooded landscape, and Estuary, which is an artist book compiling my observations kayaking and walking the Delaware estuary and comparing it to the Thames estuary and English channel. A third product is an interactive Website, entitled Chemical Map, which pinpoints hundreds of active petro-chemical sites and brownfields in potential flood zones of the Delaware estuary. The full resource can be found at http://unknownterritories.org/estuary. The multimedia project is currently on view at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia http://sensingchange.chemheritage.org/sensing-change/art/estuarytoxi-city

Installation artist, visual researcher, filmmaker, Roderick Coover's most recent works cross deserts of the US southwest, shorelines beneath the Cliffs of Dover, volcanos of Chile, and industrial brown-fields of the Delaware estuary. He collaborates with writers, musicians, performers and designers to make projects about spatial practices, storytelling and the inventions of cultures. Based in Philadelphia since 2004, he is director of the Graduate Program in Film and Media Arts at Temple University and co-founder of its new Certificate Program in Documentary Arts and Ethnographic Practice. His local work has included commissions with the Museums of the American Philosophical Society at Independence Hall and the Chemical Heritage Foundations and local screenings/installations at venues such as Philadelphia International Film Festival, Esther Klein, Nexus, Crane Icebox, Painted Bride, Rowan. 

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Danielle DiLeo Kim

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Rocky Revisited: Can-do atty-tude

It is evident from the do-it-yourself movement happening in cities today that social and environmental change is happening from folks on the ground. It is no different in Philadelphia, and I believe what is next for Philadelphia will be an expanded movement of engaged citizens committed to building community. This inspirational talk will illustrate through successful community-building examples and initiatives how every day Philadelphians can adopt the “can-do atty-tude” and training program of our own legend, Rocky Balboa, to make a difference in their neighborhoods.

Contact

ddileokim(at)locus-partners.com

Danielle DiLeo Kim is cofounder of Locus Partners, an urban design firm, and has 16 years’ experience practicing architecture and urban design in both the private and public sectors. She has managed citywide physical development plans for the City of Philadelphia and excels at coordinating multidisciplinary teams through planning and design phases, community outreach processes, and the implementation of long-range plans. Before forming Locus Partners, Danielle was an Associate with MGA Partners where she led the realization of master plans and buildings for institutional and nonprofit clients. Danielle has a master of architecture in urban design from Harvard University and a bachelor of architecture from Virginia Tech. Danielle is deeply involved in Philadelphia community initiatives, since she loves to “get things done,” and is currently co-chair of the AIA’s Urban Design Committee and Board President of Clementine Montessori. She was awarded AIA Philadelphia’s Young Architect Award in 2012.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Inga Saffron

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

How the Hispter Generation will Save Philadelphia 

What do bike lanes, new parks, skateboarders, coffee shops, pop-ups, farmers, markets, dog parks, composting mean for urban life? This talk will discuss how a new generation of urban dwellers use the city in a different way, and have different expectations of public space.

Contact

E-mail: isaffron(at)phillynews.com
Twitter: @ingasaffron

Inga Saffron writes about architecture, design and planning issues for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her popular column, “Changing Skyline” has been appearing on Fridays in the paper’s Home & Design section since 1999. In 2012, she completed a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize three times, in 2004, 2008, and 2009, and in 2010 received the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award.

Pushing beyond the usual boundaries of architectural criticism, her columns focus on the buildings and public spaces that Philadelphians encounter in their daily lives. In her criticism, Saffron also applies a reporter's skills and sensibility to explore the variety of forces - political, financial, cultural - that shape the city. Her columns on waterfront development, zoning and parking issues have led to significant changes in city policy. 

Before assuming her current position, Saffron spent five years as a correspondent in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for The Inquirer. She covered wars in the former Yugoslavia and in Chechnya, and witnessed the destruction of Sarajevo and Grozny. It was in part because of those experiences that she became interested in the fate of cities and began writing about architecture.

Saffron began her journalism career as a magazine writer in Ireland and worked for the CourierNews in Plainfield, N.J., before joining The Inquirer in 1985 as a suburban reporter. She is the author of “Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World’s Most Coveted Delicacy,” published by Broadway Books in 2002. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Jeff Brauer

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

More Effective Transit to Nurture a Philadelphia in Renaissance

  

  

Philadelphia, long in decline has turned the corner in the last decade, as can be seen from renovations and new construction expanding outwards from center city. There is still a lot of work to be done in improving the quality of life in our city. In the nation’s fifth largest city, it is still possible to bicycle (or sometimes walk) from one corner of the city to another faster than any means of public transportation. What about the many who do not feel safe or cannot bicycle, how do they get around easily day to day? It is time to begin pursuing an enviable transportation future for our city.

Philadelphia has inherited from its great past many open and underused spaces: abandoned railroad right of ways, wide boulevards with excess capacity, abandoned factories and vacant lots. It is possible to string these spaces together to form right of ways for new dedicated inner city light-rail transportation in areas that are currently underserved.

This would make it easier for many to travel to and from work, shopping and save countless hours of productivity lost waiting for bus transfers. It would spur and nurture investment around new and existing transit stations. The resulting increase in investment and property values would greatly contribute to the tax base and help to fund its own construction.

Contact

E-mail: jeff.a.brauer(at)gmail.com

Jeff Brauer grew up in Central New Jersey and has lived in several towns and cities throughout the Northeast since. He is a 2008 graduate of the architectural studies program at Hobart College and earned his Masters of Architecture in 2012 from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Jeff moved to Philadelphia from Boston a year and a half ago to work with the PACO Group as a designer for Amtrak’s Accessible Station Development Program (ASDP). This is a nation-wide renovation effort to make Amtrak’s stations easier, safer and friendlier to use for the disabled, elderly and everyone else.

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> PhilaNOMA

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Mentoring Philadelphia’s NEXT Generation of Young Designers

 

Project Pipeline was started by the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) in 2005 to educate minority youth about the process and impact of architectural design in their communities. With camps held by NOMA chapters across the country, Project Pipeline is starting to erode one of the biggest issues for minorities not entering the architecture profession, which is not having an early exposure to the field of architectural design.

In 2008, PhilaNOMA launched “CAMP Sustain.Ability”, Philadelphia’s Project Pipeline summer program for middle school students. For us, C.A.M.P. means “Cultivating Architectural Minds through Mentoring Programs.” Our aim is to expose more young students to the possibilities of a career in design, and increase the number of minorities pursuing architecture and design professions. During the camp, students are exposed to the various skills involved in the study of architecture, and the principles of sustainable design. They collaboratively produce work that expresses their new understanding of architecture and its impact on the built environment.

CAMP Sustain.Ability is our way of “sustaining” and diversifying the architectural profession by cultivating the next generation of young designers who will influence our practices and our professional lives for the better. What’s NEXT for Philadelphia? Our youth!

Michael Spain is a practicing designer and educator with over 20 years of experience in some of Philadelphia’s most noted architectural firms. Michael has been instrumental in the design and development of a wide range of projects types, specializing in educational and public facilities. He currently serves as a Project Designer/Architect for D2CA Architects LLC. Michael received his Bachelors of Architecture from Cornell University and continues his academic involvement as an Adjunct Professor at Philadelphia University’s College of Architecture and the Built Environment, having been a past recipient of the Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Award. Michael actively extends his talents and commitment to the community, serving on a number of boards involving architectural education and community development. Michael is the Immediate Past President and Camp Sustain.Ability Director for the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA).

Tya Winn is the Real Estate Development Associate at Logan Community Development Corporation, serving a transitioning north Philadelphia neighborhood. In this role she has managed large scale planning efforts, led public participation activities, and created a development plan for the nonprofit organization. Tya studied architecture at Syracuse University and received a Masters of Architecture specializing in Urban Design at the University of Pennsylvania. She is focusing her practice on the revitalization of urban communities, and how experience of the built environment shapes perceptions of place. Tya serves as Recording Secretary and Camp Sustain.Ability Coordinator for the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA).

Contact
E-mail: philanoma.chapter(at)gmail.com

Meet Fast Forward Presenter >> Eric Torrens

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

PRODUCTpark: a Self-Sustaining, Multi-Purpose Urban Greenway

Cities and urban centers have long been major consumers of the world’s natural resources and energy as well as one of the largest producers of municipal waste. These factors are not only destroying large amounts of land in the creation of landfills, but are also a substantial contributing factor to global climate change. With populations in urban centers expected to increase drastically in the next 15-20 years it is unlikely that the impact cities have on the world will subside.

In order to start relieving the pressure that cities place on the world it is time to start re-thinking how these urban systems can become more self sufficient and rely less on the resources of their surrounding communities. By looking at one of the major products of cities it is possible to start finding solutions in our city’s urban waste. By creating multi-purposed sites within the city that are capable of utilizing the energy potential of organic waste materials by converting, through naturally occurring bacterial processes, organic waste and materials into a useable natural gas that can be used to power and heat our buildings and urban spaces while drastically reducing the cities global climactic impact.

Contact

E-mail: EMITarchitecture(at)gmail.com

Eric Torrens is a recent graduate with a Bachelors of Architecture from Philadelphia University’s College of Architecture + the Built Environment. While pursuing his B.ARCH Eric spent considerable time studying biological and chemical systems, ultimately getting a minor in Environmental Conservation Biology.  These studies allowed him to begin experimenting and finding ways to apply these naturally occurring systems to current and future architectural projects.  His education has led him to study with the School for Field Studies in Australia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica and look closely at how endangered ecosystems and their neighboring societies interact. Eric is currently working as part of the design staff at Erdy McHenry, a Philadelphia based architecture firm in the Northern Liberties.