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Buell Kratzer Powell's Venice Island project receives ULI Willard Rouse Award of Excellence

Venice Island Performance and Recreation Center


The Venice Island Performance and Recreation Center project, envisioned as a cultural centerpiece for Manayunk, Philadelphia, is one of eight recipients of the 2016 Urban Land Institute Philadelphia 2016 Willard G. “Bill” Rouse III Awards for Excellence. Alumnus-owned firm Buell Kratzer Powell (Joe Powell, '85) designed the Performing Arts Center for the site. The project included extensive water management infrastructure and master planning for the five-acre site. Other organizations and collaborators for the project were Hazen and Sawyer, The Manayunk Development Corporation, Philadelphia Water Department, and Andropogon Associates. The project also received Delaware Valley Green Building Council recognition in 2015 with a Groundbreaker Award for the project’s commitment to sustainability.

ULI Philadelphia is a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities. The 2016 awards included work by other Division of Architecture and Environmental Design alumni and alumni firms. Read the June 2016 awards announcement online.

Nether Providence Township planning based on research from the spring 2016 graduate planning studio

In the Planning and Community Development’s graduate planning studio, students work in teams with local organizations to carry out planning research and provide recommendations for real-world projects in the Philadelphia and Harrisburg Metropolitan communities. Work carried out by graduate student Michael King, ’17, alumni Randall Rook,’16, and Steven Schrayer, ’16, from the 2016 planning studio resulted in the recommendation that Nether Providence Township implement of bike lanes for an alternative form of transportation in the township. Nether Providence Township is currently using the student research as the basis for a grant application to the PA Department of Community and Economic Development’s Multi-Modal Transportation Fund. In particular, the township is focused on bike lanes on W. Brookhaven Road, and to connect the Leiper Smedley Trail to the Providence Road sidewalk via an asphalt sidewalk on E. Rose Valley Road, a main feature of the graduate studio team’s research and recommendations.

Public Space builds community

In July, Baldev Lamba, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture was a guest on the radio stations 89.7 WDVR, Trenton NJ and 90.5 WPNJ, Easton PA. He discussed how outdoor design can transform private and public landscapes, small and large, to infinitely enrich our lives. In the dialog Professor Lamba included the trends in pop-up parks and public spaces that borrow strongly from nature.

Other news from the Division of Architecture and Environmental Design

The Department of Planning and Community Development hosted a Placemaking event on April 29 to end the 2015-16 academic year that include over forty attendees.

Deborah Howe, Professor in the Planning and Community Development Department, retired in June of 2016. Congratulations to Deb, she has taken a post as president of Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.

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