On 2/12/04 2:00 AM, "Automatic digest processor" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jennifer, > thank you for your excellent summary of key points in an urban design > charette. I have participated in a number of them in the past and know them > to be highly participative and an attempt at a democratic process. I am keen > to know if you facilitate charettes and if you have incorporated short OST > meetings into them. > > Blessings, > > Birgitt I have worked on some charrette teams but not yet facilitated one myself. I also keep looking for opportunities to use OS, and have participated in OS meetings, but have not yet facilitated one myself. Most charrette facilitators are architects who have learned their "facilitation" skills in the trenches and have no separate training in conflict resolution, mediation, facilitation, etc. I have been trying to bridge the two fields, as I think they have a lot to learn from each other. A short essay I wrote about this ( Hurley, Jennifer. 2003. "The Public Process and New Urbanism", Research Report for the Knight Program in Community Building, University of Miami School of Architecture.) is available at http://www.hfadesign.com/newsroom/publications.html. Here's the quick summary: What Can Charrette Practitioners Learn from Consensus-Building? By learning from the experience of mediators and facilitators, charrette organizers could leverage the event to create more support for the results of the charrette, resulting in more faithful implementation. Key aspects that charrette organizers could learn from consensus-building: A robust theoretical basis for practice can inform the understanding of the process and suggest possibilities when problems arise. Situating the charrette event in a larger decision-making framework that includes pre-charrette outreach and post-charrette consensus-building increases the chances of implementation. Using the charrette to aid group learning and build civic capital would leverage the event to develop local leaders who can champion the plan long after the event. Charrette organizers could adopt specific skills from mediators and facilitators, including stakeholder analysis, the use of ground rules, neutral mediation/facilitation, agenda-setting, and consensus-building techniques. What Can Charrette Practitioners Add to Consensus-Building? I have focused this article on describing what I think charrette organizers can learn from consensus-building. However, I also believe that charrettes are a technique that discussion-based mediators and facilitators should learn about: Charrettes are a great improvement over discussion-based processes for addressing physical and design issues. Words are a cumbersome medium when the problem is visual. The compressed time frame of a charrette creates incredible excitement and momentum. In contrast, discussion-based processes can take months, if not years, and are often tedious and sometimes downright painful. The last two points touch on Chris's question: So that's why I am asking is their a specific charrette focus that olnly expert charrette people buld in? They key is that charrettes have architects, designers, engineers, and other technical experts working on site to create a plan using drawings. There's a specific product expected at the end of the week-long charrette. I think a one- or two-day OS would be a wonderful way to start a charrette (perhaps taking the place of more structured "stakeholder" meetings). Jennifer ------------------------------- Hurley~Franks and Associates Planning & Urban Design 1429 Walnut St., Ste. 601 Philadelphia, PA 19102 P: 215-988-9440 [email protected] http://www.hfadesign.com Association for the New Urbanism in PennsylvaniA (ANUPA) http://www.anupa.org ********************************************************************** This e-mail and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential and/or proprietary information. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender by replying to this message and delete this material from any system it may be on. ********************************************************************** * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
