Student Field Notes
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Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 12, 2010 at 1:55 pm
What can I say about Tremont?
I guess it’s sorta like that one town in old westerns you think is deserted,vbut really this just happens to be the place where everyone is at,vand your just like “wtf?” Tremont is a wonderful little-big part of the city, It’s its own little town and has everything to sustain itself.
Numerous stores placed strategicallyv(and I seriously mean it, you could go sit down somewhere like every-other or every street and have a fantastic meal. In fact, I need to go to Edison’s again. Their ice cream is rock-en, but I digress…)
Along the central point of the area, the park, the residential areas are intermixed with these thriving businesses (at least I think they’re thriving. There are over 9000 residents and anything you need you can find in Tremont. I even saw a yoga studio, although,maybe they could work on a better music selection for their festival. Country is good and all, and the guitar is awesome, but there’s only so much a black guy can take… again, digressing…)
All in all, the park seems the center point and everything else wraps around like a solar system. There’s a break point of the highway when entering the neighborhood and then there’s a small parking lot. It’s a bit undeveloped, but it works for when the festival is happening. Again, the whole diamond in the rough idea is coming to me. Whatever Mark said about “best practices” or something, this is what our goal should be. And, if we actually pull this off, ours is gonna look better, ‘cause there’s one thing they didn’t get. Color. All through there all I saw was pale white people and burned white people…. How hard is it to tan? lol.
-Tyrone
Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 12, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Trinity Commons
The Episcopal Church was started in Cleveland in 1816 on the west side of Greater Cleveland. In 1825 the parish moved to the East banks of the Cuyohaga, and in 1892 Trinity Church was offered to Bishop William A. Lenoard as a Cathedral. The title of Cathedral is given only to churches resided over by a Bishop, and at the time the diocese was the strongest in America both numerically and financially. Construction of the cathedral began in 1901, and was complete in September of 1907.
At the epicenter of the Campus District, Trinity Cathedral and Trinity Commons
are a wonderful parallel example of the essence of what we are attempting to create with our current project. Trinity has created a venue for worship, art, fine music, social services, and public gathering for the entire urban area as well as its own congregation.
Near the end of the last century, Trinity leaders went through much the same process as we are now engaged in, and realized that the Cathedral alone could not accommodate their vision for serving the community. In 2000 renovation and expansion work began, and Trinity Commons was opened in 2002. The theme of the Commons was taken from the Italian “Piazza” a place of public gathering, exchange, and enrichment.
The Commons connects the 3 existing structures to form the central hub of the Piazza. It is the single largest green architectural structure to be built to date, with 130 geo-thermal wells. It has for years had programs to feed the hungry and homeless. It participates in an organic produce initiative called “Freshstop at Trinity Commons” that promotes and sells locally grown vegetables. It houses 13 rentable spaces for non-profit organizations to meet, an art gallery for anyone in the community to hold art shows, Ten Thousand Villages craft shop that supports craftspeople from impoverished countries by fair trade standards and up front payment for crafts sold. All profits are channeled back to these nations for economic development, and all workers at the shop are volunteers. The same standards hold true for Cafe Ah_Roma in regards to fair trade policies and non-profit. To summarize, I would like to quote Reverend Tracey Lind from Trinity when she spoke of Trinity Commons…
“Trinity Commons is becoming everything we hoped it would be. University students and faculty are crossing the street for the first time in decades; people are gathering to work on peace, justice and environmental issues; artists are creating in the light and shadows of the great cathedral; and seekers are discovering this sacred public space. When I walk in the cafe, I frequently see people reading our cathedral newsletter as they drink a cup of coffee. When I go in the cathedral, I often watch pilgrims silently walking the ancient way of the labyrinth. When I wander into the bookstore, I see children and adults of all ages and backgrounds browsing the shelves filled with books about religion and spirituality. When I enter the Ten Thousand Villages gift shop, I hear conversations about fair trade. When I gaze into the gallery I see exhibits that explore the intersection between art, religion, and daily life. In a short time, Trinity Commons has become a place of culture, charity, commerce, conversation, and collaboration–a commons for making connections and a holy place to worship, celebrate, create, and hang out.”
-Russell
Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 13, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Simply Betsy, University Circle, & Little Italy
We visited Simply Betsy. She explained how she started her business. She said she did it as a grieving process when she lost her family members, and she liked doing it for a hobby. She said her husband was laid off from his job over a year ago. The said that they lost everything and they became homeless with five kids. She said her husband kept telling her to sell her soaps, and she said, “are you kidding me?” So she finally listened to her husband and started selling her soaps at different events, and they sold very well. And has been selling soap for 9 years. She finally opened her business on Euclid Ave. She said everything that she has in her shop has been donated by people and different communities. She took us out back and showed us where she will be starting a community garden. The food that will be grown in the garden will be given to homeless people. She is willing to help others who may need soap. She will have her grand opening this August, and she will be giving a concert.
We also visited University Circle. They had a lot of graffiti on the walls. I noticed that they had a lot of signage with “University Circle” on most of their polls. I also observed the area where the museums are; they are thriving. And it was a busy area. And I saw a few hotdog venders. And the area around the museums was very well kept up. But other areas had some trash on the grounds.
We went to little Italy and there I saw a lot of signage. And it had flags of Italy on their polls. There were a lot of businesses everywhere. They had coffee shops where people were outside enjoying their coffee and using their computers. The area was well kept up and you did not see any trash on the streets at all.
-Lori
Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 14, 2010 at 1:20 pm
East Side Field Trips: Goldstein Caldwell and Associates, Got City Game, and Marc Cantor
Today began with reflection questions that asked us to think about what it meant to be an effective listener and note taker. Mackenzie led today’s morning activities, preparing us for the fieldtrips that we would be on for the rest of the day. Before leaving, we spent 10-15 minutes doing online research of the places that our group would be visiting. Our group’s list was filled with interesting people and places like Goldstein Caldwell and Associates, Got City Game, and Marc Cantor. This 10-15 minute period was much like preparing for a formal interview by researching the company beforehand.
The first place that we went to was a business incubator located on Carnegie Ave., across the street from John Hay High School. Its official title is Goldstein Caldwell and Associates, and we were given a guided tour by Dar Caldwell. A business incubator is a place that generates conceptual and physical support behind novel ideas. The way it works is that people who have an idea for a business present it to Dar and his associates. Then, along with the client, the group begins an intense brainstorming session that maps out all of the details and logistical concerns associated with the idea. After the initial brainstorming sessions, and if Dar and his team are interested in your idea, then there are a number of follow up meetings where more details are researched further, and the ground work for a healthy working relationship is laid. Dar’s team consists of lawyers, patent attorneys and real-estate professionals, to name a few. All of the brainstorming and ideation happens in a huge renovated flower refrigerator, where the walls have been painted with a special white paint that allows them to be written on with dry erase markers, and then easily erased afterwards.
On the tour we were fortunate enough to talk with two people who have launched successful businesses facilitated by Goldstein Caldwell and Associates, Chris Clark of Sunflower Solutions, and Carlton Jackson of Tunnel Vision Hoops. Sunflower Solutions is a company that manufactures and distributes solar panels around the world. Currently, their products can be found in Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Haiti, India, Cleveland and Denver. What makes Clark’s solar panels unique is that they are engineered with extremely efficient hinges that allow the position of the solar panel to be changed according to the time of day and season, therefore allowing the user to harvest much more sun than a stationary panel. Because the solar panels are hand operated, Sunflower Solutions is able to offer prices that are more affordable to people and organizations in developing countries as compared to motorized systems. On their website, http://www.thesunflowersolutions.com, there is a movie clip of a small girl operating a large solar panel with ease. Sunflower Solutions has a small office space within Goldstein Caldwell and Associates where you can see some of the original working models of their solar panels. Clark told us that his idea began with a class project while he was still a student at Miami University. After graduating, Goldstein Caldwell and Associates helped him to translate his idea into reality. Now his company is thriving and receiving a lot of attention both locally and around the world.
Carlton Jackson of Tunnel Vision Hoops is another example of the successes radiating from the business incubator. Jackson designs and sells hoop-houses. A hoop-house is a temporary green house that can be easily installed or dismantled over a garden bed. When installed, a hoop-house creates it’s own internal environment, allowing growers to expand their growing season into the colder months of the year. The creation of Jackson’s business was fueled by the eminent economic and social crises known as peak oil. Through the design and distribution of his hoop-houses, Jackson is addressing the needs of the local population of people who are also concerned about our oil heavy food industry. Hoop-houses make the growing and selling of locally grown foods much more viable. One unique feature of Jackson’s hoop-houses is a gutter system that runs along the sides of the hoop-house and feeds into a barrel, allowing the collection of rainwater. Jackson is extremely passionate about locally grown foods and has done a lot of work to involve youth in his program, including teenagers from MC2 high school, Design Lab High School, and Hawken.
Lastly, we visited Mark Cantor and his group in the Nord building on Case Western Reserve’s campus. Marc Cantor is well known for many things including founding Macromedia in 1984, and he is considered to be one of the fathers of multimedia. When we visited Cantor, they were in the second day of a 6-week program whose purpose is to expose Design Lab High School students to state of the art technologies. Over the eight weeks, the youth have four objectives. 1) To organize and facilitate a concert. 2) To develop a website including videos, photos, and a blog. 3) To start and run a business. 4) To identify and feature an influential community member on the website. Much like the Collaborative Campus Planning Project, the organization of Marc’s program is done completely online using a wiki. Here they have a group calendar, trade notes back and forth and post important documents. The students in Marc’s program were chosen because they had good grades and performed well in school. I had the opportunity to meet with two of the students who showed me around their blog and website and were very excited about the program. We exchanged program information and are hoping to stay in contact over the next couple of weeks.
-Marcus
Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 14, 2010 at 3:33 pm
JakPrints, Ohio City, & the RTA
My name is Jasmean and I am a student designer with tri-c. I was absent for some of the field trips but I went to most of them. And they were exciting and fun.
My favorite one was JakPrints. I liked JakPrints because it was very organized and they made cool stuff. They are a printing company that prints designs and images on different items such as clothes, playing cards, business cards, and so on. But they had rules with their printing that is basically the law. They cannot print anything that will be racial. Also, children porn- that is against the law, “but a picture of a cute little nacked baby never hurts” they said. But their environment was very clean. All of the workers were very happy. And they treated each other as if they were all family.
Ohio City:
Another place that one of my groups went to on a field trip was Ohio City. I did not attend that field trip but I am very familiar with that area of Ohio City. One of my favorite sights and things to do is ride the local RTA bus and I am very familiar with the rapid station in Ohio City and the buses and bus lines that are around and in my community. The RTA in my community is a reasonable way of transportation especially for those who do not have a car, or money for a taxicab. The RTA has been in business for over 75 years serving in Cleveland. And they are great at what they do. That is why I am a very well known customer with the RTA.
-Jasmean
Pingback from The Collaborative Campus Project » The Research Group
Time July 22, 2010 at 5:13 pm
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Comment from kruegerblogger
Time July 12, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Group three’s walk through Tremont
Of the three groups traveling to their destinations that day, ours was the last to be dropped off in Tremont. Dr. Valerie Brown, Tyrone Mcelrath, Lori Walters, Quantarious Willis, Joe Stanley, and myself began our tour in Lincoln Park, one of the centers of the Tremont area. Lincoln Park is amazing for so many reasons, and Joe was instrumental in facilitating our group’s experience of the places we visited. He has the ability to see an area from a large vantage point allowing him to make associations across broad expanses of land while at the same time understanding how urban design affects the human being in smaller and more intimate ways. We discussed how the location and layout of Lincoln Park allows it to serve as “A living room for the four surrounding streets” (Joe). All of the houses, businesses and institutions along the perimeter of the park face inward, and one could easily imagine parents feeling comfortable sending their child into the park to play while keeping a watchful eye from the front porch. In fact one consistent sound that we heard at the park were the yelps and squeals of children playing in the Lincoln Park pool. 360 degrees from where we stood we saw modest, well kept homes, a church, a community center, a coffee shop, small businesses, and a school. The park had an atmosphere of openness, space and activity. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic moving through and around the park. We saw joggers and people walking their dogs. The cement pathways are lined with street lights that lead into the center of the park where there sits a beautiful Gazebo. Along the pathways inside the park are plenty of comfortable wooden benches, and the large trees provide huge areas of shade and are a nice contrast to the bright sunny spots. On the outside of the park we saw a sign posting the hours of the park, 6am to 9pm. Joe pointed out that clear signage posting the hours of a park is a way to improve the safety of an area.
From the park we headed down Starkweather St., and the neighborhood took on a neat and residential feel. On Starkweather we ran into two gentlemen in lawn chairs sitting in the shade of a tree. They told us that the enormous brick school across the street was built in 1917 and is currently a Montessori school. Further down the street we passed small Art galleries, upscale restaurants, a public library, and the same jogger we saw back at the park. At one point Tremont was home to a university, hence the few streets with academic titles, Professor, Literary, University Ct, and College Ave. We made a left down Professor St. and came upon the Tremont West development corporation. There we met one of their representatives who gave us a brief tour of the facility and told us a little about the Tremont area. Tremont has roughly 9000 residents, and over 90 small businesses. It is a bustling arts district, and home to many Cleveland artists. The walls of the office were lined with framed posters depicting and describing the history of Tremont. We also picked up lots of information about Tremont including Tremont’s newspaper “Inside Tremont.”
After leaving Tremont West me made our way toward the river and we ran into Allison Hurley of Simple Yard Care. Simple Yard Care is a landscaping company with a serious dedication to sustainability. They only use non-motorized hand operated tools like rakes, shovels and Reel lawn mowers (the kind with the spinning blades), and all of the fertilizer and lawn care mitigation is done with organic products. Most of their clients are in the Tremont or Ohio City area, allowing them to transport everything they need via bicycle carts that they strap to their mountain bikes. Their system works because most of the yards they service are relatively small and within a particular radius. In the same area on the corner of the street we saw a new home being built. The design of this particular home was unique and except for a few houses across the street, its style of architecture was very different from the houses that we saw earlier.
Recently Jeff Chiplis, a well known neon light sculpture and resident of Tremont, was shot while walking through his neighborhood. He is currently in recovery at Metro Hospital. An enormous amount of local media attention has been brought to the shooting. Shortly after the shooting, a meeting of 250 residents was held in Tremont to help stop crime. Chiplis has been a resident of Tremont for 30 years and feels like the shooting was exceptionally rare and encourages people to still frequent the many amenities that Tremont offers, while at the same time encourageing people to be aware of their surroundings where ever they are in the City of Cleveland.
Visiting Tremont was a fruitful experience. Lincoln park is a well-established central landmark, and towards the outskirts of the neighborhood there are signs of new life where people are building new houses and starting new projects.
-Marcus