Introduction Video of Design 3 Sidewalk Citizenship Studio Fall 2021
Channel: Andrew Hart
Date: 2021-12-08

Welcome to our introductory video for our studio.

Linking to previously established resources, research, and community contacts, the students of B.Arch 2nd Year and M.Arch 1st year studios study the community, built environment, culture, music, and sidewalks of Sharswood - a neighborhood located in North Philadelphia.



...this is a draft and will be continued....

This neighborhood falls into the historically 'Redlined' areas of the city places which would not receive loans and investment due to economic, and racially prejudicial banking practices which are illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Home_Owners%27_Loan_Corporation_Philadelphia_redlining_map.jpg


But the story of the neighborhood is richer and more complex than a bank loan map - it is also the home of Pearl Baily, John Coltrane, the recording studio of Patti LaBelle, and Meek Mill. For decades starting the Dixie Hummingbirds Sharswood and Ridge Avenue have been the cradle of jazz, R+B, blue-eyed soul, *and* Hip-hop.
https://www.phillyvoice.com/john-coltrane-house-philly-museum-preservation-blight-strawberry-mansion/


The neighborhood has long been noted for its many gardens, window boxes, empty lots repurposed and reclaimed as gardens, BBQs, and outdoor gathering spaces. Home to a wide variety of religious spaces of Christian and Muslim beliefs and service.

Above all Sharswood has maintained a strong commitment to community at the level of neighbors talking on a stoop, and gathering as a community to fight against injustice, racism, and oppression.
http://northerncity.library.temple.edu/exhibits/show/civil-rights-in-a-northern-cit/collections/desegregation-of-girard-colleg/what-interpretative-essay

Athletics Recreation Square (and the rec center) is the historic home to some of the earliest games for all of the well known Philadelphia (and formerly Philly) baseball teams across several leagues. to this day the boxing ring in the rec center sends young athletes from the neighborhood to the Olympics, while also providing STEAM extracurricular activities for kids and parents. The staff at Athletic Rec have been an continue to be leaders in the Philadelphia Park and Recreation network and the people and spaces in the square the connective meeting ground of gardeners, sporting teams, kids, grandparents, jazzmen, block captains, community meetings, dance recitals, checker games, music, and all the nuanced elements that come together to create community.
https://billypenn.com/2017/09/13/athletic-rec-center-where-philly-baseball-got-its-start-and-young-boxers-train/

This video provides a brief overview of the students' learning objectives which will continue into the next semester as they learn and are challenged as young designers to advocate, address, and amplify the cultural strengths of this community.

Understand Genus Loci (Spirit of Place)of Sharswood
Process the Values of the space, and value the research, conversation and creative process
Improve individual input and group progress
Practice “Sidewalk Citizenship” (bring our skill as designers, communicators, and students to listen, amplify and share the stories, designs, and culture through our skills of representation, design in a way that brings the strengths of our abilities and stretches us into new territory)

Not shown in the video are studies from earlier this semester.  through research, local archives of news and statistics, market reports, real estate surveys, historic resources, and prior student and neighborhood work with community organizations - students investigated the Rowhouse as a housing typology that is simultaneously a very specific and widely adaptable housing type in the city as a whole and Sharswood in specific. Working with local neighbors as 'clients' students designed spaces that would augment and nourish the community connected aspects that the neighbors valued the most in their homes, their blocks, and their sidewalks. Students designed not with their own voice but rather, as amplifiers for the voice of their client, inherently valuing community and client over the ego or form of the designer. Our focus has been architecture of and for PEOPLE and community.