Milt Rhodes (KF '02, KS '03) at the Mississippi Renewal Forum in October 2005.

Spring 2006 Fellow, Scholar, and Faculty Updates

The Knight Program is proud to note that several of its faculty members, fellows, and former fellows participated in the Mississippi Renewal Forum held in Biloxi, MS in October 2005 and in follow-up events, and several fellows have continued to work intensively on rebuilding the area. The Mississippi Renewal Forum gathered a team of 120 architects, planners, development experts, and other professionals. The team focused on eleven towns and three coastal communities. Knight Program faculty and fellows who participated were Knight Program Director Charles Bohl, Knight Professor Jaime Correa, School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Lolly Barnes (KF ’03), Rick Chellman (KF ’03), Geoff Dyer (KF ’06), Rick Hall (KF ’01), Michelle Jones (KF ’04), Phil Langdon (KF ’01), Neal Payton (KF ’02), Milt Rhodes (KF ’02), Tony Sease (KF ’05), and Dhiru Thadani (KF ’01). Knight Fellows Neal Payton and Dhiru Thadani also participated in a workshop in late November in which team leaders from the Forum met with citizens in the communities. Rick Chellman, Jaime Correa (Knight Professor in Community Building), and Biloxi resident Lolly Barnes have continued to work intensively in the area.

 Lester Abberger (KF ’02) was announced in February as the new president of 1000 Friends of Florida, a statewide nonprofit growth management organization. He is also a citizen member of the Tallahassee Democrat’s editorial board, a newly created initiative designed to help the newspaper see issues through the eyes of readers and residents.

Lolly Barnes (KF ’03), is running the Gulf Coast field office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in partnership with Mississippi Heritage Trust, working on restoration of several historic homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Malik Benjamin (KS ’02) began working for Touzet Studio in Downtown Miami in May 2005.  He is presently working on several urban mixed-used projects in Miami Beach, Downtown Miami and the Bahamas.

Charles C. Bohl, Knight Program Director and School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are co-editing a 2006 issue of the journal Places that explores the theme of the transect.

Tom Borrup (KF ’02) has a book coming out in June 2006. The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture is being published by Fieldstone Alliance. The book discusses culturally driven community development and provides strategies, case studies, and detailed guidance for implementing creative community building projects. Tom has been busy consulting on arts and economic/community development for foundations, public agencies, and nonprofits in Massachusetts (several projects), San Jose (two projects), New York (two projects), and Minneapolis (one project) and teaching graduate arts administration students at St. Mary's University of Minnesota. 

Peter Brown (KF ’01) has been appointed as Associate Vice President at Mercer University with responsibility for all aspects of Mercer’s civic engagement initiatives through the Mercer Center for Community Engagement. Since his Knight Program Fellowship, he has provided technical assistance to ten universities, including American University of Beruit, on developing university/community partnerships. He has an ongoing role consulting with Islamic Relief USA on the revitalization of the “Triangle of Hope” neighborhood in Detroit. He has also presented frequently on community building issues at conferences sponsored by the HUD Office of University Partnerships, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Associated New American Colleges, and other national organizations. In 2005, Mercer University was recognized as “an exemplary campus-community partnership” at a Wingspread Conference sponsored by Campus Compact, the Knight Foundation, and the Johnson Foundation and was also included as one of 81 schools nationwide designated as a “College with a Conscience” by the Princeton Review and Campus Compact.

Rusty Brown (KF ’05) is hard at work on the upcoming Knight Program charrette, to take place in Memphis, TN in July 2006. He is also Program Co-Chair of the newly formed Memphis Regional District of the Urban Land Institute, as is Carol Coletta (KF ’03). They are both on the executive committee as well.  

Hector Burga (KS ’01), who has been working for Torti Gallas and Partners, was accepted into the PhD program in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and will be attending beginning fall 2006. While at Torti Gallas, he has worked on Hope VI projects, and mixed-residential developments and taught at local colleges and universities. He is a cofounder of the "Cityzens" program at the University of Miami School of Architecture, a program geared towards the promotion of civic consciousness in the youth through the study of the built environment.

Gloria Katz (KF ’02) recently started a new nonprofit called "Smart Growth Partnership-Broward" to advocate for Smart Growth and to educate the public and elected officials on Smart Growth principles. She has received a grant from ULI and the EPA (one of four given out nationally) to form this alliance in South Florida, as well as a grant from the REALTORS Assoc. to begin the education process with speakers. 

Leslye Howerton (KS ’03) recently moved from the Torti Gallas and Partners Silver Spring, MD office (where she worked for six years) to the new Torti Gallas and Partners West Coast office in Los Angeles, which opened on September 1, 2005 under the co-direction of Neal Payton (KF ’02).

Howard Katz (KF ’03) will be moving to Charlotte, NC, where he will be part of the founding faculty at the new Charlotte School of Law.

Yon Lambert (KF ’04) left his position with Palmetto Conservation Foundation in March 2006 for a position as the pedestrian and bicycle program director for the City of Alexandria, Va.

Phil Langdon (KF ’01) and Knight Program Director Charles Bohl both contributed to the book Reston Town Center: A Downtown for the 21^st Century edited by Alan Ward (Academy Press, May 2006). The book contains essays from several contributors.

Joyce Marin (KF ’01) recently received two awards: a Recognition Award for Visionary Leadership in Emmaus Main Street Revitalization and RenewLV by the Green Valley Coalition and a Cornerstone Award for Community Development and Preservation from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, PA (the college from which she received a BA).

Daniel Parolek’s (KF ’04) firm Opticos Design opened a second office in Seaside, Florida in order to serve as Town Architect, to help implement the beachside and downtown master plan, and to work with Leon Krier on his  Seaside tower. Opticos recently won an award in the San Francisco Octavia Boulevard Housing Competition for an innovative mixed-us building type. Daniel is president of the organization committee for the Northern California Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism and a founding board member of the Form-Based Codes Institute.

Neal Payton (KF ’02) is one of the principals leading the West Coast expansion effort for Torti Gallas and Partners. The Maryland-based firm opened a full-service office in downtown Los Angeles in September 2005. Neal has been with Torti Gallas for twelve years and his projects have won numerous national, regional, and local awards including a 2006 Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism, for the planning of new neighborhoods for military families at Fort Belvoir, VA.

Russell Preston (KS ’02) is continuing his work with Cornish Associates on the design and permitting of Mashpee Commons. In addition to design work Russ is the chair of the Program Committee for the 14th annual Congress for the New Urbanism and is leading the organizing board for the third meeting of the Next Generation of the New Urbanists, which will occur at the Congress. He is also working with the New England Chapter for the New Urbanism, as a member of their board, to establish the chapter’s presence in New England through design advocacy and educational events.

Milt Rhodes (KF ’02, KS ’03) returned to Raleigh in December 2005 and continues to work as a part-time project director and charrette participate with Dover, Kohl & Partners, while he transitions back into the North Carolina planning world.

Michelle Robinson (KF ’03) was involved in March 2006 with a community tree planting project organized by the group UC Green in which volunteers planted 150 trees around two city blocks surrounding the Kingsessing Recreation Center in Philadelphia. This is an area of the city with less than one percent tree canopy cover. Michelle is on the Board of Directors of UC Green and proposed this project to the organization’s board in March 2005. She is now starting to plan a project for next spring that will involve planting about 100 trees around an elementary school near the recreation center site.

Janet Seibert (KF ’06) is working with Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) to develop their Cultural Designation Program. This is related to her Knight Program research topic “Recasting the Notion of Cultural Districts,” and is separate from her job as with the City of Austin as Civic Arts Coordinator. Her research will be a theoretical paper making the case for a Cultural Vitality Network as an alternative to a Cultural District. The work Janet is doing with TCA is the “putting-it-into-practice” component. TCA is rededicating its Cultural Trust Fund monies towards this program.  Once developed, a legislative action will be created to strengthen the House Bill passed last year that gave TCA the regulatory authority to designate cultural districts throughout the State of Texas.

Kristopher Smith (KF ’06) changed jobs in mid-December 2005, and is now senior program officer at South Florida LISC.

Peter Swift (KF ’02) was recently hired as director of Town Planning for Mid Atlantic Enterprises, Erbil, KRG, Iraq. The company is interested in sustainable development and will be involved in the reconstruction of some of the 4,000 villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein and new villages and town centers with populations of up to 20,000 people. The company also hopes to raise funding for the construction of as many as six new schools.  Peter’s work has involved trying to introduce New Urbanist planning techniques into the region. He has made presentations and had discussions with: the Council of Ministries including directors of Planning, Public Works, Housing, etc.; city mayors; and advisors to the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government. The transect has been introduced along with structural and analytical techniques of town planning and has had a very favorable reception.

Dhiru Thadani (KF ’01) has been appointed to the Board of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Kendra Wills’ (KF ’05) Knight Program research project has already yielded results: United Growth for Kent County (the project she coordinates) submitted contact information for over one hundred local, state, and national land use organizations to SBC Yellow Pages in an effort to get them to add a "Land Use" category to the yellow pages of thirteen states. The request is currently under review. This contact information has also been posted in Excel format for easy downloading at United Growth’s website at www.msue.msu.edu/unitedgrowth.

Marie L. York (KF ’03) recently received notice that the Florida Public Officials Design Institute at Abacoa, a program that she founded and directs, is being awarded its third state-wide award. 1000 Friends of Florida will be bestowing their Better Community Award to the Design Institute in 2006. Previous awards were from the Council for Sustainable Florida (Governmental Award, 2004) and the American Planning Association, Florida Chapter (Award of Merit, 2004).