KNIGHT PROGRAM IN COMMUNITY BUILDING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE MARKS ITS ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

 March 5, 2002—With the final fellowship seminar for its inaugural class in March 2002, the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami School of Architecture will culminate its first full year of activities. In this short period, the Knight Program has launched a unique interdisciplinary program aimed at breaking down the barriers between the professions engaged in community building and advancing holistic approaches to building better places to live, work, and engage in civic life. The first year of the program witnessed the launch of a mid-career fellowship program, a graduate scholarship program, a publication series, and a series of groundbreaking seminars and events, with more planned for year two of the program.

The Knight Program addresses today’s urgent issues associated with community building, including the complex problems of suburban sprawl and inner-city disinvestment. The program’s goal is to advance the knowledge and practice of community building across disciplines. The Knight Program builds on the strengths of the University of Miami School of Architecture as an international leader in teaching and research on the planning and design of livable communities.

The Community Building Fellowships, which are the heart of the Knight Program, are awarded annually to a diverse group of twelve distinguished mid-career professionals with an active interest in the interdisciplinary process of community building. Fellows include economic and community development professionals, housing experts, transportation specialists, architects, planners, scholars, community leaders, policymakers, journalists, and theorists. Each year the fellowship focuses on a different theme. During the first year the focus was on revitalization issues at the neighborhood and community scale. The second year of the Knight Program will concentrate on suburban development and regional growth.

“The most gratifying development has been fostering the exchange of ideas among the fellows and observing the professional relationships and collaborations that have been formed as a result of the Knight Program,” says Charles C. Bohl, director of the Knight Program. “One of the program’s major objectives is to bring together professionals from diverse fields and encourage them to share their knowledge and resources. The program has more than met this goal – we have fellows now who are consulting each other on a regular basis for a variety of projects.”

During this past year, the Knight Program has organized several conferences and events, including:

• A intensive community design workshop (“charrette”) held in November 2001 focusing on the revitalization of Beall’s Hill, an inner-city, low-income neighborhood in Macon Georgia.
• The “New Plazas for New Mexico” symposium in October 2001, in which several scholars and practitioners discussed ways to revitalize, repair and reintroduce the plaza as a premier public gathering place and a setting for community building activities.
• The Congress for the New Urbanism IX in Manhattan in June 2001: the Knight Program funded the attendance of the twelve Knight Fellows and two graduate students at this annual interdisciplinary conference on the building and revitalization of livable communities.
• The “First Transect Seminar” in April 2001, sponsored jointly with the Yale School of Architecture; this seminar focused on the Rural-Urban Transect, a cutting-edge concept advancing a unified theory linking human ecology, the natural environment, and urban and regional planning.
• “Place Making 2001” in Miami Beach in September 2001: the Knight Program funded the attendance of the twelve Knight Fellows at this annual conference sponsored by the Urban Land Institute focusing on the planning, design, financing and development of town centers, main streets and urban villages.
• All of the year’s meetings included local case studies to educate and instruct the Knight Fellows. Held in conjunction with the seminars and conferences, case studies have included New Haven, Bridgeport, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, and Macon. Fellows have met with mayors, city staff, private developers, historians, residents, and journalists and have learned about a variety of methods and strategies of community building.
   

In addition, the Knight Program’s publication program has already contributed significantly to the topic of community building by producing/supporting a variety of publications including:

• The New Urban Post, a topical newspaper-style publication with themed issues (August 2001 “On Certification,” October 2001 “On Gentrification,” and March 2002 “On the Environment”).
• The Council Report, a bi-annual publication featuring commentary and critiques on cutting-edge planning and urban design, resulting from Council meetings of the Congress of New Urbanism.
• Charrette-related publications which include both a pre-charrette and post-charrette 12-page newspaper insert distributed to 30,000 people in Macon, a brochure summarizing the master plan and strategic recommendations of the design team, a comprehensive website (www.BeallsHill.net), and a final report on the charrette.
• Knight Program in Community Building website (www.arc.miami.edu and click on “Knight Program”).
• Council for the New Urbanism website (www.charrettecenter.com/designcouncil).
• Publication of the Knight Program Fellows’ research: will be available through the website and through hard copies.
• The Knight Program supports the New Urban Press, a publishing initiative in the development stage that will publish books, pamphlets and research reports on community building and New Urbanism written by UM faculty, alumni, experts in the field and Knight Program Fellows.

During the first year of the Program, many of the twelve Knight Fellows exceeded the already stringent requirements of the fellowship by voluntarily going above and beyond expectations time and again. Some highlights include:

• Cecilia Holloman, a Community Builder for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), who played a crucial role in the University of Miami’s revitalization initiatives in West Coconut Grove by facilitating several workshops and encouraging communication among the disparate community groups. She has been retained as a consultant for these efforts. She also played an instrumental role as a facilitator at the Knight Program charrette in Macon, Georgia. In addition, as part of her Knight Fellowship, she developed a “Toolkit for Controlling Gentrification,” which identifies valuable resources for preserving affordable housing in revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods.
• Lee Sobel, a commercial real estate expert with CB Richard Ellis’ Investment Properties Group’s Miami office, wrote “Greyfields to Goldfields,” a report on strategies for redeveloping dead shopping malls into mixed-use neighborhoods. He also wrote Greyfields No More, a publication expanding on the report that will be published by the Congress for the New Urbanism.
• Ken Hughes, a state planner for the State of New Mexico, who organized a major symposium entitled “New Plazas for New Mexico” in October 2001, in which scholars and practitioners discussed ways to revitalize, repair, and reintroduce plazas. The symposium is documented on a website (www.charrettecenter.com/newplazas).
• Peter Brown, a professor of philosophy at Mercer University, played a vital role in this year’s charrette. Peter not only was the liaison between the Knight Program and the community of Macon, but he has assumed the role of community activist and has tirelessly promoted the importance of revitalizing the area through activism, meetings, newspaper editorials, and other local initiatives. 
• Benjamin Starrett, managing director of the Collins Center for Public Policy, developed a fellowship project that will establish an urban design center focusing on community building initiatives in Overtown and other South Florida communities. Starrett is developing materials for the Knight Program website comparing the different models for urban design centers in the United States and drafting a prototypical business plan for creating urban design centers.

“The Knight Fellowship has been a real education and a wonderful experience,” says Knight Fellow Cecilia Holloman. “I have actually learned a little about traffic engineering, city planning, zoning, architecture and design, and historic preservation in addition to my area of expertise in financial and community development and grassroots organizational development. More importantly, the charrette process and interaction with pioneers in New Urbanism have given me a personal appreciation and comprehensive understanding of how design and human sociology blend to foster successful community building…My knowledge and skills have been enhanced as a result of mutual sharing of expertise and experiences with some of the most creative and dynamic minds in the country.”

The Knight Program in Community Building also awards full scholarships to five graduate students enrolled in the University of Miami School of Architecture’s program in Suburb and Town Design. The Knight Scholars benefit from their involvement in Knight Program research projects and publications (each student works ten hours per week for the Program) and from the opportunity to interact with the Knight Fellows. The Knight Scholars, along with the other students in the Suburb and Town Design Program, play an active role in the Knight Program’s annual charrette, functioning as the core of the design team. Their work is featured in charrette-related publications, exhibitions in the School of Architecture’s gallery, and collaborative work with the Fellows.

The Knight Program is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of twenty-six U.S. communities. The Knight Program in Community Building extends the Foundation’s commitment to community service with a mid-career program of professional development.