Week 3: Urban Farming
Caroline MThis week was pretty eventful, and I feel like I am just trying to soak up as much as I can learn in the short amount of time I am at Nashville Civic Design Center. The beginning of the week I continued to work on the design of the outdoor exhibit that I have talked about in earlier posts. Then on Tuesday I was told that this fall they would publish a book about the competition and exhibit, so I have started doing a layout in InDesign and made several potential covers.
On Thursday I began helping out with another project known as Sacred Spaces for the Magdalene House in Nashville. This is a really neat program that helps women who have survived lives of violence, prostitution, and addiction, and helps them get their lives back on track. A local landscape architect designed a large outdoor garden/sacred space for this organization, and NCDC is helping promote this and help raise funds. So I did a large hand rendering of their design and I am currently working on 3D renderings for the presentation this coming Friday.
My favorite part of this past week was the Urban Design Forum that Nashville Civic Design Center hosted on Thursday after work. These forums are held once a month usually at our downtown office, and they are open to the public. We have food and drinks and typically a guest speaker will come and talk about a prevalent issue in the community. This month’s topic was about urban farming so instead we went to this neat place only 10 miles from downtown called Green Door Gourmet, an organic farm that sells produce and herbs to local restaurants and people, and they have a small organic grocery store on site. NCDC is big on supporting your local Farmer’s Market and they encourage urban farming. So we got a tour of their lands and afterwards had the most delicious fruits, vegetables, and cheeses I have ever tasted.
As far as legal recognition, professional interaction, and so on, NCDC functions a little differently since it is a non-profit and a collaboration of many different types of people involved in urban design. The designers in the office have degrees in architecture, some with a Masters in urban design, and they are members of AIA. NCDC is very involved in the community; in fact that is pretty much what we are all about. NCDC has many different ways of raising awareness of different topics and educating the community on urban design, such as their urban forums, documentaries, book publication, case studies, etc. They show people that you do not have to be a designer to take part in the design of your community. It is fascinating to me how many people NCDC works with on a regular basis such as Metro Planning Department, Metro Housing/Development, Transportation department, the mayor, the congressman, just about every architecture/landscape/design firm around town, art committees, and so on. It just goes to show that design really does affect every aspect of our lives.
This is Stephanie McCullough, yet another UT architecture grad. Stephanie is the Communications and Community Outreach Coordinator, which basically means she does all of the public relations/marketing type stuff. She is hilarious and definitely brings a lot of personality to the office. Stephanie is very talented at what she does, and before coming to NCDC, she worked for Hargreaves in San Francisco.
Reader Comments (1)
Glad that you are able to provide your expertise and talent in graphic design! Look forward to seeing what you produce in InDesign for the book cover and the 3D renderings for Magdalene House, which is a fantastic project. Share pictures of the design of the sacred garden space when you can. The business practice class probably did not go into discussing non-profits much. Your experience working in one is invaluable. Glad you are taking advantage of what Nashville has to offer, and the rich programs offered by the Urban Design Forum is exciting. Very smart of you to participate in all that you can take in. When posting links, don't forget to use the link tool at the top of the editor. Type in the name of what you want to link (actual name of the site) and when the box opens, paste the link and save. When you finish your post, readers will be able to click on the name and be taken to the site. I've corrected the link you posted. Keep the links coming, and feel free to link as many places as you can. On this post you could include NCDC, Magdalene House, and Urban Design Forum, etc.