Merritt Chase is on the road!

Image Credit: Exhibit Columbus

Image Credit: Exhibit Columbus

Join Merritt Chase this week as we travel across the Midwest to Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Columbus.

You can find Chris at the Public x Design Conference in Detroit, MI, and Nina at the Urban Manufacturing Alliance Pittsburgh Gathering in Pittsburgh, PA.

Both Chris and Nina will be attending the Exhibit Columbus National Symposium, in Columbus, IN, for a weekend chock-full of modern landscape architecture and architecture. Chris is currently serving on the Exhibit Columbus Curatorial Advisory Committee.

Merritt Chase shortlisted for redesign of Shaker Square in Cleveland, OH

Merritt Chase, with team members Utile, ThirdSpace Action Lab, Nelson Nygaard, HR&A Advisors, and Osborn Engineering, has been shortlisted for the redesign of Shaker Square in Cleveland, OH.

Led by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and Land Studio, the request for proposal invited designers to propose a robust process and design vision to transform the civic space on Cleveland's east side.

Merritt Chase joins Hargreaves, Melk!, and Realm Collaborative/Agency Landscape + Planning as a shortlisted team.

What does it mean to engage in activism through design? To engage in design through activism?

Image Credit: the Ian L. McHarg Center

Image Credit: the Ian L. McHarg Center

The recently opened Ian L. McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania posed the following question to design practitioners and academics: What does it mean to engage in activism through design? To engage in design through activism?

Read the responses here, including Nina Chase's essay about working proactively, as opposed to reactively, in the field of landscape architecture. Inspired by the Landscape Architecture Foundation's New Landscape Declaration (and the subsequent Olmsted Scholar's response), Nina offers the following actions as a working blueprint for design activism: show up, start small, get loud. 

Bae Bae's Greenhouse opens as Pittsburgh's first Spark

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Bae Bae's Greenhouse opened this week! The Greenhouse was designed as part of the City of Pittsburgh’s Spark Pilot program. The Spark program aims to create safe, active complete streets by creating extensions for sidewalk activities in existing parking spaces. The Greenhouse, while small in size was made possible by a big effort of many including Bae Bae's Kitchen, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Microsoft, Technique Architectural Products, Earthspan, and Ethos Collaborative. Learn more about how the Greenhouse is designed as smart, pop-up green infrastructure at www.baebaesgreenhouse.com. The Greenhouse is designed with sensors to track stormwater collection and air quality and will be live tweeting soon. Follow along on Twitter @BaeBaesGreen!

Chris invited to join Exhibit Columbus Curatorial Advisory Committee

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Chris Merritt joins the 2018-19 Exhibit Columbus Curatorial Advisory Committee. The Committee helps to further develop Exhibit Columbus as an innovative program that builds dynamic cultural projects in Columbus, IN. The 2018-19 Curatorial Advisors represent architecture, art, and design, and community through a myriad of professions: curatorial and scholarly work, architecture and design practice, public relations, graphic design, criticism, publishing, and education.

Learn more about Exhibit Columbus's National Symposium, September 26th-29th here. 

Nina joins the City of Pittsburgh's Contextual Design Advisory Panel (CDAP)

The Contextual Design Advisory Panel (CDAP) is comprised of 8 members with expertise in the physical development of Pittsburgh. The panel's mission is "promoting quality of life in the City of Pittsburgh." To fulfill this mission, CDAP advises the Department of City Planning by reviewing and providing design guidance on selected, higher profile projects throughout the City. Learn more about CDAP here.