Public opinion does matter!!

During my last semester in Charleston I got to have a first-hand experience with the role of public participation in a city planning. Charleston's largest suburb West Ashley has an expansive master plans to shape its future. West Ashley Master Plan, the document carefully crafted over the past year by city contractor Dover Kohl and the 19-member West Ashley Revitalization Commission to offer a new vision for the community was put into action this year. The plan sets short and long-term goals to improve West Ashley's roads, drainage systems, bike and pedestrian paths, and the appearance of aging commercial areas such as Sam Rittenburg Boulevard and Savannah Highway. There has been extensive public participation for this master plan. We as a part of the studio project looked at reshaping the Sam Rittenburg Boulevard which apparently is one of the major intersections of that suburb. The city proposed a huge landscaped park for that area but the public apparently wanted more they wanted an iconic public building which became a defining landmark for this area. During our reviews we invited the public representatives for some feedback on our designs. On one hand when we as architects were discussing how the look of the building should respond to the context and much more. The public however did not see it that way. They imagined that building to be very modern and completely out of context. This took us all by surprise.

This experience was an eye opener for me in various ways. Many times we as Architects get stuck with smaller and more practical issues or vice versa and it was surprising for me to experience how someone with no experience in architecture looked at the bigger picture and talked about how one building could impact the entire community at a bigger level. I now feel that maybe it should be a mandate to have this amount of public involvement for any public building small or big as it gives us Architects another lens to view the entire scenario.