The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) recently selected the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design Community Design Resource Center's (CDRC) Greater Northside Urban Design Toolkit as the recipient of the 2022 Place Planning Award included in this year's Great Places Awards. The annual awards seek to identify work combining expertise in design, research, and practice and contributing to the creation of dynamic, humane places engaging attention and imagination.

At the time of development, the CDRC's team, under the leadership of director Susan Rogers and assistant director Adelle Main, with designers Gabriela Degetau, Angelica Lastra, Jose Mario Lopez, Constanza Pena, Barbara Venegas, and consulting artist Jasleen Sari, created the Greater Northside Urban Design Toolkit in 2018 with sponsored funding from the Greater Northside Management District. The toolkit is a set of place-based design strategies promoting connectivity, enhancing public spaces, and sparking economic development while strengthening the identity of the District overall, as well as all five neighborhoods comprising it: Greater Heights, Near Northside, Northline, Independence Heights, and Eastex Jensen.

The CDRC is known for its award-winning and impactful work in Houston communities. The Center's mission is to work collaboratively with community partners to define, develop, and apply transformative design strategies bringing Houston closer to a more just and equitable city at every scale. The opportunity to develop the Urban Design toolkit through the CDRC's partnership with the Greater Northside Management District, Houston Northeast CDC, and leaders and stakeholders across the five neighborhoods directly aligns with its mission.

The toolkit was developed through five focused neighborhood workshops and four larger community meetings. Interactive visioning workshops were held in each of the five neighborhoods, where participants engaged in a collaborative mapping and brainstorming exercise informing the design opportunities and locations for intervention. The larger community meetings focused on visioning, sharing the findings from the neighborhood workshops, and exploring early design concepts and strategies. More than 150 neighborhood leaders, residents, stakeholders, elected officials, and business owners attended the meetings, sharing their vision and place expertise.  

The toolkit builds on a set of shared values developed by stakeholders to honor and amplify the community-centered stories of place, culture, history, and tradition while also weaving these stories into the broader textile of the District. As a result, the toolkit is a set of grounded design interventions specific to the contact and celebrates the existing qualities of the place.

While a project created solely by the CDRC team, in spring 2020, before the pandemic, students of Rogers' ARCH 5500 course and Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts professor Fiona McGettigan's graphic design course developed public art projects aligning with and supported by the toolkit. Three of these projects were refined and installed by the CDRC through a grant with the Northeast Houston CDC in the summer of 2021.

In addition to these three projects, the Greater Northside Management District has also implemented many proposals in the toolkit, including the Serape project (page 17) and the neighborhood scaled signs (page 8).

Since completing the toolkit in 2018, the Greater Northside Management District has continued collaborating with community leaders and other partners to work towards implementation. To date, six projects have been completed, and five are in progress. Partners include both local community development corporations, foundations, non-profit organizations, artists, students, business partners, and community stakeholders. Approximately $100,000 has been invested in completing projects from the toolkit.

The Urban Design Toolkit was developed based on two shared values. First, all planning efforts should begin and end in conversation with community leaders and stakeholders. Second, our neighborhoods' everyday streets, buildings, and infrastructure can become a basis for developing innovative design interventions. While the Urban Design Toolkit is a small and humble plan, it has dramatically impacted the District, its five neighborhoods, and all the people and organizations involved.