Our First Field Trip!

I just received confirmation from Steve Christo, Director of the Frisoli Youth Center that he will give us a tour on Saturday, December 10th @ 1 pm. Whoever is available to attend can meet at my house @ 12:15 and we can head down there together. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post if you are able to attend and whether you would like to carpool or meet us down there.

Steve indicated that he would be happy to entertain any questions we had about the planning and design process for the youth center and about anything else we can think of. I will be formulating a list of questions that I will email to him. If anyone has anything that they would like to add to this list, please forward them to my email or leave a comment below the post.

The green marker on the map points to 61 Willow Street.

John: Please invite Pastor Ray and anyone else who you think would be interested in this field trip.

The Art of the Bubble Diagram

What I find particularly fun and engaging about working with an interdisciplinary team (like the one John has assembled to develop the strategic plan for TEC children's ministry) is that everyone gets to share what they know and impart their knowledge for the benefit of the group. I quite enjoy the part where I get to share what I know with others. It's kind of like the old Christmas adage that it is better to give than to receive, but not exactly. I find the giving and the receiving to be equally appealing, especially when I have the opportunity to share something that I am familiar with and in the end, develop a more intimate understanding of the subject for myself. But I digress.

In our last meeting, John had asked for a definition of a bubble diagram. So what I thought I might do here is to describe a little about what I know about bubble diagrams and how I've discovered others use them.

Bubble diagrams are essentially visual representations of the relationships between different elements within a design.

Architects and other designers of three dimensional space like to use them as tools that allow an idea about a series of relationships to be documented quickly. The bubbles are usually labeled (as in the diagram above) and different-sized bubbles within a diagram are often used to explain relationships of scale between different elements. The idea behind doing them quickly is so that many different ideas can be developed quickly without getting too tied down to any one idea too quickly.

The bubble diagram above is an architectural concept describing the relationship between many different elements in a building program. Usually bubble diagrams begin with very round shaped bubbles and become more rectilinear as a project progresses, reflecting the development and decision-making of the design process. I have included several other types of bubble diagrams below ranging from an exhibit planning diagram, to a site/landscape planning diagram and from the simple to the complex. We may use several types of bubble diagrams as we master plan the TEC Youth Center project.

Here is a succinct description (click on the "begin here" button at the top) of what bubble diagrams are often used for in the world of architecture. Here are some other interior/architectural bubble diagrams to ponder.

What is a Concept?

I guess you could start with a dictionary definition, but it still leaves you wanting more . .

con·cept (kon’ cept’) n. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences. Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion. A scheme. A plan; i.e. “We began searching for an agency to handle a new restaurant concept.” An abstract idea or notion.

I like the way Wiregrass Church of Dothan, Alabama describes the concept of how their church functions:

We have designed our church to function like a home. We invite guests to the foyer, develop friendships in the living room, and grow as a family around the kitchen table.

Very simple, straightforward and easy to understand. No explanation required. I think a good, solid concept can create the environment in which creativity can flourish. A good concept needs to establish some basic boundaries, but should allow for a process of continual polishing and expansion which will serve to strengthen it, enhance it and eventually, ratify it. A successful concept will be blessed with wings and take flight.

Youthful by Design

I had the pleasure of attending the Build Boston show down at the World Trade Center last week and got to see a lot of really beautiful design work by some excellent local architects. Every year they honor area architects by posterizing images of their local projects at the show for everyone to see. The show is mainly for architects and design professionals to attend seminars catered to the field, local field trips and a large trade show. The highlight for me was seeing the depth and breadth of the work done by local design firms. I wasn't the only one drawn to the images of the projects, I noticed lots of other attendees who were taken in by the scope and power of the work.

Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to find the time to do further research into some of the firms whose work I was inspired by and share some photographs and links of what I've found. Here are some images of a recent project by Boston firm Spagnolo Gisness & Associates for Dunkin' Donuts Corporate Headquarters. It seems to embody some of the characteristics that I think are appealing to kids: Bold color, interesting and unique use of materials, cool furniture and lighting and comfortable, homey finishes. Probably not a whole lot different than many adults would appreciate!

Blessings!

Jeff

Local Field Trip Opportunities

Images of the Judge Baker Children's Center, Boston, MA (click to enlarge)

Judge Baker Children's Center, 53 Parker Avenue, Boston, MA

Judge Baker Children's Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children whose emotional and behavioral problems threaten to limit their potential. The Center strives to provide services of the highest standard, to search for new knowledge, to teach, and to apply and disseminate knowledge.
I'm not sure what the complete building program is, but it has a gymnasium with adjacent classrooms and was designed by a Boston-based firm called Steffian Bradley. (Three project photos from their website are shown above.)

Frisoli Youth Center, 61 Willow Street, Cambridge, MA

Beth used to work with a woman whose husband is the director of this facility. We had the opportunity to photograph the opening event and get a tour of the facility the weekend it opened back in 1998. As I recall they have a good size gymnasium, workout room, classrooms and a computer lab. I believe it's a two story structure, half of which is submerged.

I'm going to contact Stephen Christo this week to see when would be a good time for him to give us a tour of the facility.

Here is an article that I found on the web that offers a brief description of the facility and it's programs:

Nations Cities Weekly (March 9, 1998)
The Frisoli Center gives Cambridge youth a positive place to go. The Frisoli Youth Center in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, provides recreational and educational facilities for the city's youth.

With the opening of the new Frisoli Youth Center last October, the children of East Cambridge, Mass. have a positive, supervised environment with. an array of recreational and educational activities for after school hours and Saturdays. Replacing rented rooms in a local church that served 25 to 30 participants a day, the new $4 million center serves as many as 150 a day. One of five city youth centers, and the third involving new construction, the project demonstrates the continuing commitment of the city to responding to the need for expanded facilities for its youth.

The Frisoli center is situated on formerly underutilized tennis courts at the Harrington School/Donnelly field Complex in a densely populated area. It is named for a former East Cambridge resident who served as the city's superintendent of schools and devoted many years to organizing youth sports programs.
The building was designed to blend in with the neighborhood, and its . . .

Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Cambridge, 170 Rindge Avenue, Cambridge, MA

The Cambridge Vineyard recently purchased a Catholic church in the Porter Square area of Cambridge. I haven't been there myself, but I've heard that they've employed some interesting strategies to make the traditional design of the church more functional for their needs. They have also employed some new A/V technologies as well, from what I've heard.

The Power of Blogging . . .

I've been thinking that it would be great if the team had some kind of web presence that allowed everyone to share ideas both inside and outside the planning team. Blogging gives us all the opportunity to share what we've found, express what we're thinking and receive feedback in a collaborative way. I'm fairly new to this sort of thing, but it appears as though there are many websites that will provide you with the tools and server space to build and host your blog (short for "weblog") completely free of charge. This blog is hosted by our friends at Google, which appears to be hosting thousands (maybe even millions) of blogs to date. The blog software is incredibly simple to use and requires only a browser like Internet Explorer, Mozilla or Firefox (my favorite) to create and edit your blog.

If anyone else on the team is interested in learning more about blogging, I can show you what I know on any Sunday morning and set you up with the user name and password for this blog, so that you can post to the blog as well. The blog can also be set up to receive messages, or "posts" which are comments that are attached by viewers of the blog who do not have access to editting the blog.

I'm currently compiling a list of competent, creative blogs that I have come across and will add them to the blog as I come across them.

Jeff