Better images of the Boards

We’ve scanned the Deuel County vision boards, so the slideshow below has much better images. You can also check out the boards and other photos from the Deuel County charrette on Flickr.

The theme of our charrette this year became “Deuelities.” A play on ‘Deuel’ and ‘Duality.’ A duality is a relationship between two things, where both are different, but something is shared. That’s pretty much what we saw and heard in Deuel–several individual communities with identities of their own, but connected by a commonality or shared space and culture. County boundaries are certainly just imaginary political lines, but Deuel County communities have an opportunity for bigger things by connecting and working together.

Meet the Deueling Team

Hello Deuel County! The design:SD team is 17 members strong and gearing up as we speak to head to Deuel on Wednesday. You can get a glimpse of who will be helping the Deuelites–just check out the team roster. (Of course, the roster is subject to change. It almost always does!)

Tom Reasoner and I will be co-leading the charrette this time around, with Larry Crane and Alan Weiskamp helping to make sense of the chaos in the design studio. Tom is the big picture seer. I’m more of the process-sergeant. Hopefully together we’re a lovely yin and yang.

An upfront thanks to all the sponsors making this charrette possible: Rural Learning Center in Howard, SD, American Institute of Architects-South Dakota, and Deuel Area Development Inc. Also thanks to the City of Clear Lake for providing a space to work and for a bunch of wonderful local volunteers who are really making this happen.

We haven’t even held our team orientation yet, but we already have co-MVP’s of this charette. Super props to Briana Hoffman and Lindsey Karlson for pulling it all together.

Cheers.
Joe Bartmann

Design:SD Heads to Deuel County this Week

The folks in Deuel County can expect a little extra excitement this week. A group of 18 architects, landscape architects, engineers, planners, and community development professionals will spend three days in Deuel at the end of this week (March 26-28) for Design: South Dakota.

Design: South Dakota, now in its third year, is a is a new way to help rural communities across South Dakota create a better future by design, where architects, engineers, planners and community developers volunteer to help South Dakota’s small towns gather and illustrate ideas for their future.

The 3-plus day design:SD event, called a “charrette,” is described by project leaders as a “mixing bowl” of local knowledge, ideas and visions for the future, with the expertise and experience of professionals from outside the community.

The Deuel County community has been preparing for the event since the fall of 2008, when they were selected as the next Design: SD community. Recently, Deuel Area Development (a local non-profit development corporation) has hosted a series of roundtable discussions leading up the charrette. The topics have included: agriculture, main street business, healthcare, recreation, young families, and uses for the former school for the blind property. The information harvested from these conversations was sent to Design team members to help them prepare and understand the community a bit before the three day event.

“The design charrette is the shortest portion of the process, when you consider the work that must be done before and after the event,” said Joe Bartmann, co-leader of the d:SD, Project Deuel County. “The ideas that are illustrated have, in many ways, been long in the making for a community—and when the design team leaves it is up to the community to follow-through and make the ideas a reality.”

If you’re a Deuel County resident, or simply interested in learning more about Design:SD, you’re invited to several community events during the charrette. Events, times, and locations are listed below.

• Thursday, March 26th, 2:00 pm–Meet and Greet the Design Team–Alibi in Gary, SD
• Thursday, March 26th, 6:00 pm–Community Visioning Dinner–Clear Lake Community Center
• Friday, March 27th, 2:00 pm–Public Feedback Session–Clear Lake Community Center
• Saturday, March 28th, 10:00 am–Community Presentation–Clear Lake Community Center

The Sisseton Boards

We’ll be bringing the laminated concept boards back to the folks in Sisseton next week. Below is the final presentation we used last month. You can see a bunch of pictures from design:SD Project Sisseton here.

New Look, New Schedule

The new images for Project Sisseton are fresh off the presses. Thanks to Bobbi Gaukel at one8y creative for the hard work on these.

        

We’ve also updated the Project Sisseton schedule. Just click here or on the image below to download a pdf of the full schedule, or a short version of public events.

Visioning Works Both Ways

Below is a letter written to a number of newspaper editors in South Dakota by design:SD team member Sandy Dickenson of Vermillion, SD.  Hope you enjoy it:

I recently had an opportunity to be a volunteer on the first “design:South Dakota” team. The team consisted of architects, engineers, planners and rural developers and was the result of collaboration between the Rural Learning Center, the South Dakota Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and others.  The community selected was Corsica, SD, population about 650.  The team of twelve spent nearly three days in Corsica living with host families.  We learned about the community one day, drew up visioning ideas the second day, presenting them to the community the third.  I think the townspeople were very pleased with the results.

The most surprising part of the exercise was what I learned.  I am unarguably citified but have spent a fair amount of time visiting many of the communities in South Dakota.  I thought I knew this state pretty well…….boy, was I wrong!  My vision of rural South Dakota was completely blown away.  Here’s what I learned:

Team Says Good Bye to Corsica (for now)

The “Original” d:SD Team (pictured l to r, back row first): Alan Wieskamp, Scott Anderson, Joe Bartmann, Eric Ambroson, Lindsey Karlson, Tom Reasoner, Sandy Dickenson and Jim Beddow. Not pictured: Mike Knutson, Terry Aaker and John Deppe.

We did it! We wrapped up the first ever design:SD charrette on Saturday May 19 with a presentation of 16 concept boards to the Corsica regional community. Take a look below:

We have a lot of sweat equity into these boards. Eleven team members spent two and a half days (and much of a couple nights) learning, sketching, designing and illustrating ideas and options for the future based on the many visions of the folks in the Corsica region.

Lots of local people put in tons of time and effort too. It was truly a mixing bowl, and an experience many of us will not forget. We’ll laminate the boards and put together a summary document for the Corsica community. We’ll be sure to get the edited copies of the presentation video (thanks Evan) to the community too.

Learning Studio

We’re here! The team arrived in Corsica last night for a welcome social (see the pictures below–these are “pre-bar” pics). Thanks to Corsica for a great welcome!

  

We’re well into the “Learning Studio” today. This morning we heard from a dozen or so local and regional organizations, a panel of local merchants, and a high school student. We’re just finishing up the “Rountable” discussions on six different topics, and are about to jump on the bus for a tour of hte community and region.

  

We’ll finish off the Learning Studio tonight with a Community Potluck, where we’ll gather the many dreams and visions for the Corsica region’s future.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Entering Phase 2: The Charrette

The design:SD process has three equally important stages:

1. Research, Education and Preparation
2. The Charrette Event
3. Implementation

Today we’re taking a deep dive into part 2 in Corsica. Tonight the team (now 13 people strong!) will gather at the Corsica Legion Hall with host families and local volunteers for some get-to-know-each-other time and an orientation to what lies ahead for them during this three-day journey. Tomorrow morning, the intensity level gets kicked up a few notches as we begin the “Learning Studio,” followed by the “Design Studio” on Friday and the Community Presentation on Saturday morning (click here to see the schedule).

The Charrette (today through Saturday)  is what we’ve been fussing about and anticipating for months, but it’s really just one part. Organizers and volunteers have poured big effort and countless time into getting Project Corsica ready to roll. We’ll also spend a lot of time on Stage 3 after the Design Team leaves on Saturday.

Learning Studio schedule

Here is the latest schedule for the Thursday (May 17) Learning Studio portion of the design:SD charrette in Corsica.

dsd-thursday-sched.pdf