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Over the last decade Downtown Dallas has diversified its offerings from a single use office district to include cultural, residential, and entertainment opportunities 24/7. Today’s Downtown Dallas has a rich history of neighborhoods with unique identities and wide range of uses. As Downtown continues to evolve and strengthen its neighborhoods, it is critical to understand the lineage of socio-cultural character, design, and urban fabric that has given the neighborhoods their unique identity. While these identities are malleable, they can impact the direction of development in neighborhoods. Knowing the narratives of identities empowers neighborhoods to evolve stronger representational identities that emerge through their own stories and adds value to them. To illustrate the variety of these evolutions, we trace back Downtown Dallas Districts through this blog post.
Read MorePOPonymy - An Interpretive Typology of Dallas Neighborhood Names
Dallas neighborhood names speak volumes about the city’s complexion. Just as our words offer insight into our character, the way the city describes itself and names its parts- its toponymy- offer insight into its anatomy, its aspirations, its values, and its history. Rather than a study of the origin of individual place names, this is a typology of toponymy, revealing the city’s values through categories of place names. Neighborhoods are the building blocks of cities; what information can we elicit about the city collectively from the kind of names it gives it components?
Read More[bc] and Downtown Dallas 360
Over the past two months, [bc] has participated in six public events for Downtown Dallas 360, the recently revisited master planning process undertaken by the member-based Downtown advocacy organization Downtown Dallas, Inc (DDI) and its project partners. [bc] is among those partners, teaming up with DDI to incorporate Draw Your Neighborhood into the 360 engagement process.
Read MorePOP at the DHL Boot Camp!
Two weeks ago, as part of our year long POP Neighborhood Map engagement process, [bc] participated in the annual Dallas Homeowners League (DHL) Boot Camp. This years DHL gathering, titled "Return of the City", brought together neighborhood leaders from across Dallas for a day of discussions and best practice-sharing.
Read MoreThe History of the POP Neighborhood Map
[bc] has always aspired to impact neighborhoods across the state by using design to build capacity and empower communities. In Dallas, [bc] reasoned that in order to support neighborhoods through our work, we first needed to know what and where the neighborhoods of Dallas were, launching what was then known as the Dallas Neighborhoods Project.
Read MoreIntroducing the POP Neighborhood Map blog!
The POP Neighborhood Map Blog is a new digital platform that will chronicle the evolution of the POP Neighborhood Map and expounds why neighborhoods matter. The launch of this blog coincides with the launch of two new interactive digital tools - Know Your Neighborhood and Draw Your Neighborhood - the most recent effort of our ongoing POP Neighborhood Map project.
Read MoreWelcoming Andrew Kramer!
Andrew Kramer has been involved with the nonprofit community in Dallas for seven years, primarily as a fundraiser. His experience has ranged from working with Texas inmates on entrepreneurship and business planning to helping feed local communities at the North Texas Food Bank. Andrew comes to bcWORKSHOP with a strong interest in enabling communities to collaboratively work to solve local problems and improve their livability in changing conditions. Andrew graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin, and received a MBA from Texas Christian University. He is an Eagle Scout, and was awarded a full year scholarship to study in Germany as part of the Fulbright program. Andrew has been a lifelong volunteer working with a variety of organizations focusing on youth and adult literacy, homelessness and hunger issues. Andrew lives in North Oak Cliff with his family and three dogs.
Instruments for User Impacted Space
By Andrew Tran
How can the effects of city regulations and zoning code on urban form be better understood such that they promote open space and improve place quality?
Read MorePlotting Our Foodshed
By Roger Mainor
What is the food landscape in Dallas, and how does this affect choice and the accessibility of food in the city?
Read MoreThe Geography of Digital Access
By Melanie Wood
How do local choices in digital connectivity shape both the way we access knowledge and our interactions with the city as a whole?
Read MorePsychology as a Design Tool?
By Jesse Miller
What tools can architects develop through research on psychology and social issues to more deeply understand clients and context, and to better address social problems? How can architects better work toward addressing social problems? By more deeply understanding and engaging clients and context.
Read MoreThe [Short] History
By Emily Axtman
Harlingen, TX is located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which is comprised of 4 counties: Starr, Hidalgo, Willacy and Cameron. Both Harlingen and Brownsville are in Cameron County. Harlingen, 30 miles west of the Gulf of Mexico and 15 miles north of the US / Mexico border, enjoys warm (or hot in August) gulf breezes and plenty of tropical vegetation — my favorite being the Sabal palm tree.
Read MoreDallas to Brownsville
By Emily Axtman
My name is Emily Axtman and I've been a bcFELLOW for 8 months at bcWORKSHOP, Since November, I've been working on the La Hacienda Casitas project, a low income housing development in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). I've been lucky enough to work on this project from schematic design through to the construction documents and am now following the project down to Harlingen (where the project is breaking ground in one week!) to be a part of the construction process first-hand.
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