Tag: Prototyping

Refined Prototype Furniture Returns to Heart of the City

Prototyping is a way to inform designs before they’re final. Over the years, you’ve seen DMC, the City of Rochester, and the Rochester Downtown Alliance prototype in multiple ways. From the Placemakers Prototyping Festival to the recent Community Couch and Flexible Fountain installation, each step has informed the next. Prototyping allows design teams the ability to react quickly to community feedback and to efficiently make modifications, with the end goal of creating a better design.   

This summer, DMC has been prototyping public benches – incorporating universal design – in and around the east side of Peace Plaza. The first installation of the bench prototypes was placed on Peace Plaza next to Primp. The Heart of the City design team sought initial reactions to the overall idea of the benches, their look and feel, and to learn how people use them.

The community used the benches in a variety of ways, standing and sitting while eating meals, using the lean bench for working, and having conversations. Strong feedback was received on the industrial look of the benches.  Some people wanted a softer, more approachable feel for public seating.

After a busy few weeks of modifying the Heart of the City bench prototypes, they will now be placed back onto Peace Plaza for phase 2 prototyping. The second prototype incorporates many of the suggestions provided by the community, including:

  • Adding wood to the seat and table/counter surfaces to provide a softer material to the touch
  • Adding color to the end panels to add visual interest and a more playful feel
  • Sanding the metal to smooth the edges of the joints and perforations

You can find the prototype benches on First Avenue in front of Primp. During the first prototype phase, the benches were set up in a way that encouraged conversation. During this second phase, you will notice that the benches are arranged differently – one faces the street, and the other faces the shops and the sidewalk. 

The design team invites you to stop by and check out the benches. A Heart of the City goal is to create seating that helps you get the most out of your public space and help make Peace Plaza a place where all will want to gather – community, visitors and patients. 

The design team would like to know what you think about the arrangement. When do you use them and why? How do you observe others using them? What are your thoughts on the new surfaces?  

Please send your comments to [email protected]

Prototyping with an eye to the future

Prototyping is not a new concept for designers. They regularly create early representations of an idea with intentions of testing a theory or response, then adapting the design into a bigger and better version of the original.

The same can be said when introducing prototyping into the public realm.

Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency (DMC EDA) recently invited local innovators to help activate the Peace Plaza in Heart of the City by installing their own prototypes in the space.

A call to “Lean in” and embrace the future at the DMC Annual Meeting

You might have been caught by surprise if you walked by the Peace Plaza on a brisk October evening and saw more than 200 people gathered together sharing a family-style meal outside. But that’s exactly what happened on October 17 during the inaugural Destination Medical Center (DMC) Annual Meeting, where the community came together to celebrate the impact of the first five years of the 20-year DMC initiative.

Testing Heart of the City Design Concepts in Peace Plaza

 

Prototypes in Peace Plaza

Destination Medical Center (DMC) and the Heart of the City design team collaborated with local prototypers to test out design concepts for Heart of the City Phase 1 and create an engaging public realm. The design team includes Minneapolis-based landscape architects Coen+Partners in collaboration with RSP Architects, El Dorado, Latent Design, Kimley-Horn Associates, and Fluidity.

 

The prototypers were selected based on work presented at the 2016 Rochester Prototyping Festival. The design team felt these prototypes resonated with Heart of the City public realm work and invited the prototypers to test out a 2.0 version of their original concepts. The installations will be on display in Peace Plaza through mid-November.

Engaging the community through prototyping

2016 brought a multitude of new ideas and excitement to downtown Rochester with the temporary installation of 16 prototypes at the first ever PlaceMakers | Rochester Prototyping Festival.

The idea of prototyping is not new, but it is new to Rochester.

Since the September festival, which addressed “Health and the Built Environment,” the community is beginning to see more examples of urban prototyping taking place.

Video: “Meet the Makers” for PlaceMakers!

placemakersheaderOnly a couple days to go before the face of downtown Rochester takes on a new look during the PlaceMakers Rochester Prototyping Festival.

Want to meet the “Makers” behind the creative and innovative prototypes at the festival? Check out this video and learn more about many of the projects!

The three-day festival will be held from September 15 to 17 and was developed in collaboration with Downtown Rochester, Minnesota and the Rochester Art Center.

Hope to see you there!

Experience PlaceMakers | Rochester Prototyping Festival 2016

This September, the landscape of downtown Rochester will take on a new look when sixteen larger-than-life urban prototypes are put into place.

placemakers-logo-red-w-date250PlaceMakers | Rochester Prototyping Festival will take place from Thursday, September 15 through Saturday, September 17. The event is a collaboration of Destination Medical Center, the Rochester Art Center, and the Rochester Downtown Alliance and is a unique effort to engage local designers, artists, and community members in remaking of some of Rochester’s public spaces.

Prototyping Makers Workshops kick off tonight at the Art Center

placemakers-logo-red-w-date250Join us at the Rochester Art Center (RAC) to get a behind-the-scenes look at projects for the The PlaceMakers | Rochester Prototyping Festival.

Maker’s Night workshops will be held every Thursday evening in August and early September and will feature a roster of local experts, including architects, urban planners, artists, landscape designers, engineers, marketing gurus, technical experts, and engineers.

PlaceMakers teams will have the opportunity to use the RAC’s extensive inventory of woodworking machinery, tools, meeting spaces, production areas, project support, and WiFi to help complete their projects for the Sept. 15-17 festival.

PlaceMakers Pitch Night: a prototyping project preview

Rochester community members were given sneak peek of the 16 projects that will be on display during
the 2016 PlaceMakers | Rochester Prototyping Festival in September.IMG_6717

The projects range from the clever, including a rocking chair for multiple people, to the practical, like brightly colored bike paths that are meant to make bikers safer in downtown Rochester.

Patrick Seeb, Destination Medical Center’s director of economic development and placemaking, says all the projects exemplify DMC’s broader goal of helping Rochester become America’s City for Health.