Team Better Block will be returning to Australia for a lecture series in Sydney, and Melbourne. First up will be Sydney on June 20, 2013. The Department of Planning and Infrastructure is holding a lecture series titled: Urban Conversations: Your Voice, Your City. This will be held at Sydney City Recital Hall from 6:00pm to 8:30pm. Other speakers include Henriette Vamberg from Gehl Architects in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Dave Meslin, from Toronto, Canada who will talk about urban projects with a focus on public spaces, renewal and increasing public participation. This event is free to the public with tickets available until May 29th.

The next lecture will take place in Melbourne on Tuesday, June 18th, as part of the 6th annual Livable Cities Conference in St Kilda from 2:30-3:00pm. This portion of the trip is being sponsored by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Click here for more details on the conference.

The Better Block went from a small community block project in Southern Dallas to an international movement in 2012. It’s been a whirlwind year and heartening to see so many neighborhoods, non-profit organizations, and cities take on their own Better Blocks to show the rapid potential for change that can occur when a small group of thoughtful, committed people dedicate themselves to real change. With that, we wanted to highlight our list of top milestones for the past year:

Better Block featured at the 2012 Venice Biennale in Italy

Think of the Biennale as Olympics for Architecture and the Better Block’s prominent role in it the equivalent of storming the Bastille or in this case the Arsenale. The gathering of 55 nations to display and compete for the coveted Golden Lion awards for architecture occurs every two years and is typically focused on trends in modern design. One architect is chosen to select a theme and curate the main pavilion, Arsenale. British Architect, David Chipperfield directed this, the 13th annual Biennale under the theme of “Common Ground.”   He chose this theme in order “to encourage my colleagues to react against the prevalent professional and cultural tendencies of our time that place such emphasis on individual and isolated actions. I encouraged them instead to demonstrate the importance of influence and of the continuity of cultural endeavour, to illustrate common and shared ideas that form the basis of an architectural culture“. Let me translate that from Old English to Americano: Architects, if you want to stay relevant don’t just thinking about the big building project but consider the space around it and the community in which you are building in. The American pavilion entitled “Spontaneous Interventions” received a honorable mention, a first for the USA!

Better Block co-founder Jason Roberts Awarded as Champion of Change at the White House

Secretary of the US Department of Transportation Ray LaHood was on hand in DC at the Champions of Change ceremony which awarded leaders in communities who were making major changes that positively influenced the built environment.  Other awardees sat on panels lead by the Secretaries of the FHA, and FAA.

Roberts’ work revitalizing a modern streetcar line in Dallas, and the Better Block projects were both highlighted as major initiatives that are helping re-shape the built environment. Click here to view the full White House blog post written by Jason on these efforts.

Better Block spotlighted in Dwell Magazine

In April of 2012, Dwell Magazine released its “The Now 99 List”, which featured 99 new design ideas, people, products, and plans that had have reshaped cities. The Better Block was given a nod alongside Vancouver’s Picnurbia, and Philadelphia’s The Porch projects showing how public spaces could be rapidly activated through lighter, quicker, and cheaper installations.

 

 

The US Department of Transportation looks to collaborate with Better Block Projects

After winning the White House Champions of Change Award, Better Block founders Jason Roberts and Andrew Howard were asked to meet with officials at the US Department of Transportation to begin collaborating on tracking metrics and gaining greater insight from community led block projects that could be instituted at a national level. Currently, Team Better Block in Dallas is working with application developers and open source gurus around the nation to develop a series of tools that communities could use to help implement projects and interact more closely with public officials to make temporary changes permanent.

 

The Better Block TEDx

The city of Austin, and Oklahoma University both hosted TEDx events that featured the Better Block originator, Jason Roberts talking about the history of the project and the path that led to the effort’s development. From restoring historic theatres, returning bygone streetcars, to creating a bicycle movement in a community with no bike infrastructure, the series of steps that created the foundation for the first Better Block are summed up in Jason’s high-speed, but passionate presentation.

Oklahoma Unveils Better Block training for all Main Street Associations across state

In November, Oklahoma’s Chamber of Commerce sponsored an official training and Better Block build-out for all of the directors of the state’s Main Street Alliance programs.

The Directors met in Tulsa, and began work revitalizing the Kendall-Whittier district which housed a historic theater, and multiple streetcar era structures. Teams set to work in 3 days and received certifications for their efforts in helping transform an area that has great potential for redevelopment. Click here to read more about the project.

 

The Alamo gets Better Blocked!

Team Better Block in Dallas worked closely with the Project for Public Spaces in New York City and the City of San Antonio to help implement an Alamo Better Block project that would highlight the potential plaza improvements that could be made to the historic site to help make the space a more desirable place for residents and visitors alike to linger and enjoy.

Jason Roberts nominated for Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News

The year wrapped up with a surprise nomination by the Dallas Morning News for Better Block originator, Jason Roberts as Texan of the Year. Check out the full article here. 

2013 looks to be an even bigger year with international projects occurring in Australia, Canada, and France!

In 2011, Team Better Block in Dallas tested a median-developed public space inspired by La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain. The Dallas Morning News announced today that two-blocks of Jefferson Boulevard will now officially be transformed with a La Rambla median which will allow for small markets to be created along the center of the street. TBB is also working with Jim Lake Properties to help create smaller commercial spaces in the existing historic buildings along the 400 West Block of the street so that more small businesses will have an accessible and affordable space along the corridor. Expect to see more from this project in the near future!

 

More new businesses are beginning to take root from Better Block projects occurring throughout the country! The latest success story is The Lucky Tiger, a vintage vinyl and clothing store that was developed as part of the St. Joe Better Block project in Missouri. Check out the video above to view the new shop.

The first better block in April of 2010 was done out of unbridled anticipation for positive change in our Oak cliff neighborhood of Dallas. We put blighted buildings and over sized streets with creative people and created a block that was alive. For the second better block in September of 2010 we partnered with local landscape architects SWA Group and Metheny Landscaping to create an urban forest on a once concrete desert.

This partnership was recently awarded an American Society of Landscape Architects’s honor award for communications and the City of Dallas funded over $500,000 in improvements to the area. What will come of these neighborhoods that are knocking out their second better block this summer?

Mount Rainier Maryland

http://www.facebook.com/events/253420261416608/

Houston, TX

http://www.facebook.com/betterblockhouston

Cleveland’s Better Block project, Pop UP Pearl, will be holding a DIY Urbanism Competition in the spirit of Park(ing) Day.  The Pop UP Pearl 2012 DIY Urbanism Design-Build Competition is looking for artists and designers that would like to experiment creatively with a standard parking space.  See the Call for Artists for more information.  Design proposals are due April 20th, and the installation must be built-out the morning of May 19th and remain in place from 12 noon to 6 pm.

 

We just received word from the team that put together the Oyster Bay Better Block, that the motorcycle museum Billy Joel setup is now permanent and has become an anchor for the area! More here.

Jason Roberts, founder of the Better Block project, presented at TEDxOU and TEDxAustin over the past month and talked about the history of the project and what led up to its development. The video for TEDxOU was just released and provides a great insight to how everyone can make change rapidly by showing up, creating strong identities for their projects, and “blackmailing yourself” into action!

San Antonio’s “Plaza de Armas” just released an article on the beginnings of the Better Block project:

 

When Andrew Howard and Jason Roberts organized their first Better Block event in the Oak Cliff community of Dallas, it was largely an act of civil disobedience.

“We broke as many laws as we could with it,” says Howard. “We were ready to go to jail.”

Their cause wasn’t especially sexy. They weren’t targeting war crimes or racial oppression or animal cruelty. They were dissidents designing streets.

It worked. The Better Block Project has since applied its guerrilla street planning process to four blocks in Dallas, and been invited into at least 20 other cities. Previously abandoned city blocks have been permanently transformed into vibrant activity centers. Following one event, they saw vacancy rates on the block go from 75 percent to 10 percent, and active strorefronts from 25 percent to 65 percent.

On March 4, San Antonio will host the first in a series of Better Block events, sponsored by the City’s Complete Streets program.

After 10 years of working on transportation planning, Howard had seen his fill of streets designed with no thought for the local community. With the Better Block project he flipped the entire logic of transportation planning on its head: Forget traffic analyses, funding, long-range planning. Take one block, redesign it for a day, with as little money as possible, and subvert regulations. Put local small businesses and artists in the empty storefronts, build temporary awnings, seating, and spray-paint bike lanes. Focus on cyclists and pedestrians, rather than motorists. Try to build a place rather than a passageway.

Howard and Roberts invited City Council members and city staff to that first Oak Cliff event, hoping to drive home the point that many of the laws regulating building design and sidewalk use make it harder build vibrant communities. In many places, regulations absurdly forbid awnings, sidewalk seating, food trucks, and other amenities that help create lively, walkable streets. By cheaply and temporarily installing these elements, Better Block events simply demonstrate their power, rather than spending months or years navigating regulatory frameworks. The officials took notice, and gradually laws started to change.

While urban design does matter, what the Better Block Project has shown more than anything is that regulation and design patterns are only part of the picture.

“At first we thought it was this static thing; just build it and it will be perfect. But it is the process that makes it work,” explains Howard. “Place is also an energy.”

The low budget and grassroots attitude proved to be the project’s most important assets. Since the Better Block team didn’t have funding, they had to borrow materials and equipment, recruit volunteers, and engage local businesses. This process builds on and strengthens natural social networks. The local community becomes invested in re-envisioning the built environment, and the psychology around the place itself shifts. “More money, more trouble,” Howard points out.

The first Better Block event in San Antonio will be held at the corner of Broadway and Jones, and coincides with the second Síclovía http://siclovia.org/ along Broadway. Unlike those early, unsanctioned events, in San Antonio the team is sponsored by the City. But local businesses, artists and community volunteers are still lending their resources to create pop-up cafes, galleries, music venues and gaming areas.

Major change is already under way along Broadway north of downtown, with form-based zoning in effect, a streetcar line approved, and millions of dollars of new development underway. What city planners need now is an inexpensive way to model the effects of potential design changes and to alter residents’ perception of this stretch of Broadway, which has been a dead zone for decades. Better Block is an ideal way to meet these two objectives.

The project has evolved from civil disobedience to an alternative to the traditional public meeting. The Jack Fingers of the world may show up, but it’s a lot harder for them to derail the conversation with their unbridled cynicism when the event is about physically building a great place, rather than “gathering input from the community.”

The process also creates an opportunity to observe people interacting with the space. The Better Block team can see the flow of pedestrians, the spots people like to sit, the popularity of different types of retail business. Like William Whyte’s http://www.pps.org/articles/wwhyte/ method of analyzing the use of public spaces with time-lapse video, the Better Block team can observe and learn about how people actually use the space before the city invests millions of dollars in redesigning it.

The block becomes a kind of playground for imagining the city we’d like to have. Or, as the Better Block tagline puts it, creating “a living charrette.” Any citizen interested in breathing life back into San Antonio’s downtown should lend a hand.