FALL RIVER ENGAGEMENT
Fall River, Massachusetts / Fall 2019 / Landscape Architecture Advanced Studio / Critic Emily Vogler / Community Engagement, Urban Fabric, Adaptive Reuse
In preparation for the design process, the first half of Pop Up Fall River Advanced Studio was spent engaging the Fall River community. In a team with 3 others, we created several engagement strategies to learn more about the needs of residents and visitors.
Our first engagement was at Portugalia Marketplace, a well known Portuguese food store that attracts both locals and visitors. The market was also conveniently adjacent to our site.
All of our engagement materials were available in three languages- English, Spanish and Portuguese (over 45% of Fall River’s population is Portuguese, most Azorean). We designed different strategies for information gathering- a quick preference board to see what programs interested people, a model to comment spatially on what was working/not on the site, and a longer survey for longer reflections. Of course, nothing was as enriching as one on one conversations the activities prompted.
Survey responses from both Portugalia customers and Merrow employees.
Engagement at Portugalia Marketplace, with the model and preference boards set up.
Our second engagement was a workshop at the Merrow Mill, asking employees what they would like to see on the future site. We prompted our visit with surveys and save the date cards the weeks before, announcing the workshop.
We planned the workshop right after the workday ended. We prepared two activities, a card sort where participants ranked and sorted programmatic opportunities, and a model collage where they were split into groups and asked to design their own sites used scaled elements.
Through both exercises we were concerned with gathering perceptions of the site, and teaching vocabulary and spatial understanding to increase the employee’s perception of their own agency over the future of the site.
Poster hung at Merrow before the workshop to invite new ideas and interaction with the visioning process.
Promotional postcard for Merrow employees.
Round table discussion of the programming possibilities, held in the break room.
Employees (including the owner of the property) consider new spaces throughout the site.
One of the completed model collages, which emphasized spaces for rest and elements that stretched the entire site.
Synthesis of the feedback received at both Portugalia and Merrow, which led to the creation of site values that fueled the studio design.
Our final design proposals were presented back to the community at the Heritage State Park Visitors Center at the end of the studio. Coverage can be found here.