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USU landscape architecture students to conduct workshops
in Sanpete County
January 30, 2007 l LOGAN — One
hundred-twenty students and professors from Utah State
University's department of landscape architecture and
environmental planning will travel to Utah's Sanpete
County Tuesday, Feb. 6, to conduct an intensive design
workshop or "charrette."
The USU students will work in small
teams to make recommendations and offer design ideas
for communities along the "Little Denmark" section of
the newly designated "Utah Heritage Highway 89." Students
will address issues that include main street development,
open space planning and preservation, the identification
of new areas for development and traffic planning.
Professional landscape architects
and planners from around the state will join the students
in Sanpete County on Tuesday and work with them back
on the USU campus in their design studios on Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday.
Professor David Bell said this is
the most extensive workshop to date.
"The Heritage Highway Project
allows communities to take a regional perspective in
developing opportunities for tourism and new business,"
Bell said. "It also allows our students an opportunity
to gain community experience while providing valuable
services"
This is the fourth department-wide
community charrette conducted through LAEP. Previous
charrettes have been conducted in Richmond, Tooele and
Heber City.
Tamara Shapiro is the Sumner Margetts
Swaner Professor in the LAEP department.
"The French word 'charrette'
means 'cart' and is often used to describe the final,
intense work effort expended by architecture, landscape
architecture and art students to meet a project deadline,"
Shapiro said. "The use of this term is said to originate
from the Beaux Arts in Paris during the 19th century,
where proctors circulated a cart, or 'charrette,' to
collect final drawings while students frantically put
finishing touches on their work.
"Today, the cart has been replaced
by computer-generated electronic illustrative drawings
that can be printed out on large-scale plotters, and
presentations can be made with digital projectors. However,
the creative process, coupled with intense work in a
very short period of time, has remained from the 19th
century to modern day."
The project is funded through partnerships
with the towns of Fairview, Mount Pleasant, Spring City,
Ephraim, Manti, Gunnison, Sanpete County, the State
of Utah Main Street Program, USU Extension's Rural Intermountain
Planning Program and USU Swaner Green Space Institute.
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