The Community Design Collaborative announced 8 new design awards across the city

The Community Design Collaborative announced its newest round of design grants on July 6. The Collaborative, which provides pro bono preliminary design services to nonprofit organizations in Greater Philadelphia, raises awareness about the importance of design in community revitalization.

The organization matches nonprofits with architects, landscape architects, urban planners, preservationists, engineers, cost estimators, and other volunteer design professionals seeking to serve the community.

This round’s grants include:

• Friends of Father Judge High School, for work on a conceptual plan to guide a capital campaign to improve school facilities. They aim to support collaborative and interactive learning, create more connections between school spaces, and offer a warm welcome to students and the larger community.
• Finanta CDC, for the conceptual design for a new construction, mixed-use project utilizing four vacant lots along the North Front Street Commercial Corridor. Read more about Finanta CDC’s development plans here.
• Frankford CDC, to support streetscape improvements on Frankford and Paul Streets, a piece of the revitalizing commercial corridor surrounding a major stop on the Frankford-Market Rail Line.
• Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha, with support from the Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development, to envision streetscape improvements along the massive masonry SEPTA viaduct that traverses Central North Philadelphia. The conceptual design work will support several key goals of the Choice Neighborhoods Transformation Plan for North Central Philadelphia: reduce crime, increase public safety, and create a walkable, interconnected neighborhood.

Play Space

The Collaborative has also awarded four Design Grants to support its new Play Space initiative, which will focus on designing innovative urban play spaces for Philadelphia.

Made possible through a grant from The William Penn Foundation, the Collaborative will be partnering with the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) to explore the design of innovative urban play spaces and how they can improve the quality of childcare and early childhood education in Philadelphia.

The project will bring designers, educators, child care providers, families, and communities together through a design competition, a charrette, exhibitions, a tactical urbanism project, public talks, programs, and workshops.

Play Space is part of Infill Philadelphia, the Collaborative’s ongoing, community-engaged design initiative to re-envision neighborhoods, leverage existing assets, and rethink the use of older buildings and sites.

Image via GSK on Flickr