News: News Archive

Exhibition of Educational Materials about Housing
The exhibition "Accommodating Density: Housing in the Twin Cities" showcases some of the housing-related work the Design Center has been involved in over the past year. Included in the exhibition are posters about types of housing, mixed-use developments, recent examples of affordable housing, and design strategies for housing on corridors. The installation also includes 15 fact sheets about local examples of housing and neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The housing examples range in density from seven up to 110 dwelling units per acre. The materials highlighted in the exhibition, as well as other related materials, are downloadable from the Design Center web site.

The exhibition was on display in the Design Center Gallery, lower level Rapson Hall, from August 14th, 2004 through January 7th, 2005.

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Image Bank Photo Exhibition (Mar. 15 - Aug. 14, 2003)
 Currently on display in the Design Center Gallery in the basement of Rapson Hall are thirty six prints from the Center's collection of over 20,000 slides of Twin Cities landscapes. Many of the images are low-level oblique photographs taken from a helicopter, revealing relationships between the natural and built environments not readily apparent from the ground. With funding from the McKnight Foundation, and assistance from CDES Visual Resources Collection staff, the Center's full collection is being digitized and catalogued for a searchable and downloadable image bank. When the project is complete in late 2003, it will be available on the Design Center web site. Users will be able to sort and view images by location, land-use type, landmarks, and keywords such as sprawl. The image bank will be an important tool for local planning departments, planning commissions, community groups, and educators.

Interview with Ann Forsyth, in Architecture Minnesota (2002)
Ann Forsyth discussed the future of the Design Center in an interview, published in Architecture Minnesota, November–December, 2002.
Download the article (428K) (posted here by permission of Architecture Minnesota).
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McKnight Foundation introduces "Embrace Open Space" Campaign (2002)
 On September 28 the McKnight Foundation launched a new public service campaign, Embrace Open Space. The campaign is an unprecedented effort—supported and led by the foundation—to heighten awareness of the need to protect open space in the Twin Cities, and to prompt residents to advocate for the types of open spaces they want preserved.

The foundation partnered with ten organizations, including the Design Center, to develop the Embrace Open Space campaign. Last week the campaign unveiled "10 Treasures," that are representative of locally and regionally significant open spaces that need the attention and support of citizens today. The campaign's web site www.EmbraceOpenSpace.org includes information about the 10 Treasures, tools to help individuals get involved, and organizations to contact. For more information on the Design center open space projects please visit our Embrace Open Space link.
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