ReadysetDC A CREATIVE URBAN ENTERPRISE

Child’s Play: Designing a White House Visitor Center

What if you were asked to design a visitor center for the White House? What if you had only fourteen weeks to do it and no formal architectural training? And what if you had to present your plans in the Great Hall of the National Building Museum to a panel of critics? Oh, and you’re still in Middle School. That was the challenge posed to the 2009 CityVision participants.

For the past sixteen years, the CityVision program has been working to engage District of Columbia public school students by inviting them to think creatively about how they can shape the built environment around them. The program pairs teams of middle school students from underprivileged neighborhoods with mentors that work in urban planning or architecture. The students work as a team on a design problem and are taught the basic skills of site selection, interviewing, photography, and public speaking. Three teams composed of students from Browne Education Campus, located in the Carver Langston neighborhood in NE, and from Lincoln Middle School in Columbia Heights, were selected to participate in the 2009 program. After their final presentations this past Friday evening, the participants joined a CityVision alumni that is 950 students strong.

The students’ creativity was evident from the start in the group names they selected: Unique Creators, C-Squared (a.k.a. Crazy Creators), and the Knot Breakables. Each group took turns speaking about various aspects of their design and process in the same way that an architecture firm might present a proposal to a client. The C-Squared team especially stood out with a cohesive and well-executed design that drew inspiration from lighting designer Poul Henningsen’s modern classic, the PH Artichoke. The C-Squared team inverted this iconic shape, creating a glass entry to the visitor center that would allow daylight to filter to the subterranean level, while creating a memorable landmark for the center. Their decision to keep the bulk of the center below-grade minimized its’ visual impact on their site, an underutilized, triangular site south of the White House between 15th St., E St., and Ellipse Rd. To compensate for the low visibility of the White House due to heavy tree cover, C-Squared proposed what they called a “Magnifying Tree.” The “Magnifying Tree” is a large structure with an interior elevator that brings visitors to a viewing platform with a direct line of sight to the White House. This unique aerial vantage point is currently only enjoyed by workers in the surrounding office buildings.

While this years’ design problem was clearly focused on the “federal” DC, past CityVision classes have looked at such neighborhood issues as rehabilitating a vacant building into a community center, designing a mixed-use project in the Navy Yard, and decking over the scar in the street grid at I-395 between E Street and Massachusetts Avenue. No matter what the assignment, CityVision has a palpable effect on how the participating students view their city and their roll as potential advocates within it. In discussing their experience with the program, students admitted that it changed their relationship with DC. They found themselves taking more pride in their neighborhoods, cleaning up trash instead of contributing to the litter problem, and seeing the form of the city as something they have a stake in. One student shared a story of how his relationship with downtown had changed. He used to regard the downtown as a place where he did not belong, a place “only for people who are important,” now he felt that had as much right to enjoy downtown as the K Street lawyer might. For students who might otherwise feel disenfranchised and unwelcomed within parts of their city, this feeling of “belonging” is critical.

A city with a sometimes unfortunate reputation for transience and “imported talent,” DC should continue focusing on enriching its homegrown talent with programs like CityVision. These are the students that allow DC’s burgeoning creative culture to flourish for years to come. Hopefully, the CityVision students will carry their excitement and vision for the city forward and become the architects, planners, and designers that shape the DC of tomorrow.

CityVision is organized by D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the National Capital Planning Commission, and the National Building Museum. More information on the program can be provided by contacting the Associate Outreach Programs Coordinator for the National Building Museum at 202-272-2448 or CityVision@nbm.org.