Winning design of ‘Change Your View’ competition that lights up key section of Connective Corridor to be exhibited June 19 in conjunction with Th3

Erica Blust
315 443 5891

A team of seven students from Syracuse University and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) have created a functional and beautiful way to shed new light on a key section of Syracuse’s Connective Corridor.

The students created the winning design in the “Change Your View” competition, which invited teams of SU and SUNY-ESF students to consult with community members and create proposals to liven and enrich the streetscape along the portion of the Corridor that runs on East Genesee Street from the intersection at Irving Avenue to Interstate 81. The team’s design, “Reemergence,” uses sculptural streetlights to highlight the area’s cultural, social and economic points of interest and foster a unique, contemporary identity. Constructed with transparent glass and a wrought-iron framework, the “Reemergence” streetlights not only illuminate the area but also identify various points of interest and provide space for advertisements and notices.

“Reemergence” and the other designs entered in the competition will be exhibited on Thursday, June 19, from 5-8 p.m. at Syracuse Blueprint Company Inc., 825 E. Genesee St., Syracuse. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and coincides with Th3: A City-Wide Art Open, which is held on the third Thursday of each month.

The “Change Your View” competition was held March 18-20 at the Syracuse Center for the Performing Arts. More than 40 SU and SUNY-ESF students participated in the around-the-clock competition, which took the form of a charrette, an intense period of time when students work together to solve a specific problem. The projects were judged by a panel of SU and SUNY-ESF faculty members and local community members on their social and cultural impact, including the nighttime and multi-seasonal experiences envisioned, and on technical and economic feasibility. All of the proposals were exhibited at the center, and a fall 2008 implementation is planned for the winning design.

“As part of their research, the students met with local business owners, interviewed people on the street, photographed and observed the area and, for inspiration, considered other Syracuse communities that already have a strong sense of identity,” says Michael McAllister, the competition’s coordinator and director of the newly formed Center for Multidisciplinary Design in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA). “It was very impressive how much work they got done in a very short amount of time. This all bodes well for the new center and the kind of solutions that multidisciplinary teams can produce.”

The “Reemergence” team included five CVPA students: Greg Allen ’08, an industrial and interaction design major; Mary Geiger ’10, a design/technical theater major; Jessica Lewis ’08, an interior design major; Barbara Livar ’08, a fiber arts/material studies major; and Yelena Prusakova ’10, an industrial and interaction design major. The team also included Bruce Davison, a graduate student in SU’s School of Architecture, and Paul Brogna ’08, a SUNY-ESF landscape architecture major.

The Connective Corridor is a signature strip of cutting-edge cultural development connecting the University Hill with downtown Syracuse. The Corridor will make investments in key locations to support historic landmarks, cultural institutions and private development in the city. These areas include the emerging arts districts along East Genesee Street and the Near Westside; Forman Park, the Fayette Firefighter’s Memorial Park and Columbus Circle; the nightlife of Armory Square; and the Civic Strip, where the Oncenter complex and the Everson Museum of Art tie into the center of downtown. The Corridor will showcase these assets and ignite a resurgence of economic development, tourism and residential growth.