#james rojas

Urban planner, community activist, and artist James Rojas discusses Why Urban Planners Should Work With Artists. James’ insight as an artist informs some valuable critiques for his colleagues in urban planning. Greats Streets was lucky enough to partner with James during this month’s CicLAvia and see some of his work in action.

“Urban planners and artists occupy the same city space. Yet, artists take a different approach to exploring, understanding, and presenting urban issues. Urban planners begin their inquiry of place by collecting data in the form of numbers, maps, policy, and maybe a site visit or talking to people. Artists, on the other hand, begin their inquiry by using their body and senses to explore the site and ask a series of questions” 

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A number of 2nd through 5th grade classes participated in design workshops where each student made a 3-D model of their ideal place, schoolyard, park, community, or any kind of public space. It was an interactive planning workshop based on a participatory planning design charette by James Rojas. Fred Wolf, the PS 32 Garden Coordinator, worked with James on this project during his first year of graduate school and it changed the way he thinks about urban planning. The small 3-D models were built out of found objects and each student was asked to be purposeful in the placement of the objects because they had to explain their design after build time was over. This type of design workshop is intended to help people, of all ages and demographics, think critically about their ideal public spaces. It goes against traditional facilitated workshops where people verbally explain the change they want to see and allows them to engage their senses in the actual building and placement of public space components.  

In the end each student participant made beautiful 3-D models of parks, schoolyards, cities, and playgrounds. These workshops are helping Fred with his thesis research on ecological schoolyard transformation. Notes were quickly taken as the students explained their designs and will be analyzed and included in his thesis. Fred hopes to replicate the workshops with parents and teachers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!    

Visit Purl's new Latino Urbanism channel on Vimeo...

Latino Urbanism is an emerging approach to development that responds to Latino lifestyles, cultural preferences, and economic needs. The Latino Urbanism Symposium and related events will highlight Latino Urbanism and its role in American placemaking. Through public presentations, panel discussions, community outreach and a design forum, we will celebrate and seek to understand how Latino Urbanism is reshaping the American urban landscape.

Topics Include: 

Patterns and Forms of Latino Cultural Landscapes 

Latino Urbanism vs. New Urbanism 

Designing Public and Private Space for Latino Communities