Council Chair Ernest Martin; Council Member Carol Fukunaga; Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland; Representative Karl Rhoads; Scott Wilson, AIA, AIA Honolulu President; Harrison Rue, Community Building & TOD Administrator; Pono Shim
As part of the Chinatown Improvement initiative led by area legislator Sen. Suzanna Chun Oakland, Rep. Karl Rhoads and Council Member Carol Fukunaga which started in 2014, SHADE is working in collaboration with Enterprise Honolulu, Hawaii Heritage Center, the AIA Honolulu Urban and Regional Design Committee (RUDC) and the City & County of Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) Transit Oriented District (TOD) Planning Team to help America's oldest ethnic enclave plan and design its future.
SHADE, which stands for Sustainable, Humanitarian, Architecture and Design for the Earth, is a Hawai'i-based Public Interest Design (PID) initiative to help create a more sustainable, resilient and humane built environment in tropical and sub-tropical cities worldwide. Public Interest Design is a new model of built environment practice which works collaboratively with communities to solve immediate problems and help realize their longer term visions.
For its inaugural Summer Institute - a program that brings together interns and professionals from the fields of urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture to obtain training and provide service - SHADE will also be learning from Chinatown's people and rich heritage.
"Urban acupuncture" is an urban design process which seeks to relieve stress in built environments. You assess the body (Chinatown), locate the pressure points, and make the appropriate intervention, "explains architect and SHADE founder Dean Sakamoto, FAIA. Sakamoto also states that "we will not solve every problem in Chinatown, nor will we create a grad plan through this effort. Our goal is to learn from the people of this community and inspire them to participate in the ongoing planning and revitalization of Chinatown as a Transit Oriented District while retaining its unique historic character."
Driving that process is the Summer Institute, which serves as "a training and community service opportunity. According to Sakamoto, SHADE Institute is training 12 interns from various university programs (local and mainland) and working with some of Honolulu's top planning and design professionals as mentors. "A weekly Lunchtime Talk Story series will begin at the Hawaii Heritage Center (HHC) in Chinatown on June 24th, 12PM when historian Don Hibbard and architect Glenn Mason, AIA spoke about chinatown's architectural legacy. Other scheduled speakers include urban planner John Whalen, FAICP; Scott Wilson, AIA, AIA Honolulu President; landscape architect Lorenda Lo, ASLA; HART planner, Aki Marceau, AICP, and poet Wing Tek Lum. Three Community Workshops are scheduled for July 11th, 25th and August 15th also at HHC. HHC is located in Chinatown at 1040 Smith Street. For dates and details please see: www.shadegroup.org/events (All events are free and open to the public)
The kick-off event featured an introduction by Sakamoto and Scott Wilson, President, AIA Honolulu, and Chair of the RUDC. Rachel Minner, FAIA, Director of Built Environment Policy at AIA National Washington, D.C. gave a brief talk via video conference on public interest design and community engagement in 21st-century cities. Special guests will include City Council Chair Ernest Martin, Sen. Chun Oakland and Council Member Fukunaga, and Harrison Rue, City DPP Transit Oriented District Planning Administrator.
Thank you for all the support and for more information on our future events check out our calendar.
