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Creating an Oasis in Overbrook
By
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
The difference
between a visionary and a dreamer is the visionary uses
his or her imagination as a template to fashion
something new, to see possibilities and potential in
existing situations and conditions others don’t. He or
she then galvanizes the needed support, energy, will and
focus to make it a reality. A dreamer merely imagines
something in his or her mind’s eye but fails to move
beyond the imagination stage into the realm of
actualized reality. By that reckoning Jerome Shabazz is
a true visionary. Jerome Shabazz has a vision of a
revitalized green space smack dab in the middle of an
African-American working class urban community.
Shabazz and his
family reside in Philadelphia and one day several years
ago his son came to him asking for help with a school
project on the environment. The assignment triggered an
interest in Shabazz to devise a way to teach hands on
environmental awareness while positively impacting a
surrounding urban setting. Shortly thereafter Shabazz, a
Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) Safety and Training
Manager, and his wife founded JASTECH, a non profit
501C3 company, to provide a means for community
development and improvement.
Out of JASTECH
emerged the Overbrook Environmental Education and Art
Center (OEEAC) located at 6134-50 Lancaster Avenue in
West Philadelphia. When you speak with Shabazz you
notice he uses the word “oasis” a lot. An oasis is a
fertile space in the midst of a desert due to the
presence of water. It is also defined as a green space,
desert garden, irrigated land, and resting place.
Shabazz sees the OEEAC as an oasis in both the literal
and metaphorical sense. It is a green space that is
being transformed from a former brownfield, a
potentially toxic site that now is spreading greenery in
the community. It is a fertile space in the midst of a
former granite quarry surrounded by concrete.
JASTECH acquired
the property at 6134-50 Lancaster Avenue after looking
at area maps. It is more than a notion to clean up an
urban brownfield. First assessments and studies must be
conducted to determine what types of toxins infest the
area. In addition to once being a granite quarry, the
property was also the home of a building supply company.
An assessment was done on the property; arsenic and lead
were found in the soil. This required a professional
clean up and certification that the toxins had been
removed. This could have been a fiscal and bureaucratic
nightmare but Shabazz was able to wade into it and
resolve the problems with the help of the city,
Pennsylvania, and Federal Environmental Protection
Agencies.
Once the
assessments were done he was able to partner with
government agencies, environmental design professionals,
engineers, architects, and attorneys to formulate
development and design plans to transform the site into
his envisioned green oasis. JASTECH was able to convince
the city, environmental professionals, and universities
to provide in kind services, expertise or pro bono
(free) expertise to formulate a site plan that included
state of the art green technology, storm water
management best practices to create a one of a kind
community center in the heart of an up and coming
commercial corridor. While he was doing all that,
Shabazz also found time to create an urban based hands
on learning curriculum on environmental studies which he
shares with the Philadelphia School District. His urban
environmental studies program has been incorporated into
the curricula of the neighboring elementary, middle and
high schools. Shabazz is a certified 4H instructor and
believes the 4H program is extremely beneficial for
inner city youth. The Overbrook Environmental Education
and Art Center is sprouting green shoots throughout the
surrounding community.
The first phase of
the development plan was the brownfield clean up and
remediation; which has been completed. The property at
6134 Lancaster Avenue is now open and in operation. It
uses passive solar energy panels to heat their water
system. During the second phase of development the whole
Overbrook Environmental Education and Art Center
campus/complex will be off the municipal energy grid.
There is even a vegetated storm water run off management
design on the Art Center’s roof using certified lumber
from sustainable forests. Shortly the center will open
its bakery and café where it will sell healthy and
nutritious baked goods and meals. The center also offers
a fully equipped “community kitchen” with an eye towards
developing shared culinary skills within the community
to encourage healthy meals and food preparation
entrepreneurial initiatives. A myriad of classes and
courses are currently being taught at the center from
music, to male yoga, to nutrition, health maintenance,
to line dancing.
On the adjacent
lot, Shabazz used impervious asphalt to pave the parking
area; stones and gravel cover the nature pathwalks, part
of a comprehensively integrated bio-retention system to
collect storm water and redirect it throughout the
ecosystem to water the plants, trees and shrubs that are
currently being planted as part of the outdoor
classrooms and community mini park. Concrete storage
bins at the rear of the property left from the building
supply company will be used as walls for outdoor
classrooms. Planking will cover the bins and be used as
flooring for an enclosed high tunnel structure that will
facilitate year round gardening. Shabazz plans to
initiate a program of community assisted urban
agriculture in conjunction with Penn State University to
encourage growing healthy fruits and vegetables in the
community. When this phase is completed, it will make
the location a virtual oasis in the midst of an urban
setting.
Farther up the
street on the property is an old ACME supermarket
building Shabazz is transforming into classrooms,
laboratories, and meeting rooms. There are plans for a
Tilapia fish farm inside. He envisions classes that
teach green technology, weatherization, and installation
of solar panels as part of an onsite training and
employment incubator. But all his plans and the
bourgeoning facility are no good without people to share
and enjoy it.
Shabazz encourages
volunteers to come to the center to become involved in
the various classes and programs and enjoy the greenery
that is sprouting there. He wants people to become
involved or at least support them financially.
Volunteers and students are currently finishing the
mural on the side of the 6134 building and they will
begin work on a mosaic to beautify the front of the
building. Part of the Center’s outreach program will
include the children in their Summer camp collecting
used ceramics to be recycled into the mosaic. The
process will include interviews of the donors by
students and the donors stories and recollections about
the article they’ve donated will be included as part of
the project.
Shabazz’s vision is
taking solid shape. “We do like volunteerism, we do like
contributions. We are a 501 C3 tax exempt organization
and we are volunteer driven. We like the contribution of
people who have talent and resources. We are helping to
show that you can take these old spaces and make them
desirable. You can bring people back to the urban
corridors so they can come out and enjoy themselves. All
this environmental work is so people can come on site
and be in a pleasing setting where they feel comfortable
and know that they are safe and not feel threatened or
vulnerable. So we took the extra steps so that your
creature comforts are in place.” Shabazz stated. For
more information about the Overbrook Environmental
Education and Art Center’s programs visit their parent
Website
www.jastechdevelopment.org or the center Website at
www.overbrookartcenter.org
From The Ramparts
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Mary Anne Alabanza Akers,
Dean & Professor
Morgan State University, School of
Architecture and Planning
Dr.
Akers "encourages minority students
interested in environmental careers to take
a holistic approach to the environmental
field and integrate the needs of diverse
peoples and communities into their approach.
'Build as much of a knowledge base about
‘the environment’ as you can,' she advises.
'But at the same time, working in the
environmental field, you also need to be
aware of people’s relationships with the
environment . . . not just their consumption
needs, but their health, spiritual, and
cultural connections with natural and built
environments. It is similarly important to
consider these things within the context of
sustainable economic development'."
UMichigan
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Addressing
Design Disparities: The Role of Historically Black
Colleges and Universities— A database operated by
the Center for the Study of Practice at the University
of Cincinnati indicates that only 1.5 percent of
licensed architects are black, notwithstanding
statistics showing that African Americans account for
over 12.1 percent of the US population.1 Also
discouraging is the miniscule number of minorities in
landscape architecture and interior design practice.
According to David Rice, founder of the Organization of
Black Designers, only about 2 percent of interior
designers are black.2 And these percentages are not
significantly improving in spite of the AIA, ASLA, ASID
and other national organizations’ official commitment to
address diversity and inclusivity. How then should the
design professions fulfill this purpose?
As we delve deeper
into these issues of design disparity and in spite of
traditional, mainstream academic institutions’ efforts
at implementing strategies to increase the number of
underrepresented groups in design education, the
question continues to be asked, “Why is there minimal
progress in graduating minorities for successful careers
in design?” An often overlooked partner that can help to
address this disparity in design education and practice
are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Of the 117 HBCUs in the United States, seven have
accredited architecture programs, three offer landscape
architecture degrees, and two have urban planning
programs (see sidebar on page 55). Apart from this
challenge of a few design programs, HBCUs continue to be
the vehicle for successfully producing minority design
graduates. For example, the seven HBCUs still graduate
approximately 45% of all African American students with
professional architecture degrees.Design
Intelligence
About the HBCUs
project—The high rate of disabilities in U.S.
minority populations, particularly the disproportionate
rate for African Americans, has a pronounced impact on
independence and social participation in many
communities. The gap is likely to grow as aging,
obesity and related medical conditions increase rates of
disabilities. Universal design in architecture means
designing all buildings to increase usability, safety
and health to reflect the diversity of the human
population. It goes beyond accessible design to support
a higher level of independence and social participation
as well as unmet needs of diverse groups, not just
people with disabilities. Emphasizing universal design
components in architectural curricula can help build
healthy and supportive communities that reduce the
constraints of disability.
Schools with large
African American populations clearly have a greater
stake in addressing this gap. But they also have much to
contribute to the evolving knowledge base of universal
design through their unique cultural perspective.
Although UD grew out of the American disability rights
movement, its focus has been broadened to making the
design of built environments, products, and communities
more inclusive for populations of all ages, ethnicities,
and cultural backgrounds. It is here that HBCUs can
bring a unique and important perspective to universal
design that promises to enrich the body of knowledge in
this field and in architecture in general.
In her article, “Addressing
Design Disparities: The Role of Historically Black
Colleges and Universities”, the Dean of Morgan
University’s School of Architecture, Mary Anne Alabanza-Akers,
Ph.D., notes that while 12.1 percent of the U.S.
population is African American, only 1.5% of licensed
architects and 2 percent of interior designers are
Black.Universal
Design World
Designing
Healthy Communities: The Health Impact of Street Vendor
Environments—A
conventional solution would be to construct a bypass
around the urban core – but that approach is far from
being sustainable. To preserve the character of the
city’s centre, highways should not be built because
these structures will only increase the dark and cold
tunnel effect of urban spaces beneath them. Rather, a
framework that encourages satellite service centres
around the city will decrease the number of vehicles
entering the urban core. Banks, professional offices,
medical offices and other businesses can relocate to
disperse services around the city. An important part of
the environmental design plan is to ‘pedestrianise’
several streets in the CBD. This move will decongest the
sidewalks and encourage the use of urban spaces for more
community-oriented (social, leisure, cultural, and arts)
activities and active living, while increasing their
economic vitality.
Several cities in India and Indonesia have closed major
streets to accommodate pedestrians9.
Evaluations of these planning strategies have yielded
positive results. Businesses have increased their sales,
air quality improves, users are more encouraged to stay
in these places, crime decreases and urban spaces are
enlivened. Lastly, to improve the health of street
vendors and urban residents living, working or visiting
in the CBD, a greening movement should be embarked upon.
Restoring existing parks to better health and planting
vegetation around the CBD will improve air quality and
decrease the effects of the urban heat during the hot,
summer months.World
Health Design
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Landscape Architecture: The Magazine of
the American Society of Landscape Architects
Effective use of citizen participation in
planning decision-making processes
By Willis, Angela
V., M.C.R.P., Morgan State University, 2008, 129 pages
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Fairness and Competence in Citizen
Participation
Evaluating Models for Environmental
Discourse
Edited by Ortwin Renn, Thomas Webler, and
Peter Wiedemann
A vital
issue facing the citizens and governments of
modern democracies is the direct
participation of the public in the solution
of environmental problems. Governments are
increasingly experimenting with approaches
that give citizens a greater say in the
environmental debate. Fairness and
Competence in Citizen Participation
addresses a crucial question: How can we
measure the performance of the citizen
participation process? A novel approach to
the problem is taken by viewing public
participation as an act of communication.
Drawing on Jurgen Habermas' Critical Theory
of Communication, a normative framework is
developed around the central area of citizen
participation and competence in knowledge
verification. |
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A milestone on the road of citizen
participation and applied critical theory, the book
provides a sound theoretical and methodological basis
for the systematic evaluation of models for
environmental discourse. Eight models of citizen
participation are studied, from North America and
Europe. Each model is evaluated and criticized in paired
chapters written by prominent scholars. Audience:
Planners and citizens alike will find pragmatic advice
in the evaluations.
Springer, Publisher
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Mr. R. R. Taylor, Director of
Industries of Tuskegee Institute, and the first colored
graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
is the architect who drew the plan of the library, which
has received much praise from various parts of the
country.
The library is open from 7 A. M. to 10 P. M., and
is at all times under the supervision of a competent
librarian. Free access to the shelves is allowed, and
liberal privileges are permitted to both teachers and
students in taking out books for use in their rooms.
An
effort has been put forth to make Tuskegee a center of
information regarding negro literature, and to that end
living negro authors are asked to contribute their
works, and pamphlets and books of every description
written by negroes are obtained whenever possible.
Tuskegee Library and Carnegie
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The State of African Education
(April 200)
Attack On Africans Writing Their Own
History Part 1 of 7
Dr Asa Hilliard III speaks on the assault of academia on
Africans writing and accounting for their own history.
Dr Hilliard is A
teacher, psychologist, and historian.
Part 2 of 7
/
Part
3 of 7 /
Part 4 of 7
/
Part 5 of 7 /
Part 6 of 7 /
Part 7 of 7
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John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk
This
video chronicles the life and times of the
noted African-American historian, scholar
and Pan-African activist
John Henrik Clarke
(1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke
himself and an overview of 5,000 years of
African history, the film offers a
provocative look at the past through the
eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient
Egypt and Africa’s other great empires,
Clarke moves through Mediterranean
borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade,
European colonization, the development of
the Pan-African movement, and present-day
African-American history. |
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posted 19 July 2010 |
