ABAC to hold design charrette to create plan for front of college

Special to the Gazette

TIFTON March 25, 2008 09:48 pm

— A team of urban planners, landscape architects, historic preservationists and designers from the University of Georgia College of Environment and Design will arrive in Tifton on Friday for an intensive, three-day public design session, or ‘charrette,’ to create a plan for the front of the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College campus.
“The goal of the design charrette,” said professor and team leader Pratt Cassity, “is to involve the campus, alumni, the community and all other interested parties in the design from the beginning, to hear people’s points of view and to create a plan that will become the gateway to ABAC.”
The design team’s three-day calendar includes the following public events:
March 28, 3 p.m.: Public Forum in Health Sciences 114, Introduction of Charrette Process, Public Input Session;
March 29: Design Team Working Session;
March 30, 2 p.m.: Presentation of Preliminary Results in Health Sciences 114, Public Comment and Critique.
The team will establish a full working design studio at the ABAC Health Sciences Building for the weekend. The studio will be open to the public at all times. The plans, drawings, analysis and ideas developed during the day will be pinned up on the wall, described to members of the community and their feedback invited.
“Within these three days, the team is charged with designing and illustrating, in plans, maps and renderings, a vision of the main entrance, buildings and landscape for the front of campus at ABAC,” Cassity said. “We hope to design a plan that truly fits ABAC’s vision for its future, and to do that, we need everyone’s involvement and feedback.”
The closing presentation will display the preliminary draft plan, and public comment is again invited. After the charrette, the design team will revise and complete concepts developed during the charrette before submitting the plan to ABAC.
The original three buildings on the front of the ABAC campus, Tift, Lewis and Herring Halls, are all closed for rehabilitation.