Grant – Suisman Urban Design

$100K state grant for Suisman’s “Inside/Out” placemaking in Hartford

The iQuilt Partnership has won a highly competitive placemaking grant from the State of Connecticut’s “Arts Catalyze Placemaking” (ACP) Program. Suisman Urban Design will lead development of iNSIDE/OUT, the iQuilt’s project focusing on a collection of beta sites that will demonstrate a wide variety of ways to externalize Hartford’s cultural assets. Pilot projects will be sited in different parts of downtown, notably along Church Street, which is home to Christ Cathedral, Capital Community College, and the Hartford Stage Company.

Suisman’s plan for Vancouver media arts campus helps gain $110 Million grant

Suisman Urban Design has prepared an urban design master plan for the Great Northern Way (GNW) Campus and the new campus of Emily Carr University of Art and Design (ECUAD). The Great Northern Way Campus in East Vancouver is a former industrial site which the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and ECUAD are turning into a digital media hub for education and business.

Suisman’s design was presented as part of the funding application to the provincial government of British Columbia. The government subsequently approved $113 million to build the new facility for ECUAD. Construction is slated to begin in May 2014 and be completed by July 2016.

Emily Carr President Ron Burnett said, “Doug Suisman is an extraordinary visionary” who was instrumental in developing the early phase site plan and urban design for The Great Northern Way.

The funding means the art and design school will be leaving Granville Island, Premier Christy Clark confirmed. “Emily Carr University had outgrown its old home,” said Clark. The original Granville Island campus was designed for 800 students, but now has 1,800 registered, and the university needs a larger space to grow and stay competitive, say officials.

Emily Carr President Ron Burnett said the aim is to bring art and technology together at the site. “Emily Carr’s Great Northern Way Campus will be at the centre of a new social, cultural, educational, entertainment and economic engine for British Columbia,” said Burnett. The new campus will have numerous positive economic benefits for the Province of British Columbia and will drive creativity and innovation in BC and Canada while supporting the future growth of the creative sector. Burnett said, “Emily Carr’s vision is to be internationally known as one of the top global schools for its undergraduate and graduate programs in Media Arts, Design and Visual Arts. Our new campus will be built to the highest standards with design features unique to the mandate of the university, that is inspired by design excellence and that promotes an integrated, comprehensive and sustainable approach to the goals of the university; it will create an imaginative and cost-effective urban landscape that forms the centre of activities for Great Northern Way.

NEA Awards Hartford $250,000 Grant for iQuilt plan by Suisman Urban Design

Project is Named Nation’s Top Recipient for Culture-Based Urban Design Grants.

HARTFORD–July 16, 2010–The National Endowment for the Arts announced today that the city of Hartford and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts have won a national grant worth $250,000 for the iQuilt, a culture-based downtown design plan developed by Suisman Urban Design. Of the 21 cities receiving awards, only four cities received the top award of $250,000. Hartford’s proposal was ranked #1 by the NEA.

The iQuilt, initiated by the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, is a plan to connect some 45 of Hartford’s cultural assets and public spaces with pedestrian and bicycling routes running from the Capitol and Bushnell Park to the river, and then enhance the area with improvements. A major feature merges new and existing public spaces – parks, plazas, walkways – into the GreenWalk, a landscape spine linking Bushnell Park to the riverfront.

The NEA awarded the funding as a part of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative, a program that supports projects in communities across the nation focused on planning, design, and arts engagement programs. In total, the 21 matching grants awarded to cities and community groups across the country amounted to an investment of $3 million on behalf of the NEA. More than 600 cities were eligible to apply, and more than 200 applications were submitted.