Doug Suisman joins key Hartford leaders on WNPR to talk about the ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown Hartford, through the efforts of the State of Connecticut, the City of Hartford, business interests, and cultural institutions, including the iQuilt Partnership:
Read MoreThe iQuilt Partnership hosted its second Creative Cities Conversation, featuring Leslie Koch, President and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island and Doug Suisman who led the conversation.
Read MoreThe first major piece of Hartford’s iQuilt Plan has broken ground. A road diet has given shape to Bushnell Park North, a pedestrian promenade lining the northern edge of Bushnell Park.
Slideshow of progress images here
Read MoreThe Hartford Parking Authority (HPA) has asked Suisman Urban Design to help renovate its massive, 8-level, 1300-space Church Street Garage in downtown Hartford. The garage is highly visible from I-84, and stands directly across the street from the XL Center, Hartford’s main sports and performance arena. The design uses color, graphics, lighting, and wayfinding to help connect the parking facility with downtown’s increasingly vibrant pedestrian network, as envisioned in the iQuilt Plan. The project is funded by HPA with support from the iQuilt Partnership.
Read MoreSuisman’s conceptual master plan for the campus of the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts has landed on the top of the front page of the Hartford Courant. The newspaper devoted several pages to the project, and to the history of Hartford’s landmark cultural center. The project is being developed in concert with the State of Connecticut, which owns most of the surrounding properties.
Read MoreDoug Suisman joined the leaders of Phoenix and the mayor of Hartford to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Phoenix’s famous modernist landmark “boat building” and to cut the ribbon on a new green terrace surrounding. The landscape project is a key piece of the iQuilt Plan’s one-mile Greenwalk, a continuous pedestrian walkway from the State Capitol to the Connecticut River. Cutting the ribbon were James D. Wehr, Phoenix president and chief executive officer; Phoenix executive Bonnie Malley (who is also chair of the iQuilt Partnership); and Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra.
Read MoreSuisman Urban Design and its client, the iQuilt Partnership and the City of Hartford, have received the Award of Excellence from the Connecticut Main Street Center. The award was given to Suisman’s iQuilt urban design plan for downtown Hartford, in the category of Public Space Master Plan. Suisman has been progressively designing and supporting the implementation of the comprehensive plan since 2008. “Connecticut’s city centers are critical drivers of commerce and competitiveness,” said Governor Dannel P. Malloy. “I applaud the 2013 award winners for their efforts to make Connecticut’s downtowns thrive.”
Read MoreThe 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.
Read Morehe CARSuisman Urban Design’s work in Hartford has been included in a new book offering a refreshingly multifaceted view of the combined future of cars, streets and policy: “The Car in 2035: Mobility Planning for the Near Future.” Essays and images present the car as both a challenge and benefit to our neighborhoods, cities, and suburbs. A lively mix of auto industry experts, planners, designers, artists, researchers, and architects contemplates how we will adapt our cars and their context so we can continue to enjoy the freedom and benefits of individual mobility in the future.
Read MoreBy Kenneth R. Gosselin – The Hartford Courant
Construction is expected to begin next spring on three areas crucial to the iQuilt plan — State House Square, Gold Street and Union Station — a first major step in making the city’s center more easily navigated by pedestrians, cyclists and those who ride the bus. City officials and urban design consultants unveiled the latest plans Wednesday under iQuilt, a vision for making the city more walkable and capitalizing on its arts and cultural assets as well as Bushnell Park and the Connecticut River. The first phase, expected to cost $23 million, includes sweeping changes in how buses crisscross downtown and the way the central business district handles bus traffic from CTfastrak, the New Britain-Hartford busway now under construction.
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