The Bruner Foundation team wrapped up our site visits to the 2013 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence finalists with a trip to The Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island. Submitted by Klopfer Martin Design Group, the Steel Yard is an ongoing redevelopment of an historic steel fabrication facility into a campus for arts education, workforce training, and small-scale manufacturing.

The landscaped courtyard—“The Yard”—provides space for fabrication and events.  Photograph: The Steel Yard

Along with Congo Street Initiative and Inspiration Kitchens, the Steel Yard incorporates the rehabilitation of existing buildings and the use of recycled materials; like Via Verde and Louisville Waterfront Park, it is a brownfield site. The unseasonably cold weather we’ve experienced on most of our trips persisted during our visit to Providence. While the outdoor courtyard was quiet, indoors, people were occupied with creative metalworking and craft making while we met with staff, board members, program partners, community representatives, and funders from the Steel Yard.

Welding classes and workshops are offered. Photograph: Bruner Foundation

Located in Providence’s Industrial Valley along the Woonasquatucket River just west of downtown, the Steel Yard occupies the site of Providence Iron and Steel Company, a 100-year old business that closed in 2001.The property was purchased by two graduates of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), who lived in the adjoining Monohasset Mill artists’ live/work complex. The 3.5-acre site, with its gantry cranes and rough brick and metal buildings, became an ad hoc community and gathering space for people interested in creative, industrial arts. Read more…

Hurricane Sandy has brought home the responsibility that we share to make our region more resilient in the face of severe weather and more responsive to the threats posed by climate change.

What is certain is that we will need new policies, and new investments, to reduce our susceptibility to environmental disasters. Sandy led to the death of more than 70 people in the region and caused more than $50 billion in damage and economic losses. The storm also disrupted the daily lives and commutes of nearly all of the region’s 23 million residents. Whether or not these events are the result of human-caused global warming, it is clear that we need to do much more to lessen their toll.

Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath have awakened us to an uncomfortable reality: The country’s most populated area and its largest economic engine sits on a vulnerable coastline. Yet there are many measures that would help ease the impact of storm surges.

Read more…