Knight Program

The mission of the Knight Program in Community Building is to advance the knowledge and practice of effective, collaborative community building through interdisciplinary initiatives, including charrettes, fellowships for mid-career professionals, seminars, workshops, executive education courses, publications and study tours.

The Knight Program was established in 2000 with a generous grant from the Knight Foundation and has been directed since then by Dr. Charles C. Bohl. To date, the Knight Program has held over 40 events, including 13 continuing education courses in real estate development that are available to SOA students and are often incorporated into full semester courses.

The program awards fellowships to twelve mid-career community development professionals who are convened six times a year for intensive workshops on community building topics. The culmination of the fellowship year is the annual charrette, an intensive public workshop focusing on community design. The Knight Program charrette brings School of Architecture faculty members, graduate students from the Suburb & Town Design program, and the Knight Program Fellows to an urban community that seeks planning and design assistance. The program has held charrettes in Memphis, Duluth, Coatesville (PA), San Jose and Macon.

At the week-long charrette, the Fellows run the stakeholder meetings with community leaders and citizens. Fellows, faculty members and students collaborate to produce a master plan, detailed site plans, and urban design and architecture proposals. The Fellows also formulate the charrette’s recommendations in policy and management areas. Dean Plater-Zyberk and Professor Bohl serve as the charrette leaders, Jaime Correa, the Knight Professor in Community Building, directs the graduate student design team, and other faculty members provide guidance.

The charrette is donated by the Knight Program to a city chosen through a competitive process. The event is a learning experience for all parties involved – it is often the first charrette for the Fellows, serving as a practical and intensive introduction to this valuable community building tool. Students benefit from the charrette experience as well, producing drawings that are a major product of the charrette. The charrette provides students with a capstone academic experience, introducing them to the public process and to preparation of a master plan and final report. The charrette hones the skills that many design firms seek, preparing students for employment in architecture and community design.

“The charrette provided the Fellows with the amazing opportunity to work collaboratively with a diverse multi-disciplinary team and to learn from the wealth of knowledge that each team member brought to the table,” said Dan Parolek, a 2004-05 Knight Program Fellow and the founding principal of Opticos Design in Berkeley, CA. “For all team members, the charrette presented the challenge of understanding the dynamics of the community, dealing with community members, stakeholders and politicians and tackling the economic, social and physical constraints to create an implementable vision for a healthy, sustainable urban neighborhood.”

Recently, Knight Fellows, faculty members and students participated in several nationally recognized community building projects including the Mississippi Renewal Forum held in Biloxi, MS, and some Fellows have continued to work intensively on rebuilding the area. In addition, the Knight Program has been instrumental in working to establish a design center in the Gulf Coast region. Several Knight Fellows also participated in New Orleans’ Gentilly Design Charrette in April 2006.

Fellows and faculty members have collaborated on publications and research in community building. The journal Places, “Building Community Across the Rural-to-Urban Transect,” published in August 2006, edited by Dr. Bohl and Dean Plater-Zyberk, included contributions from faculty and Fellows. The forthcoming Journal of Urbanism, which begins publication in 2008, is co-edited by Dr. Bohl.

For more information about the Knight Program, including links to Fellows’ research projects and charrette documentation, visit the Knight Program Website.