The Urban Charrette facilitates connections between the community and the built environment by cultivating awareness of respectful urban design through dialogue, collaboration, and education.
We are a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary goal is to educate citizens on the importance of quality urban design in shaping more beautiful, sustainable, and authentic cities. We host educational forums and consensus building workshops incorporating meaningful and broad-based public participation. Founded in Tampa, the Urban Charrette believes in leading by example to develop a more socially, economically and sustainable local environment that addresses the needs of young professionals, children, families, and the aging.
The organization is guided by a dedicated Board of Directors and supported with an energetic team of Agents. We have a large following of local and national supporters who are integral in all that we do. Together, we are working to improve the level of design in communities to enrich the quality of life and define a sense of place.
Founded on April 20, 2007 by two graduate architects, the Urban Charrette opened its doors to Friday morning workshops where the professional community discussed issues facing Tampa’s urban core. Out of those workshops and a subsequent charrette came the organization’s first intervention, Conceptual Kiley. The collaborative asked local artists to create sculptural trees to stand in place of the original Crepe Myrtles that were cut down and thus destroyed one of Tampa’s key parks – Kiley Gardens. The goal was to raise awareness of the park’s past and potential future. The project taught the group that in order to be effective the key would be to identify proactive ways to use the charrette process to create a positive culture of change.
The Urban Charrette’s Board of Director’s was formed shortly after Conceptual Kiley and consisted of an interdisciplinary team of planners, engineers, interior designers, and architects.
In late 2007, the Urban Charrette was awarded a grant from the American Institute of Architects to bring a team together that designed and implemented a sustainability plan for the city of Tampa. The Urban Charrette utilized a multi-faceted approach to assemble a diverse group of stakeholders which represented a cross-section of the city. The goal was to develop an agenda to move Tampa towards a more sustainable city. The team identified five focus areas from the grant process which guides our current programming. These include:
President
Master of Architecture, University of South Florida
Favorite Place in Tampa:
“Tre Amici and 514 N Franklin Street. The place I met my wonderful wife and the place I proposed to her, respectively. If you stand outside of both of these spaces you smell some of the best coffee in town and in a short time see everyone in Tampa walk by.”
The Urban Charrette is an organization of dedicated planners, architects, and urban designers working to improve lives through community design. The organization recently completed a three year strategic plan to focus efforts, ensure the long term sustainability of the organization, and maximize our impact on the community. The strategic plan will guide the Urban Charrette’s activities, programming, and funding objectives for the next three years.
The Urban Charrette hired Sunshine State Strategies, a business development consulting firm, to lead and manage the strategic plan process. Over several months Sunshine State Strategies:
Conducted an internal assessment, gathering information on past activities and understanding the history of the group; Obtained feedback from the community on strengths and weaknesses meeting with government staff, community leaders, and peer groups to perform a SWOT analysis; and interviewed a number of model non-profit organizations across the country gaining an set of successful strategies that have worked for other similar organizations.
This collective data guided the Board through a series of workshops designed to focus our mission, understand our target audiences, develop a set of operational values, and create a clear action plan for implementing established goals and objectives.
The strategic plan process led the Urban Charrette to define our core activities which are focused on improving the aesthetics and functionality of the built environment in the Tampa Bay Region through:
We are excited about our upcoming programming and encourage you to read our strategic plan finding ways that you might contribute to our mission.
Learn how you can get involved with the Urban Charrette and help shape our community.