Design Session, Spring 2019

Here is a recap of some recent projects that we have been working on this spring:

Holly Street Park + Oregon Hill Park system

We have been working with a designer to imagine some alternative solutions for the Oregon Hill Parks, specifically Holly Street Park. However, we wanted to hear from the community first. We will be releasing a report from our presentation at the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association (OHNA) last Tuesday evening.

A spread from the initially proposed concept plan.

RVA Steaks N More

A concept for a proposed breakfast spot in Highland Park called RVA Steaks N More

RVA Steaks N More requested design assistance in setting up their take out steak shop in Highland Park on Meadowbridge Road. Their motivation is to provide delicious cooked to order meals at economical prices and one hundred percent customer service.

Design Session in 2018: 34 Projects, 100% District Representation

This past year Storefront’s helped further the design initiatives of 34 projects through the Design Session program, which offers low-cost design assistance to Richmond. These projects were situated in all 9 city districts. The majority of these Design Sessions supported non-profit organizations or initiatives that are youth and community-oriented. This year we had more graphic design requests than ever!

Storefront would like to take a moment to thank all our volunteer designers this past year. We couldn’t offer this service without the generosity and expertise of these local (and some out of town!) professionals. Storefront volunteers are actively working to improve our city through design. If that isn’t heroic, we aren’t sure what is. Thanks y’all!

We will release a downloadable report from this past year shortly.

spring at mOb

What has been going on at mOb recently? Read on for a quick rundown of the activity at the studio this semester.

We started off the semester with a quick design competition amongst the students to redesign the Golden Hammer Award. The Golden Hammer Awards are a recognition of excellence in neighborhood revitalization projects in the Greater Richmond Area. Learn more about the awards next week. 

The students then began working in teams on 11 projects throughout the semester. 

Last Saturday, students headed to Greensville County to clean up the site of an old Rosenwald School, the Greensville County Training School. The interdisciplinary team of students has been working on an identity for the new space, a plan for its repurposing, and a series of brochures and on site graphics to raise awareness.

Another team of students is working with the Richmond Volleyball Club to make their graphics speak to a new, younger demographics. 

The Minority AIDS Support Services group is working to create a comfortable, discrete space in their offices in Hampton, VA, where community members can get tested for HIV and feel supported and comfortable around other clients the non-profit serves. They are exploring interior design solutions for a shared waiting room space. 

A team of students is working for another semester with Brooks Diner in Northside to redesign their exterior sign and offer solutions for a patio while yet another group of students is helping to redesign the look of the Afrikana Film Festival. A smaller, yet fastidious nonetheless, student team is working with the VCU Police downtown to design spatial solutions to make the entrance to new offices on Broad St more abiding and in turn, help them fulfill their mission of becoming better neighbors in downtown Richmond. 

Stay tuned for final solutions and mark your calendars for our First Friday opening next month!

How small structures fill big gaps in food access

Storefront volunteer consultant and former mOb student Colleen Brennan discusses the relationship between craft and food access. A furniture builder by trade, she has worked on two projects about food access at mOb + Storefront — through Shalom Farms and Tricycle Gardens. 

As most of us know, there are big gaps in the locations of grocery store chains that leave many without adequate supply of food. Having a background in craft, I’ve thought a lot about how removed we are from the production of the basic things we need every day, that being food and the infrastructure & tools necessary to prepare it. While the craft movement was originally founded to revive the dignity of labor and combat the dehumanizing effects of factory work, the movement has been revived with concerns that are more focused around sustainability — both environmental and economic. Now, the focus is more about locally sourced materials and makers as a form of ethical consumerism. These are largely the concerns of the "slow food/farm to table" movement as well.  The philosophies of these two movements have such similar sentiments, and in addition to the similarities in scale there is immense potential for them to intersect and expand access to good food on the local level.

Bacon's Rebellion. Map showing Richmond's urban food deserts by census tract (2012).

There are two ways that food can actually meet food desert: physically providing access and education. Accessibility to food will always require infrastructure on some level, and small grocery markets operate on a scale that lends itself well to craft. Tricycle Gardens is a nonprofit community garden that runs a program called Corner Farm, which carves out spaces in the corner stores of Richmond’s urban food deserts to offer locally grown produce. They have 11-15 participating stores thoughotut the city.  Tricycle Gardens reached out to Storefront to get help designing shelves for shelf stable produce.

Through Storefront's Design Session, Brennan devised a scheme to create shelves around the coolers provided through the Corner Farm program.

Another nonprofit I worked with during mOb, Shalom Farms, literally drives to neighborhoods without grocery stores. This past spring, we designed a system that will allow them to easily load their van and convert the van into a pop-up market for sales. They're working on implementing this now. Their focus on education provides access by way of knowledge sharing. Part of Shalom Farms’ program is teaching volunteer labor about farming techniques and the science behind it.  They provide access through education and therefore, personal agency. This is early DIY movement stuff — So punk!

Brennan managed a team of students through mOb studio to design a system that converts a 16 passenger van into a farm stand.

mOb + Storefront will continue to work on issues around food access during this Fall's session of mOb. Even without building structures, healthier options can be more readily available. The Richmond City Health District will serve as a client of mOb, and students will apply the principles of choice architecture (focusing on arrangement that prioritize healthy options) to a corner store in the Highland Park neighborhood.

Check out more of Colleen's work here!

Storing Bikes for Story Rides

Catherine Illian, owner of Richmond Rides applied to work with Storefront to develop a storage solution for Richmond Rides, a new bicycle tour company that shares a small space with Cyclus bike shop at 2225 East Clay Street. Volunteer Evan MacKenzie developed three concepts to store 16 bikes and helmets. Each concept provides racks that can accommodate 14 bikes, while leaving room for 2 extra bikes in the space.

When not in storage, these bikes wheel around Church Hill on tours like this:

Our this tour of historic Church Hill, you will learn about the neighborhood where Richmond was founded through the lives of its most memorable residents. As you ride, you will also experience some of Richmond’s delicious eats and amazing views in this beautiful and historic city. Some of the characters you discover along the way include its celebrated and sometimes overlooked heroes.

Beautify Bellevue Group Seeks Support to Restore Treewells

Storefront volunteer consultant Scott Wiley provided a planting schedule for a swath of sidewalk in the Bellevue neighborhood.

On behalf of Beautify Bellevue, Linda Decker applied to work with Storefront to develop concepts for streetscape improvements along Lamont Street in the Bellevue community. For this anomalous strip of asphalt, Linda requested assistance in plant placement and permitting. Landscape Architect and Bellevue resident Scott Wiley provided a plan that recycles portions of the asphalt for the abutting on-street parking, with smaller plantings and additional tree wells in- between. With the exception of some aspects of asphalt removal (it is actually soft), most of this work can be implemented by volunteers. Scott communicated with Arborist Luke McCall and Right of Way Engineer Doug Mawby from the City of Richmond’s Department of Public Works. They advised the group to apply for a Work in Streets Permit and Street Tree Planting Application. If necessary, Storefront staff can help Beautify Bellevue navigate these processes.