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2017 R ena i s s anc e P l an U pdat e | T own of W ak e F or e s t
4.4 Public Design Charrette The public design charrette took place April 25 through April 28 at Town Hall. The design team set up a working studio in the ground floor meeting room. The premise of a charrette is to create a collaborative environment in which all of the experts, decision makers and local citizens can interact, develop a vision for the future and watch that vision come to life through graphic exhibits and policy statements. The charrette was well attended with focus group meetings set up throughout the day. A schedule of those meetings is found on the previous page. While some members of the team met with various interest groups, the remainder explored the study area in depth and sketched ideas for improvements. Each afternoon included a project update and design pin- up session in which all ideas were taped to the wall for explanation and to generate feedback from participants. The team comes in with no preconceived notion of what the solutions may be and focus on crafting a vision guided by public input. The constant feedback loop that is created throughout the week brings the benefit of public buy-in and political will to make the recommendations a reality. On the first evening of the week, a public kickoff workshop was held to provide not only an opportunity for input but also educate participants in national trends and best practices from great downtowns around the country. Breakout mapping sessions in small groups gave even more opportunity for the team to listen to individual perspectives and issues. Summaries of the thoughts gathered are found on the following pages in wordle format. Wordles are simplified graphics that compile all of the thoughts related to a posed question and allow the words that are heard most often to stand out in a larger font. The larger the word, the more often it was recorded as the answer (pages 54–57).
S S Participants reviewing work during a daily pin-up session
S S Design team drawing options for the master plan during the charrette
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