DMC design team selects four local prototypes for Peace Plaza plans
Destination Medical Center's plans to redesign Peace Plaza will likely include concepts developed by local creators.
The Heart of the City design team announced this week that it has selected four prototypes to be included in its final design work. All four ideas were introduced last September at the inaugural PlaceMakers Prototyping Festival in downtown Rochester.
"We couldn’t be happier," said DMC's Patrick Seeb. "We invited the community to develop ideas for improving the health of our city while it is investing in public infrastructure. Many great concepts emerged and were built out as prototypes."
Seeb added, "That a nationally recognized firm like Coen + Partners saw the value of applying some of these in the Heart of the City public realm is extraordinarily gratifying. And it is a testament to the innovative capacity of our community."
Sixteen groups participated in the fall festival, all without any promise that their ideas might be turned into permanent installations. But when the new design team came on board, they identified a handful of prototypes that could potentially work in DMC's Heart of the City sub-district. Six groups were invited to present in front of the design team earlier this month.
"It was more exciting than I ever thought it was going to be," designer Shane Coen said this week in front of the Heart of the City Community Advisory Committee. "We went in to try and pick one and fell in love with four of them."
The four prototypes selected were:
The Artery (Eric Anderson): An art installation that changes colors to represent major health events, such as the birth of a child or a patient's successful completion of radiation.
Design by Eric Anderson and Claire Hilton
Info Alley (Sean Baker): An interactive multimedia display that enhances an alley by projecting live video, event listings, social media activity and other relevant community information.
Design by: HoC Design Team
Multilingual Pedestrian Signage (Edgar Mtanous): A wayfinding measure that stimulates connectivity between the DMC sub- districts while perceptibly promoting diversity and inclusion.
Town Cube (Seth and Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara): A visual installation that uses photos and text as a means of highlighting issues of community identity, belonging and social justice.
Note: All images represent renderings or prototypes, and do not necessarily reflect what the final designs will look like.
Disclosure: The idea for Info Alley was developed by Sean Baker, owner and publisher of the Med City Beat.
Cover: The Artery / Design by Eric Anderson and Claire Hilton
