Charrette: An Illustrated Brainstorm

A charrette is a design activity that originated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts School of Architecture in Paris. Students were assigned difficult design problems by the school’s faculty. At the end of their allotted time, the students would toss their drawings into a little pushcart, called a charrette in French. The name stuck.

But today’s charrettes are not simply academic design problems set for students. They are real-world activities that address policy and regulations as well as design. Douglas Kelbaugh, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Washington, calls a charrette an "illustrated brainstorm," an apt description, for a charrette generates intense creativity on the part of its participants.

A successful charrette can employ several teams that work on a well-defined design challenge. The teams are composed of academics and practitioners—engineers, planners, and architects—from inside and outside the community in question. Their sole goal is to produce a design solution that takes into consideration a totality of factors: design elements and sustainable development concepts such as green spaces, recreational needs, parking, traffic, landscaping, safety, and water management. Imagine then, a team of talented, knowledgeable people working intensely: Some are planning a street; others are developing sketches for housing or commercial buildings or both; and yet others are estimating the effects of drainage. The process is one of constant invention and ongoing discussion and negotiation. The entire activity takes place within a short time frame. The result is a set of drawings that reveals a vision.

Conventional planning approaches to design tend to focus solely on whatever is being designed—a building, a highway, a mall, etc.—and may not take into consideration the surrounding environment. A charrette, however, takes into account the whole of the subject and tries to design the best concept given the criteria deemed necessary. In short, it brings sustainable development concepts to the fore.

These concepts are complex and raise many difficult questions. For example: What is the best way to handle storm water? Do we continue to run it off through pipes and create environmental problems downstream, or do we handle storm water on the surface, preserving ground water recharge, which results in an aesthetic design that incorporates holding areas such as ponds? How do we give emphasis to pedestrian use and public transit over private auto use? Can we site buildings so they take advantage of sunlight through solar technology, which is environmentally friendly and which will lower heating costs? How do we build for higher densities and still make the environment appealing?

Correctly employed, charrettes can help further our understanding of a major question: Is design a valuable way to approach major land use issues? Because charrettes integrate regulatory prescriptions such as those in an official community plan with zoning prescriptions for land use such as building size, traffic patterns, and the like, they can effect changes in zoning regulations and policy.

In fact, successful charrettes not only provide design solutions to land use concerns, they also challenge existing regulations and policy and suggest how a particular design can be supported by policy. "A charrette can identify those areas where policies contradict each other," says Patrick Condon, James Taylor Chair in Landscape and the Livable Environments at UBC’s School of Architecture. "For example, if regional/global policy states that neighbourhoods should have easy access to public transit, but subdivision design comes into review and demands arterial, collector, and cul-de-sac streets, you have a problem. Public transit can’t move easily through a maze of streets. Therefore, people will have to walk a long way to transit stops. Or let’s say that minimum lot frontage ordinances stipulate that lots must be anywhere from 60 to 100 feet, based on the idea that wide frontage is good and narrow frontage is bad, people will then have to walk twice as far to get anywhere. A charrette can address these contradictions."

In effect, the goal of charrettes is to demonstrate what our communities would be like if they were planned and built to conform with emerging local, regional, provincial, and federal policies for regional development. In Condon’s view, the objective is to present a vision of what an urban landscape could be like if designed in conformance with policy. "There’s a real need to show the public what it is or is not buying into. At present, we buy without seeing the results first. A charrette is also a good way to determine if the policies we have designed actually produce the results we want. It’s an opportunity for a variety of judgments and an opportunity to fine tune the results."

Of a charrette’s many advantages one of the most important is that it brings to the public’s attention the need for all stakeholders to be involved in the planning and design of their community. Ideally, a charrette will produce a range of practicable and cost-effective solutions to a specific design problem. The public is able to see what costs what. A charrette defines a vision of the possible to the citizen, councilor, developer, planner, architect, and policy maker. Together, these decision-makers can use this vision to build a livable community.

It is this comprehensive, inclusive nature of charrettes that appeals to many communities and organizations and to the Foundation’s Governors, who have supported three charrettes in the past year. The Surrey Design Charrette, Surrey, B.C., and the Brentwood Regional Town Centre Charrette, Burnaby, B.C., were both sponsored by the University of British Columbia’s James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments. The Harris Green Charrette was held by the City of Victoria.

The Surrey Design Charrette tackled a 400 acre "green field" site that currently houses 980 people and borders a recently urbanized area: the Newton District in Surrey. The site includes uplands and low wetlands areas and is divided by numerous salmon streams. Four teams worked independently to come up with designs that would allow 10,000 people to live on 400 acres while preserving or enhancing the ecological function and beauty of the land. The teams wrestled with principles of sustainable development and offered many creative solutions to commercial, public, industry, and housing uses, to street patterns and green corridors, and to preservation of natural habitats.

The Brentwood Regional Town Centre Charrette site includes Brentwood Mall and over 400 acres of land surrounding the intersection of Lougheed Highway and Willingdon Avenue in Burnaby. The site, recognized as a catchment area for new investment, sits above the City of Burnaby and affects the Still Creek System. "We had several challenges," says Patrick Condon. "How do you use a billion dollars of new investment to enhance the Still Creek System?" Are there ways to use the proposed light rail line to unite rather than to divide the community? Is it possible to expand the types of medium-density, ground-oriented homes available to the area residents?"

The teams offered many creative solutions, which they presented to the public. These included ways to restore natural drainage systems and enhance the environmental well-being of the area. The teams made provisions for appealing, affordable housing, while taking care to provide for safe neighbouhoods and a variety of commercial, cultural, and social services. Several ideas were developed for accommodating the proposed light rail system, one of which would see the Lougheed Highway turned into a grand boulevard with side streets and access roads.

The goal of the Harris Green Charrette was to rejuvenate a 12-block area immediately east of Victoria’s downtown core. The participants set out to turn Harris Green into a populous, thriving, mixed-used area, and to identify the strategies required to achieve that vision. Steve Barber, Senior Planner for the City, praises the process."There was lots of opportunity for public input. We listened carefully to the concerns of residents, business people, and various agencies. We also listened to developers and tried to balance their needs with those of the community."

The result is a vision of a Harris Green that proposes, among other things, a blend of commercial and residential development with a European flavour. New development sits close to the sidewalk. The emphasis is on buildings of 4 to 9 storeys with their upper floors set back from the street. Pocket plazas and parkettes are found throughout the area, and a canopy of large trees on every street gives the neighbourhood much more of a green feel. This charrette was very successful because it prompted the City of Victoria to pass a zoning bylaw to incorporate the new vision into the official community plan.

Detailed information about each charrette is available through The Land Centre.