USU's LAEP Students Prepare Plans for the City of Logan

Students who study in Utah State University’s department of landscape architecture and environmental planning finished a week-long project known as a charrette Feb. 1, developing plans for the City of Logan.

In the USU exercise, more than 120 students from freshmen to graduate students researched and developed plans regarding various aspects of the city of Logan. The students used their training to come up with creative ways to address issues facing Logan and the county corridor from the Idaho border to Wellsville.

 

Faculty members David Bell and John Nicholson organized 14 teams. Each team included senior students as team leaders, with graduate student and faculty advisors. Team leaders assigned tasks to team members and produced the final plans by Friday afternoon (Feb. 1).

 

Jay Nielsen, Logan City’s director of community development, met with the USU students at the beginning of the week and told them how important the plans would be to the future of the city.

 

The teams began the week with a site visit of their area of Logan or Cache County. Teams were encouraged to ride public transportation and ask riders their views on the topics assigned. Team topics ranged from public transportation, traffic concerns, parking and downtown attractions to USU, public spaces, public art and historical awareness. Plans for the north and south corridors, gateway attractiveness to the city, increasing pedestrians in downtown and parking issues were also topics.

 

This is the fifth charrette USU’s LAEP department has organized for students. Past locations and projects include sites in Richmond, Tooele, Heber City and, last year, the Highway 89 corridor in Sanpete County. The department organizes buses and vans to transport all LAEP students to the locations for the initial site visits.

 

Faculty organizers said students gain real-world experience from the charrettes, and this year is no exception. The student plans were presented to the City of Logan and will be passed on as a possible starting point to the consultants the city plans to hire later this year.

 

For information on the charrette, contact the LAEP department at (435) 797-0500.

 

The students’ plans can be seen April 4 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 85 E. 100 North in Logan.

 

Charrette is a term used in the design profession and is a collaborative effort in which a group drafts a solution to a problem. Charrettes take place in many disciplines, including urban planning, where the charrette becomes a technique for consulting multiple stakeholders.

 

The French word “charrette” means “cart” and is often used to describe the final, intense work effort expended by art and architecture students to meet a project deadline, according to the National Charrette Institute Web site. The use of the term is said to originate from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris during the 19th century, where proctors circulated a cart, or “charrette,” to collect final drawings, while students frantically put finishing touches on their work.

 

“The NCI charrette combines this creative, intense work session with public workshops and open houses,” the Web site said. “The NCI charrette is a collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a feasible plan that represents transformative community change.”

 

Contact: David Bell (435) 797-0511
Contact: John Nicholson (435) 797-0506
Source: Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning