What is a Charette?
guidelines, members & sponsors
In order to develop a dream plan for SoBro, the Urban Design Team and the citizen-planners participated in a “charrette.” The process takes its name from the carts, or charrettes, that used to rattle through the halls of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Working frantically against tight deadlines, architecture students would be assigned the challenge of sketching out blueprints for the city beautiful. Then they would toss their drawings on the charrette as it passed by. If a student’s drawing didn’t make it onto the charrette, he was out of luck.
Today, a “charrette” is an intense, tightly scheduled grass-roots planning process. It permits citizens to state their goals for the built environment. Then, with a deadline bearing looming, a team of urban designers translates those goals into drawings and plans.
The charrette guidelines demand that no member of the Design Team have a vested financial interest in the outcome of the process. The Design Team for the SoBro Charrette included some Tennesseans, but it also included a number of designers who had never visited Nashville before.
Team Members
Mark Schimmenti, an architect and urbanist from Knoxville, Tenn., leader of the SoBro Charrette
Other members of the Design Team were:
Dean Almy, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Stephanie Bothwell, a landscape architect practicing in Auburn, Ala.
Warren T. Byrd, professor of landscape architecture at the University of Virginia
Walter Chatham, president of the Architectural League of New York
Dede Christopher, designer of an urban design master plan for Maryville, Tenn.
Jon Coddington, head of the graduate program in architecture at the University of Tennessee
Marleen K. Davis, dean of the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Tennessee
Thomas K. Davis, director of the Kingsport (Tenn.) Regional Interactive Design Studio
Russell Hopper, an intern architect with Duckett Goss Wilkinson in Knoxville, Tenn.
Samina Quraeshi, director of the Design Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts
John Massengale, an author, architect, and urbanist practicing in Bedford, N.Y.
David Mohney, Dean of the University of Kentucky’s School of Architecture, who recently designed a master plan for downtown Lexington, Ky.
Christine Saum, executive director of the Mayor’s Institute on City Design in Washington, D.C.
Stroud Watson, former director of the Riverfront Downtown Design Center in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Jeff Wilkinson, adjunct professor of computer-aided design at the University of Tennessee
Buzz Goss, an architect practicing in Knoxville with experience in urban infill projects
Jason Johnson, an intern architect working in Charleston, S.C.
Erin Miller, a graduate student in urban design at the University of California at Berkeley
Get with the plan
The SoBro Charette was sponsored by the Nashville Scene, with major underwriting from the HCA Foundation and additional support from the Nashville Community Foundation. The charrette sessions were hosted by the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies.
Later this month, the Nashville Scene will publish the results of the SoBro Charrette. A limited number of copies of the plan for SoBro will be available to the public. To reserve your copy, call the Scene operator at (615) 244-7989. Leave your name and your complete address.
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