This year, the Rice Design Alliance Charrette brought participants together to take a closer look at the Galveston Seawall. Plagued with empty lots, Hurricane Ike debris, and sparsely populated tourist centers, Seawall Boulevard retains, nonetheless, the potential to unify the residential and tourist communities and create a heart to the island.
Andrew Sheehan (pictured left) was a member of the team that took top prize at this year’s RDA Charrette competition. Sheehan, an architect with Curry Boudreaux Architects and a first-time participant, agreed to look back at the experience for RDA. For a complete list of winners and a look at all the entries, click here.

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A CHARR-WHAT??

Let’s begin at the end. Driving home from the judging reception for the RDA’s 2009 Charrette, my wife asked: “By the way, what does charrette mean anyway?”

I fumbled through an explanation about “carts” and told her that charrette was just a traditional term for an intensive design exercises. According to Wikipedia, I wasn’t far off. From Wikipedia:

Thought to originate from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century, the word charrette is from the French for “cart” or “chariot.” It was not unknown for student architects to continue working furiously, at the last minute, on the illustrations for their design presentations, even while riding in the school cart (”en charrette”) through the streets of Paris en route to submit the projects to their professors. Hence, the term metamorphosed into the current design-related usage in conjunction with working right up until a deadline.

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HOUSTON—More than 70 people turned out for an intense, one day challenge to design a resident and tourist event space for one of Galveston Island’s busiest stretches of Seawall Boulevard. Rice Design Alliance (RDA) Partners sponsored the challenge or “charrette” to focus architects, designers, and interested community members on Galveston’s need to unite the disparate elements of history and tourism that give the island locale its distinct character.

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On Saturday, Aug. 22 (this Saturday!) from 6 pm to 9 pm, all of the designs created during the Charrette will be up for the Galveston Art Walk on the Strand. The exhibit will be held at 2326 Strand, near the corner of 24th Street and Strand. We will have light refreshments available. The exhibit will be up for only this three hour window, so be sure to stop by!

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For RDA’s latest charrette, teams of architects, designers, and engineers will descend on Galveston Island to tackle a new design challenge.

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With its hike and bike trails, lush landscaping, exciting public art, and imaginative lunar lighting scheme, Buffalo Bayou is being transformed into an active and vibrant waterfront destination in downtown Houston. Routine flooding, however, restricts other entertainment options from enlivening this valuable public space. But can that be changed?

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RDA Partners held the 2006 Design Charrette on Saturday, August 5. The event was held at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and followed by a reception. The RDA Partners of the Rice Design Alliance invited interested parties to participate in a juried competition, talking trash, dealing with the issues of recycling and waste disposal in the city of Houston.

The winning entry was:

Trash In Cash Out (TICO)

Saman Ahmadi
Brian Attaway
Aaron Beasley
Jyh-Chan Lin

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The Rice Design Alliance Partners design charrette focuses each year on a particular challenge. In 2007, participants were challenged to design a pedestrian bridge uniting the north and south sections of Memorial Park, Houston’s largest urban park. A charrette serves as a design exercise and while entries are judged, the purpose is to create a forum where we can draw on the creativity of all entrants.

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