Note to Editors: The redevelopment proposals will be displayed, and Scott Sworts and some of his students will be available for interviews, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Sept. 9 in room 134 of the Environmental Design Building. Reporters and photographers are welcome to attend.
World Trade Center redevelopment proposals created by University of Colorado at Boulder students will be unveiled and discussed in a public event on Sept. 9.
The free event will be held in room 134 of the CU-Boulder Environmental Design Building from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. It will feature a gallery showing of students' design plans.
The event will begin with a 6 p.m. lecture by CU-Boulder architecture instructor Scott Sworts. His talk will focus on the array of redevelopment plans being considered for the World Trade Center site and what elements from proposals submitted by CU-Boulder students have met with approval in New York.
"We will be talking about the situation in New York, what we foresee happening and our vision," said Sworts, an advocate for opening the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site to an international design competition. "Joining our voices in an international design competition for the World Trade Center site is the best way to get the best results."
Last spring, Sworts coordinated three classes totaling 22 students in the College of Architecture and Planning that came up with their own designs for redeveloping the World Trade Center site. The Sept. 9 event will showcase 10 of the students' ideas, including seven site designs and three "green" skyscrapers using sustainable technology.
Sworts taught a class over the summer devoted to designing a fence to enclose the World Trade Center site during three to 10 years of construction. The students also worked on creating a place where people can grieve and connect with each other during the rebuilding process.
Some work that is still in progress from the summer class also will be presented.
Sworts submitted some of his students' proposals to a grassroots group of lower Manhattan residents, business owners and architects known as Rebuild Downtown Our Town, or R.Dot. The group has been working to offer alternate design ideas to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which currently is in charge of formulating the site's redesign plans.
R.Dot is proposing its own plans for the site that reflect more of a mixed-use development, including residential housing, that would be used 24 hours a day, Sworts said.
Though there is no way to pinpoint where they originated, some of the students' ideas submitted to R.Dot could be seen in the proposals unveiled by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. in July.
For information call (303) 492-8010.