The Goals - Specific community goals identified by the Local Review Committee appointed by the Danville Selectboard at the outset of the Project in May 2000 that have been successfully addressed by the process include:

• Celebrating the unique history, character and attributes that define local culture;
• Preserving and revitalizing the Green as a large, open public space;
• Enhancing the visual appeal of the Village center by undergrounding utilities;
• Providing adequate parking to support visitors and to ensure the economic viability of businesses in the Village;
• Raising community spirit and generating contributions from social, civic, business and fraternal organizations;
• Supporting ‘pride of place’ among residents and business owners;
• Engaging residents and local business owners in an ongoing dialog about the past, present and future of their community;
• Increasing awareness of and participation in the democratic process;
• Creating local and regional businesses opportunities for expanded commerce; and
• Including all who wish to be involved in the process.

At the first Community Meeting held in November 2000, and at two subsequent Community Meetings, residents identified additional goals and further refined their expectations of the Project. Inspired by comments and suggestions from the residents, the Design Team integrated all of these elements into its Preliminary Design Plan.

 THE PHILOSOPHY

For the first several years of the Danville Project, process was the most important product. That process was inclusive, sensitive, engaging and ongoing, from the preliminary conceptual phase to the final design, and onward through to the installations and the conclusion of the Project.

• Inclusive, so all constituencies and interested parties, stakeholders, artists and residents have the opportunity to be heard, the opportunity to participate, and the opportunity to influence and shape the Project outcome.
  
  
• Sensitive, so the process embraces all who wish to participate in the dialog, regardless of position, place, or strength or eloquence of voice.
  
  
• Engaging, so every avenue of opportunity is explored to attract individuals to the planning and design of the environments and elements, and to encourage them to become a part of this celebration of people, place, nature and art.
  
• Ongoing, so the process unfolds fully and naturally over the time it will take to plan, conceive and create the Project. When the final designs are complete, their installation in concert with the artistic enhancements will become part of a renewed community fabric that will serve future generations.

This methodology ensures that a participatory process which supports a community in learning from its past to inform its present and guide its future, will be supported by the community.

 PROJECT MODEL A: LAWRENCE HALPRIN

One guide for orchestrating the planning and design process is the work of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, whose design for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC, included extensive public involvement. Halprin articulated a construct for guiding the design process in The RSVP Cycles -- “a methodology to encourage and stimulate group creativity”. The RSVP Cycles present 4 key aspects of planning places for and with people, based on the premise that everyone has creative potential:

Resources: these are the human and material resources available to inform and enrich the creative process; the resource base includes a physical inventory and a project program, objectives and expectations;

Score: as in a musical score or the choreography of dance; the score orchestrates design, participation, events and activities that visibly delineate, generate and sustain a project;

Valuaction: as an integral part of the process, people’s feelings and belief systems, as well as community needs and desires must be integrated with a decision-making process that respects, acknowledges and incorporates these values; and

Performance: includes the product and its evolution over time; this component of the Cycles anticipates an organic, non-static solution; an environment or result that is defined by those who use it, experience it, and appreciate it.

 PROJECT MODEL B: WILLIAM MOORISH & CATHERINE BROWN

The second model for project process comes from the work of William Moorish and Catherine Brown at the Design Center for the American Urban Landscape at the University of Minnesota, who outline a six-step process for planning community projects:

1. Organizing - laying out the strategic foundation for a long term effort; investiture, programming, setting goals and objectives.
2. Gathering - information collection, discovery, synthesis and communication.
3. Ordering - exploring options, answering questions, evaluating, and determining a sense of direction.
4. Making - developing the vision, developing the collaboration, outlining the steps to implementation.
5. Taking Action - orchestrating activities, coordinating agreements and other logistics, implementing project elements.
6. Sustaining - putting in place the tools to complete, maintain, refine, and manage over time the project products/elements.

The Danville Project provides a framework for community planning and design that begins with the individual and embraces the whole, and results in planning that becomes an act of public participation and a definition of its future.

 THE SIGNIFICANCE

The Danville Project serves:

First, as a model that can be applied to any community setting in any state in the nation when faced with the need to improve its transportation infrastructure.

Second, as an example of Context Sensitivity, of protecting and preserving the character of a place, the quality of its built structures, and the overall quality of life of its citizens.

Third, as a demonstration that artists serving as consultants or facilitators at the early stages of a project, can and do, by the mechanics of their communicating and visioning skills, help a community define and express its goals.

Fourth, as proof that where artists are involved in the design/community-facilitation process, significant savings of time and money are achieved over the life of a project compared to similar projects in other communities, and

Fifth, as a methodology for involving a committee of local representatives comprised of members from diverse segments of the community to maintain momentum and interest in a project.

 BENEFITS & RESULTS

The relative ease of cultivating ‘local ownership’ of the Danville Project as a result of the ongoing dialog between the partners and stakeholders is the most immediate benefit of this collaboration. An improved infrastructure that is visually attractive and designed to meet community needs and requirements, accommodate traditional events, and move traffic, while remaining sensitive to local culture benefits everyone. Other specific transportation goals that have been successfully addressed include:

• Clearing several hurdles in regulatory processes in fairly record time;
• Decreasing legal costs normally associated with zoning, ROW and other ‘individual’ challenges to the construction plan;
• Slowing vehicular traffic on a Federal highway through the Village center;
• Calming and simplifying vehicular traffic patterns in the sdurrounding community;
• Creating and supporting a pleasant and secure pedestrian friendly environment;
• Designing a project to complement the surrounding natural and built landscape; and
• Facilitating local and regional personal and commercial travel.

Although the Project is not yet concluded, the absence of dollar and time expenditures typically associated with similar projects, increased support from the local community, and the attainment of identified goals has more than offset the up-front cost of engaging artists to lead a community planning process. Specific cultural goals that have been successfully addressed by the Project include:

• Expanding the public dialog about art, aesthetics and community to better understand the creative and artistic process;
• Supporting opportunities for artists to make and present their work for the public benefit;
• Exposing all the partners, constituents and stakeholders to an influx of new ideas;
• Maintaining consistently excellent lines of communication between artists and communities;
• Increasing local and regional opportunities for expanding tourism and cultural heritage;
• Demonstrating that it is possible, practical and cost-effective to create beautiful, safe and productive work for the public benefit; and
• Engaging a professional video-documentarian to record the process from the beginning, in order to greatly enhance the Project’s value as a model of “best practice” for our colleagues in other states with small villages located on rural highways.