Congress for the New Urbanism DC Chapter

CNU DC Social Hour and Pecha Kucha

Date: Thursday, January 19, 2012
Time: 6:00 pm; presentations begin at 7:00 pm
Location: The School for Ethics and Global Leadership
1528 18th Street NW, Washington, DC (Dupont Circle Metro)

Mark your calendar . . . Third Thursdays social hours are still on but in 2012 we are mixing it up a bit! At the January event, we will be doing the first CNU DC pecha kucha. The evening begins at 6:00 pm and presentations start at 7:00 pm. As this is the inaugural/experimental event, we have three participants on deck, but if all goes well then we will need volunteers for future events.

To keep things in the happy hour vibe, we will have refreshments available for a mere $5 per person (beer, wine, and sodas). Any questions, reach Sarah at sarah.a.lewis@gmail.com.

Drawing for Non-Architects
Instructor: Dhiru A. Thadani

November 12th, 2011, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Location: The School for Ethics and Global Leadership
1528 18th Street NW, Washington, DC (Dupont Circle Metro)

Don't feel left out at your next workshop, charrette, or visioning session. This hands-on class will teach non-architects the fundamentals of plan drawings. Participants will draw during this class and will be provided with a range of pens, drawing paper, and sample drawings to emulate. Line weights, scale, texture, and simple techniques will be taught to instill the confidence that will permit students to contribute meaningfully at their next design event.

Dhiru Thadani is an architect, urbanist, author, and educator who enjoys drawing daily. He is on the CNU National and CNU DC boards and has taught and lectured for the past 30 years. He believes that everyone can learn to draw if motivated to do so.

Participation will be limited to the first 12 registrants. Class fee is $75 per person, made payable in advance. Payment information will be sent after registration.

To register, send a registration email to . Include your name, address, phone, and number of participants. We will send a confirmation with payment information.

CNU DC Recommendations for Sustainable DC

CNU DC has submitted a document of recommendations and resources to the DC government's Sustainable DC initiative. The document -- CNU DC Recommendations for Sustainable DC -- includes specific ideas and proposals from CNU DC members and friends. The document also offers offers general principles of sustainable development, which are useful as a checklist and as an operational framework for action. The principles were adapted for the DC context from CNU's Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism. For guidance on urban design principles, the document also includes the Charter of the New Urbanism.

CNU DC sees these recommendations as a living document. Let's continue to develop it and incorporate more thoughts from CNU DC members and friends. Let's help to build an idea bank for outstanding urbanism in a sustainable DC. If you have specific, detailed ideas you'd like to see in the document, or general comments about its principles and framework, send them to .

Thanks to all the CNU DC members and friends who have contributed to this document. Our grateful appreciation and acknowledgments go to each of you.

Download link:
http://cnudc.org/documents/CNUDC_Recommendations_for_SustainableDC.pdf

CNU DC Salon on the Sustainable DC Initiative
Wednesday, September 28, 5:30 - 7:00 pm

Location: National Portrait Gallery Courtyard Café
750 9th Street NW, Washington DC

Dear CNU DC Members and Friends:

The District of Columbia leadership has requested input from our organization and others as it develops a new unified vision and comprehensive framework for a more sustainable Washington DC. The end goal: to connect sustainability with economic development and become the most sustainable city in the U.S. You can read all about the initiative at http://sustainable.dc.gov.

As an organization dedicated to more humane and sustainable urban places in the DC region, the city leadership is particularly interested in our ideas on how to accomplish these goals. What ideas do you have for programs, practices, and policies to move Sustainable DC closer to its ultimate goals?

You are invited to an informal CNU DC Salon to discuss your ideas on Wednesday, September 28 from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm at the National Portrait Gallery, Courtyard Café at 750 9th Street NW, Washington DC, near the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro station. You will be able to get refreshments until 6:30.

If you are unable to attend, please send your ideas to by September 27, 2011. Be as detailed as possible in your proposals. We want to hear about it! We will compile the ideas and present them to the DC Department of Planning, as requested. Thanks and hope to see you there.

CNU DC Annual Members' Meeting
Thursday, May 26, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Location: National Association of Realtors
500 New Jersey Avenue NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC

You are cordially invited to our annual members' meeting. Hear about current CNU DC activities and initiatives, and join the conversation with your own comments and suggestions.

Meeting agenda:

Local Update - the past year
     Third Thursday social hours
     Lectures
     Salons
     Luncheons
     Tactical Urbanism
Scholarships - Announcement of recipients
National Update - Major CNU initiatives
    Membership goals
     Activities of other chapters
     Chapter representation
CNU 19 preview
     Open source/Pecha kucha presentations
     Design competition for Madison site
    CNU DC meetup/party
     CNU DC salon
Treasurer's Report
CNU DC new initiatives and call for volunteers: the coming year
     Drawing course
     Agricultural Urbanism
     Megachurch charrette
Open floor for discussion

Light refreshments will be served.

CNU DC Scholarship Opportunity for CNU 19 Madison

The Congress for the New Urbanism DC Chapter (CNU DC) is pleased to announce it will award two scholarships to attend the annual CNU Congress. The Congress will take place June 1-4, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin.

CNU DC provides the scholarships to local students and recent graduates. Each scholarship will award the sum of $545.00 (which is equal to the cost of Congress registration for nonmember recent graduates).

Eligibility

Those eligible for scholarship application will be graduate-level students of architecture, planning, transportation, health, public policy/government, real estate and finance, law, or business/economics; or recent graduates (within the last five years) from those same fields who are now working in DC, Maryland, or Virginia.

Essay

Interested candidates will submit an 1-2 page essay (500-1,000 words) on a topic determined by the CNU DC board of directors and the scholarship committee. For 2011, the topic is the following:

New urbanism can provide a wide variety of benefits; some examples include more walking, less pollution, and community revitalization. When several factors like these work in combination, they create synergies. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. From your own research and experience, what new urbanism synergies are most important for our region (DC, Maryland, Virginia) and why? Propose one change that would help bring about those synergies.

Eligible candidates must submit their essay to CNU DC no later than 9:00 p.m., Friday, April 15, 2011. Submittals, questions, and comments should be to the CNU DC secretary, Laurence Aurbach. Winning candidates will be notified by Friday, April 22, 2011.

Additional details

Prior to the Madison Congress, scholarship recipients must provide their contact information (email address, phone number, and local mailing or business address). Student candidates must provide documentation of current enrollment. Recent graduates must provide documentation of enrollment within the past five years.

The recipient will be required to attend the CNU DC chapter meeting during the Congress, and briefly meet with the CNU DC board of directors.

CNU DC will pay the cost of Congress registration directly to the Congress for the New Urbanism on behalf of each scholarship recipient. If the cost of registration is less than the scholarship, the remaining amount will be paid to the recipient following the Congress. Previous scholarship winners are ineligible to receive a second scholarship.

CNU DC does not discriminate in the granting of any scholarship on the basis of race, sex, marital status, age, handicap, religion, national origin, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Lecture: The Language of Towns & Cities
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 6 pm
Free and open to the public

How often do citizens, city officials, and other decision-makers find confusion instead of clarity when discussing urban design? How can we attempt to help neighborhoods, towns, and cities overcome the failures of the past, address current issues, and anticipate the needs of the future when we lack of a common language on urban design?

Dhiru Thadani's The Language of Towns & Cities offers a visual "encyclodictionary" that allows the professional and the layperson easy access to a vast source of ideas, materials, and methods at once comprehensive and accessible. Over a decade in the making, this landmark publication is meticulously researched and extensively illustrated with photographs, drawings, and charts. It includes a detailed glossary of more than seven hundred words and terms commonly used in architecture and urban planning, from A and B streets to Zero Lot and Zeitgeist.

About the author: Dhiru A. Thadani is the recipient of the 2011 Seaside Prize. He is a practicing architect, planner, and educator who has worked in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, in urban design, town planning, and architectural design.

Location: University of Maryland Landscape Architecture Program, Room 1140, Plant Science Building (Building 036), College Park, MD.

Directions by car: Take Route 1 to College Park; enter campus via Campus Drive. Turn right at traffic circle onto Regents Drive; proceed one block. The Plant Science building and the Regents Garage are on the left. Visitor parking is available at the north (Stadium Drive) entrance to Regents Garage (see Campus parking information). Also, parking is free after 4 pm in several of the campus's outlying surface parking lots.

Directions by Metro: Green Line College Park/U of MD station. The university's Shuttle-UM buses pick up university-bound passengers on the EAST side of the Metro station. Shuttle-UM service between the College Park Station and the center of campus is open to everyone - no ID required. Get off the Shuttle-UM at the Stamp Student Union. The Plant Science building is approximately one block east of the student union (see map).

CNU DC's Third Thursdays
Social hour schedule for 2011:
Third Thursday of every month, 6 pm - 8 pm

The CNU DC social hours are getting a name change to "Third Thursdays" and regularized schedule. So mark your calendar -- you'll be busy on the third Thursday of every month. Come have some good conversations with like-minded urbanists and a few beverages if you so desire.

• January 20, 2011- RFD Washington, 810 7th St. NW DC (Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro)
$3 Miller Lite and Sam Adams Drafts; $3.50 Beer of the Day; $4.99 Food Special

• February 17, 2011 - Carpool, 4000 Fairfax Drive, Arlington VA (Ballston Metro)
$2.25 Miller Lite; $2.75 Select Premium Beers; $2.75 Rail Drinks

• March 17, 2011 - Tortilla Coast, 400 1st Street SE, DC (Capitol South Metro)
Bar Bites $3-4; Beer Specials $3.50; Margaritas Original Frozen $6

• April 21, 2011 - McGinty's Public House, 911 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring, MD (Silver Spring Metro)
$1 Off All Drafts, Bottles, and Well Liquors; Half Price Bottles of Wine; Half Price Food - outdoor option

• May 19, 2011 - Science Club, 1136 19th St. NW, DC (Farragut North Metro)
$3 Yuengling, Pabst Blue Ribbon; $4 Guinness, Amstel Light; $5/$20 Select Wines/Bottles; $4 Liquors - outdoor option

• June 16, 2011 - Aria Pizzeria & Bar, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, DC (Federal Triangle Metro)
$3 Rail Drinks; $2 Off Call Drinks; Live Music - outside option

• July 21, 2011 - Café 8, 424 8th Street SE, DC (Eastern Market Metro) - outdoor option

• August 18, 2011 - CANCELLED Lou's City Bar, 1400 Irving St. NW, DC (Columbia Heights Metro)
Lou's Hat Trick - $3 each; specials on draft beer, wine, cocktails and appetizers - outdoor option

• September 15, 2011 - Cleveland Park Bar & Grill, 3421 Connecticut Ave. NW, DC (Cleveland Park Metro)
$3 Miller Lite, Bud Light, Bud, Yuengling, House Amber; $4 House Wine; $4 Rail Drinks - outdoor option

• October 18, 2011 - Medaterra, 4619 Connecticut Avenue, Washington DC (Woodley Park/Zoo Metro)

• November 17, 2011 - Ben's Next Door, 1211 U St. NW (U Street/Cardozo Metro)
9 Drafts $3, $5 rail drinks, $5 red and white wine, $5 ribs, $5 wings and $5 chili-cheese fries. All Ben's dogs, half-smokes and chili $5

• December 15, 2011 - Chef Geoff's, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, DC (Metro Center)
$7.95 Super Mugs; $2.95 Long Necks; $5.95 Estrella Wines; $5.95 CG & Downtown Burgers; $8.95 Pizza Pies

Check the events calendar or subscribe to the email announcements list for any changes or updates. Any questions, reach Sarah at sarah.a.lewis@gmail.com.