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Since its inception in 1965. the Endowment has provided
a model for design advocacy. From its visionary support of
The Railroad Revitalization Act of 1976, which led to the
adaptive reuse of dozens of historic railroad stations and
the reclamation of major down-town areas across the country,
to the sponsorship of the design competition for the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Endowment has displayed
its commitment to promoting the nation's well-heing
and social consciousness through design.

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Leadership

The Growing Role of Design in a Changing World
The approaching turn of the millennium serves as
an ideal time to recognize how profoundly the
societal, economic, technological, and cultural shifts
of recent decades have impacted the ways in
which people live, work, and interact with each
other and with their surroundings.

Design possesses the power to connect
spheres of economic activity; it enables individuals
and communities to relate meaningfully to their
surroundings; and it levels barriers to new ideas.
Design acts as a bridge, facilitating the functioning
of products, services, environments, and
communications while delivering economy,
efficiency, beauty, and clarity to everyday life.

The Endowment's Role

The National Endowment for the Arts significantly
impacts the public realm through a series of
initiatives and programs aimed at introducing
the nation's wealth of design resources to
governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations,
foundations, and businesses as they embark on
projects that will affect the physical and visual
environment. Whether through the development
of public housing, the renovation of federal
buildings, or the conservation of ecologically
unique tracts of land, the Endowment provides a
meeting ground for all those concerned with
effecting positive change through design.

The initiatives, though broad in scope, are
unified in their demonstration of the power of
design to work across social, political, geographic,
and professional boundaries. Through these
programs, the Endowment offers concrete — and
widely felt — design solutions to the increasingly
complex problems affecting our nation.

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Your Town:

Designing Its Future

Preserving the Special Spirit
of America's Rural Communities

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The communities of rural America

are facing a range of critical problems-in some cases, heavy
outmigration and a loss of jobs; in others, rapid growth from suburban
sprawl, the location of a new facility or an influx of a retirement
population. These problems affect the vitality of the community,
its design and sense of place. Rural leaders often feel powerless to keep
rural towns intact and to preserve community pride.

Your Town: Designing Its

workshops focus on an important aspect of community
spirit and community integrity: the process of design. The
workshops aim specifically to introduce rural technical
assistance providers and rural decision makers to the role
of design in community planning.

Your Town is intended for those who
provide rural technical assistance in
economic development or land use
and those who influence and make
decisions about the way rural
communities will look and work in
the future: civic organization and
business leaders, local elected
officials, regional and county
planning commissioners, board
members of Certified Local
Governments, rural electric
cooperative board members and
employees, recreation and tourism
officials, and federal and state
employees active in rural economic
development.

The workshops take place over a
two-and-a-half day period. It is a
participatory workshop, with an
emphasis on the practical application
of learned material through small-
group exercises. The culmination of
the workshop is a group problem-
solving effort. A proposed bypass, a
new subdivision, infill development
on Main Street — these are some of
the issues the groups must resolve
and present their solutions
graphically. The exercise is a dynamic
learning process in which participants
apply the key concepts of the
workshop as they learn from, and
teach, each other.

The workshop course material
addresses a range of issues in rural
community planning. The curriculum
focuses on the process by which rural
communities construct a vision about
their future, evaluate their natural
and cultural assets, and implement
decisions about how their community
should look and function. The aim is
not to promote specific answers to
specific questions but, rather,
a framework for problem solving.
Materials are presented in a highly
visual format, principally through
slides and maps.

Your Town workshops are produced
by regional institutions that have
been selected for the excellence of
their faculties as well as their ability
to provide on-going technical
assistance to rural communities.
Each workshop also brings in guest
speakers who are design
professionals or experienced
practitioners in rural community
issues. The workshops are
coordinated by the director of the
Rural Heritage Program at the
National Trust for Historic
Preservation and the chair of the
Department of Landscape
Architecture at SUNY Syracuse.

left

Workshop in Unicoi Lodge,

Northern Georgia

fop

Talbot Street Historic Area

St Michaels. MD

front cover

Coon Valley, Wisconsin

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National Endowment
for the Arts

The Nancy Hanks Center

1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

Pageantry 100# White Smooth Cover

generously donated by

Champion International Corporation

Brochure design by Tenazas Design
San Francisco

Printed by Expressions Lithography
San Francisco

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The construction of our nation's great urban civic spaces —

Central Park in Manhattan, Boston's Copley Square

required designers, engineers, citizens and government
representatives to come together in a common purpose.
The same melding of talent must occur today to shape the
nation's nascent virtual civic places on the Internet.

forums

right
Waterplace

Providence, Rl

Forums Ga,,eries :Pr0,ec,s

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projects

resources
Daley Plaza in Chicago-

galleries

The goal of Civiscape is to weave
together the talents of the
technology and design communities
with other interested audiences to
help shape the online civic landscape.
Civiscape is a forum for
interdisciplinary discussions of design
and technology, and a laboratory
where online technology is
developed with constant input the
design communities and other
interested audiences.

As a site on the World Wide Web,
Civiscape provides a window into an
online research laboratory, where
designers from all disciplines can
experience cutting edge software
tools for shaping the online world.
The site brings designers into the
loop of research and development by
giving them a chance to experience
and critique emerging online
technology.

As a place for community building
among designers and other
interested citizens, Civiscape provides
interdisciplinary discussion forums
and virtual galleries for communities
and individuals to post design work
and receive feedback on it. The
program's education and outreach
component also sponsors non-digital
symposia and presentations for the
design community and other
interested audiences.

You can explore Civiscape on the
World Wide Web at the following
address:

http://civiscape.media.MIT.EDU/CIVISCAPE/

above

©Alex Maclean /Photonica

front cover
© Rob Silvers

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National Endowment
for the Arts

The Nancy Hanks Center

1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

We would like to acknowledge the
generous contribution of Rob Silvers
for the use of the cover image,
and Photonica for the use of the
image by Alex Maclean

Pageantry 100# White Smooth Cover

generously donated by

Champion International Corporation.

Brochure design by Tenazas Design
San Francisco

Printed by Expressions Lithography
San Francisco

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Federal Design

Improvement Program

Fostering Design Excellence in
the Federal Government

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Design has been a concern of our nation

since the federal government came into being.
Washington, Jefferson and Madison's concern for
the beauty and stature of the fledgling nation's capitol
and executive buildings evidence an understanding
of design's integral contribution to image, performance
and quality of life.

Design activity and political thought

are indivisible.

— Thomas Jefferson

HIIIII-III

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left

U.S. Capitol

Washington, DC

Wow

Computer image of redesigns

of HUD plaza by Martha Schwartz

Regard for good design in federal undertakings has both waned and

soared throughout America's history. Today, with financial and material

resources dwindling, federal officials must get the best results with

fewer dollars. How can they do this? Through understanding the

benefits of and investing in good design.

To help federal agencies understand the benefits of good design and achieve design
excellence in federal undertakings, the National Endowment for the Arts established
the Federal Design Improvement Program (FDIP) in 1972. FDIP projects have ranged
from the Federal Graphics Improvement Program, which helped more than 60
federal agencies review and improve their visual communication standards, to the
Federal Architecture Project, which updated the Guiding Principles of Federal
Architecture, helped secure the passage of the Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act
and produced the Federal Presence: Architecture, Politics, and Symbols in United
States Federal Building. Current activities include providing private sector peer
review for the design of federal facilities, organizing design workshops, and
implementing design awards programs.

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e Federal Design Improvement Program forms
^■nerships with various agencies and assembles some
of the country's top design professionals to participate
n intensive workshops. The two- or three-day
brainstorming sessions yield useful design guidelines
for such diverse projects as:

The development of housing on Indian
reservations with the Department of
Housing and Urhan Development
(HUD); exploring how the social,
spiritual and cultural values of Native
Americans can he incorporated into
low-cost housing.

• The creation of an integrated identity
and marketing scheme, including a
logo, advertising campaign and all
communications, for the Department
of Education's newly launched Direct
Student Loan Program,

• The conservation of an ecologically
unique 1,400 acre trad of forest and
1. 1 1 in Li in I iii Maryland, and its

conversion into a nature/education
center for the Department of
Agriculture [Natural Resources
Conservation Service.

The rehabilitation of historic buildings

for various agencies, including the
Department of Treasury's main
building next to the \\ bite House, the
1930s Department of Justice

headquarters, and the DID building

and plaza in Washington. DC, designed

in 1963-65 bj Marcel Breuer.

The participating design experts advise

on such topics as adaptive reuse.
energj conservation, urban

reclamation, visual identity and

historic presen ation.

above

Frank G. Mar

Community Housing Project
Oakland, CA

fop right

Ellis Island Immigration Museum

New York, NY

front cover

© Kazuya Shimizu/Photonica

W

National Endowment
for the Arts

The Nancy Hanks Center

1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

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The Federal Design Improvement Program promotes good
design and provides models of design excellence by helping to
organize national design awards programs for federal agencies
such as the General Services Administration, Department of
Transportation, and the Department of Defense. The Arts
Endowment gives its own design awards, Federal Design
Achievement Awards, every four years, in conjunction with its
administration of the Presidential Design Awards. These awards
recognize exemplary projects in architecture, engineering,
landscape architecture, urban planning, historic preservation,
as well as product, interior, and graphic design.
Past winners include:

• A low-income housing development in
Oakland, California, jointly
undertaken by the Department of
Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), the city of Oakland, a local
non-profit housing developer,
neighborhood interest groups, and a
architecture firm with expertise
in affordable housing.

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• The rehabditation of the historic
225,000 square-foot main budding on
Ellis Island into an immigration
museum by the Department of the
Interiors, the National Park Service
and two architectural firms.

• A visually compelling new atlas of fast-
changing Eastern Europe, covering
geography, demographics, economy
and historical boundaries, executed
by the Central Intelligence Agency and
a cartography consultant firm.

• A master plan for the reclamation of a
waterfront site in Washington, DC,
sponsored by the General Services
Adminstration. The plan for Southeast
Federal Center calls for 5.8 million
square feet of new and adaptively
reused office space, plus other mixed
uses, and is aimed at reintegrating the
area into the city's urban grid.

We would like to acknowledge the
generous contribution of Photonica for
the use of the image by Kazuya Shimizu.

Pageantry 100# White Smooth Cover

generously donated by

Champion International Corporation.

Brochure design by Tenazas Design
San Francisco

Printed by Expressions Lithography
San Francisco

Improving the Design and
Livability of America's Cities

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Cities are dynamic political and economic organisms

that shape the very nature of our society and
provide the physical anchor of our cultural identity.
Cities are places where ideas are exchanged,
where social trends are set in motion, where
political movements are shaped, where artists find
audiences and where authors are given voice.

Mayors, as the chief proponents

of their cities,

can also be seen as their most influential urban designers.

They are places of commerce, where
business ventures are incubated,
deals are struck, marketable skills are
developed and refined and wealth
is generated. Cities exercise powerful
economic and environmental
influences on entire regions and
are home to an ever expanding
percentage of the population.
Cities are the very essence of our
civilization.

12th Mayor's Institute,
University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

left

City Hall
Escondido, CA

The mayor's desk often is a
checkpoint for every significant
development regarding the form and
fabric of the city. Consequently,
decisions made by the mayor-
matters of public works,
transportation policy, redevelopment
and new construction, zoning and
community planning-manifest
themselves in a physical form that
will endure for generations. These
decisions should be informed by a
mayor's understanding of his or her
role as caretaker of the city and
advocate for the future.

Not surprisingly, few mayors have
received formal education in urban
design, and this presents the Mayors
Institute with an opportunity to
expose mayors to the transforming
power of design. The National
Endowment for the Arts,
in partnership with schools of
architecture and urban design across
the country, sponsor the Mayors'
Institute on City Design as a forum in
which mayors can engage in a
mutually rewarding exchange of
ideas with experts in architecture and
urban planning, public housing and
private real estate development,
urban economic analysis, historic
preservation, transportation
planning, environmental
conservation, and other facets of city
building and design.

In over forty sessions since its inception in 1986, the Mayors'
Institute has hosted over 300 mayors from more than 250 cities.
During each session, a team of high-caliber design professionals
spends three days with a select group of elected officials,
discussing ways in which the mayors can exercise their political
leadership to make their cities more economically vibrant,
more environmentally sustainable, more livable, more attractive
and more secure — in short, how to improve function of their
cities' many roles as home, workplace, centers of culture and
recreation, and supreme symbols of human accomplishment.

Participating mayors have gone on
to become active defenders and
conservators of their cities' public
realm through their advocacy of
intelligent development and support
of home-grown efforts to improve
the quality of the built environment.
Their efforts have resulted in a
number of national design awards.
Design professionals who have
participated are better able to
understand the complex potential
and limitations of the political
process in city building. Together,
alumni form a grassroots network of
enlightened designers and public
officials whose example echoes
through their communities long after
the institute has ended.

above

Overtown Pedestrian Mall

and Transit Access

Miami, FL

front cover

© Peter Vanderwarker

W

National Endowment
for the Arts

The Nancy Hanks Center

1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

We would like to acknowledge
the generous contribution of
Peter Vanderwarker for the use
of the front cover image.

Pageantry 100# White Smooth Cover

generously donated by

Champion International Corporation

Brochure design by Tenazas Design
San Francisco

Printed by Expressions Lithography
San Francisco

is to foster ilir excellence, diversity, and
vitality of tin- arts in the I nited States,
and to broaden public appreciation of the
arts. Through its leadership initiatives
the Endowment supports and encourages
exemplar) projects thai promote the
social, artistic and economic welfare
ol our nation.

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