Visioning an Urban Room at the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center
The Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center in Worcester, MA.
MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative has partnered with The Future of Small Cities Institute to create a series of Urban Rooms in the small Gateway Cities of Massachusetts.
One of the first pilot projects is in Worcester’s Pleasant Street neighborhood. We are working to help renovate the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center (PSNNC)—a community center with a long history in the neighborhood—to become a more dynamic, flexible, welcoming space that can host a variety of events and programs.
The Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center’s current space.
The Urban Room revamp will began with a robust community engagement and community design process. This summer, local architect Penn Ruderman will team up with a diverse Community Design Team—which will include young people, community members, and business owners—to help vision what the space should look like, what kind of installations and assets the community would like to see, and what types of programs and resources PSNNC should offer.
Clark University Urban Room Interns Angela Ruan & Katie Woods meet with the PSNNC’s Youth Advisory Council about visioning an Urban Room.
This spring, FoSCI worked with student interns from Clark University’s Urban Studies Department and Worcester State University to create an Urban Room design database and several proposals for possible installations in the future PSNNC Urban Room, including a Young Person’s Station, an interactive/auditory Music Corner, and a neighborhood history exhibit that can extend out into the street. We also premiered a video, shot by TDI Adjunct Fellow Matt Higgins, that features a series of interviews with the community.
Stay tuned for more updates from the community design process!