{"id":33173,"date":"2024-08-20T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/doctor-of-design\/2024\/08\/20\/bringing-new-life-to-paper-streets\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T20:50:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:50:30","slug":"bringing-new-life-to-paper-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/doctor-of-design\/2024\/08\/20\/bringing-new-life-to-paper-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing New Life to Paper Streets\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

Prior to a few months ago, Andrew Holland, director of performance and innovation, had never heard of the concept of paper streets. His work with the City of Durham\u2019s Office of Performance and Innovation (OPI) meant that he and his team continually explored new ideas for improving the city. During a routine brainstorming meeting, the idea of paper streets came up in relation to code enforcement, and the team began digging into ways in which the city could tackle these often-neglected spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Holland is more than just an employee of the city. He\u2019s also a current student in the college\u2019s Doctor of Design program<\/a>, in which mid-level professionals integrate design thinking and research practices into their professional work, connecting research to the needs of society and addressing design impacts on larger systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paper streets<\/a> posed the perfect project to marry these two areas of his professional work and academic research. Knowing that creative approaches to problem-solving would be a huge asset, he reached out to Carla Delcambre, associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning, to explore solutions with a studio full of students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delcambre felt strongly that the LAR 501 studio, co-taught with Professor Andy Fox, would be the perfect studio to tackle the project. \u201cFundamental studios, like this one, can be very abstract,\u201d said Fox. \u201cStudents are coming into the program as mature students, bringing their own career expertise, and trying to navigate this professional shift they have chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis project offered a very small, site-specific scale where we could introduce students to design fundamentals such as design elements and principles, and use that vocabulary to build a narrative serving as a foundation to the rest of their graduate education,\u201d said Delcambre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with the City of Durham, the students were assigned one of three sites within the city to re-envision: 1) East Peabody Street, by the Durham County Department of Public Health, 2) South Great Jones Street, by the Durham Train Station, or 3) Holland Street, situated between the Convention Center and City Hall. The sites were clustered together in the city\u2019s downtown, allowing students to conduct field visits and imagine the scope and possibilities of their projects while standing in the space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map
Map of the location of Paper Streets sites in Durham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n