The storytelling event series Cincy Stories will be returning this evening to MOTR Pub. The series features well-known public figures telling personal stories from their lives.
Tonight’s edition will feature:
University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono
Rome Ntukogu, founder of Far-I-Rome Productions
Paula Ison, a local transgender activist
Renika Smiley, founder of Generation Now
Daniel Rajaiah, recently featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list
Music from MC Till
The event will be held on the stage at MOTR Pub at 7 p.m.
The University of Cincinnati hosted its 64th annual DAAPworks Fashion Show on Friday, May 1. As in the past, organizers of the fashion show provided UrbanCincy with up-close access in order to photograph one of the biggest events in the city each spring.
As its name suggests, the fashion show corresponds with the larger, week-long DAAPworks exhibition that showcases the final work produced by graduating students from the University of Cincinnati’s top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Each year the event draws thousands to view the work, including recruiters and businesses from across the nation.
The DAAP Fashion Show, which is sponsored by Macy’s, is typically the biggest draw and serves as the capstone event for the showcase. The event is regularly a sold-out affair, and is, perhaps fittingly, hosted inside UC’s architecturally acclaimed, Thom Mayne-designed Campus Recreation Center.
The show is a way for the fashion design students, which are required to engage in professional fashion design work prior to graduating, to both showcase their final designs, as well as market themselves to potential buyers and employers in attendance.
EDITORIAL NOTE: All 43 photographs were taken by Jack Mecklenborg on May 1, 2015. Those interested in purchasing or using any of these photos may contact editors@urbancincy.com for more information.
Most University of Cincinnati students are familiar with the small forest just across Martin Luther King. During the warmer months, before the autumn turns too chilly and after the winter cold snaps, students can be seen biking, hanging out and walking through it. Even during the winter it’s a good place for a snowball fight.
At almost 90 acres in size, Burnet Woods is one of the larger parks in the Cincinnati Parks System. The park, which is over 142 years old, is the subject of this year’s Niehoff Urban Studio Open House titled, “Urban Parks and Urban Life.”
In 2014, Mayor John Cranley (D) identified the redesign of Burnet Woods as one of his administration’s top priorities. Calling it one of Cincinnati’s top gems, the mayor partnered with UC President Santa Ono to embark on a planning initiative to include the park in a wider plan to form an uptown eco-district.
Part of that plan was to engage UC planning and urban design students in a year-long workshop which will wrap up on April 23 with an open house and panel discussion moderated by John Yung of UrbanCincy.
“I’m really excited to see the students’ work and have a discussion on placemaking at the park,” Yung stated. “Cincinnati is blessed with historical parks such as Burnet Woods and Washington Park, to name a few. You don’t get that in most other American cities.”
This event is part of the continuing partnership between the Niehoff Urban Studio and UrbanCincy to examine complex urban issues. Last year UrbanCincy moderated a discussion panel on Tiny Living focusing on the opportunities and challenges of small space living in the urban environment. Prior to that, bus rapid transit and bike mobility were topics of conversation. We even hosted an urbanist candidates forum just ahead of the last city council election.
The Burnet Woods open house will take place on April 23 from 5pm to 8pm, with the panel discussion will beginning around 7pm.
The Niehoff Urban Studio is located at 2728 Vine Street in Corryville and is accessible by Metro*Plus and the #24, #78 Metro bus lines. A Cincy Red Bike station is located a block away and there is plentiful free bike parking on the same block.
Designed for NAAAP chapter leaders from more than 20 cities in the United States and Canada, this marked the first time the non-profit organization hosted their annual leadership development training in Cincinnati.
With innovative breakout sessions and expert panels that helped individuals develop their personal and organizational leadership skills, attendees said they felt motivated after having the opportunity to meet and build connections with leaders from across the nation with a variety of professional and ethnic backgrounds.
Santa Ono at NAAAP 2015 NLA [Lam Dang]
NAAAP 2015 National Leadership Academy [Lam Dang]
NAAAP 2015 National Leadership Academy [Lam Dang]
NAAAP 2015 National Leadership Academy [Lam Dang]
“Our vision is to build a strong, influential community of Asian American professionals in Southwest Ohio through professional development, community service and networking opportunities.” Tessa Xuan, Academy Director of NAAAP Cincinnati, told UrbanCincy. “We will become stronger and more efficient being together.”
NAAAP invited corporate employees and leaders to participate in a leadership symposium on Friday that focused on how to effectively run Asian American employee resource groups, which Xuan says attracted more than 70 group leaders from dozens of companies around the country.
The two-day conference was opened by Dennis Hirotsu, Vice President of Corporate Research & Development at P&G, and University of Cincinnati President Santa Ono. Hirotsu gave brief opening remarks about the role companies have played in improving the diversity of Cincinnati, while President Ono gave a riveting speech about the progress and importance of embracing diversity and different leadership styles.
Both speakers discussed the issues from a distinctively Cincinnati perspective. At approximately 2% of the total population, Asians make up less of Cincinnati’s regional makeup than the 5.6% national average. With Asians now making up 36% of all new immigrants to America, the largest of any group, NAAAP Cincinnati leadership sees a bright future, especially when considering their growing membership and increasingly active and visible local community.
Xuan says she is also hopeful that the opportunities made available through NAAAP Cincinnati will help make the community even stronger.
“NAAAP offers a diverse range of professional development programs on the local and national level, engages its membership in community service, and organizes professional networking events,” she explained. “While we have a lot of contacts in big companies, we certainly do not want to miss anyone in our community.”
EDITORIAL NOTE: NAAAP Cincinnati hosted an open forum, called The Urban Asia, this past December. The event was moderated by UrbanCincy‘s John Yung, and focused how the Asian community can play a greater role in the many physical changes happening throughout the city.
Those interested in getting involved with NAAAP Cincinnati can do so by contacting staff@naaapcincy.org.
On December 4, the University of Cincinnati Niehoff Urban Studio hosted an end of the semester open house to showcase the final work of students in graduate planning, civil engineering capstone, and a multi-disciplinary freshman UC Forward seminar.
There were three classes offered at the Studio, located in Corryville, during the Fall Semester that focused on understanding and improving Burnet Woods. The aim, course leaders say, was to begin to produce a future vision for the 89-acre park.
City officials first began discussing an overhaul of Burnet Woods in 2007, but a lack of funding at the time doomed the project. However, Mayor John Cranley (D) made the project a priority in his inaugural State of the City Address, saying that the park, located immediately north of the University of Cincinnati’s main campus, could help make the uptown area an even greater destination.
“Burnet Woods is an underutilized gem in our parks system,” Cranley said in a statement. “It’s nice now, but it could be great.”
Burnet Woods Open House [Ji Li]
Burnet Woods Concept Boards [Ji Li]
Student Dialogue at Niehoff Urban Studio [Ji Li]
Burnet Woods Student Presentation [Ji Li]
That caught the attention of UC President Santa Ono, along with the Uptown Consortium who requested that the studio work on the subject in consultation with community representatives and other stakeholders uptown. In addition, staff of the Cincinnati Park Board, who have sole control over what will happen with the park, have been engaged with the studio throughout the semester.
A large crowd showed up at the open house, held two weeks ago, to take a look at the visuals and learn about the observations and initial recommendations produced by the students for the roughly 142-year-old park.
After identifying various issues with Burnet Woods, as it stands today, the students proceeded to “rethink” the space and its uses. Nine teams of graduate Planning students organized their work around distinct thematic approaches to remaking the park. These themes included integrated Art Programming, a Health/Wellness destination, a food production system, a center for “fun” programming, and others.
Some of the many specific recommendations included creating seasonal programming, creating a soundscape as a placemaking tool, inserting a winding promenade to connect UC Main Street with the Ludlow Business District, elevating Martin Luther King Drive to allow for Burnet Woods to flow through underneath it into UC’s main campus, among others.
Burnet Woods Visioning [Ji Li]
Burnet Woods Open House [Ji Li]
Burnet Woods Discussion at Open House [Ji Li]
Some of the student teams extended the scope beyond the park by suggesting a cohesive streetscape experience extending from Burnet Woods and re-imagining the park as the center of an Uptown “eco-district” to create a broader ecological and social system.
One of the benefits of the studio course offerings came from engaging both planning and engineering students. As part of the course’s focus on building healthy and resilient places, civil engineering students proposed a number of green infrastructure ideas to help with stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows, and other technical projects.
Additionally, according to Frank Russell, Director of the Niehoff Studio and Community Design Center, the multi-disciplinary UC Forward freshman seminar was able to survey the student body to determine its interest in the park and ended up proposing a student organization dedicated to providing advocacy and service to the park.
Russell says that this is only the beginning, with additional courses in Planning, Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Horticulture to come in the Spring Semester that will build on the ideas and research completed thus far. The hope, he says, is to create a well-grounded set of ideas that will make up the contents of an ‘idea book’ for use by the community in considering the future of Burnet Woods.
Other faculty involved in the Fall Semester included Vikas Mehta and Danilo Palazzo from the School of Planning; Richard Miller and Elizabeth Devendorf from the Civil Engineering Program; and Cory Christopher from UC Forward. Those interested in viewing the student work in detail may do so by appointment at the UC Niehoff Urban Studio, located at 2728 Vine Street, by emailing design.center@uc.edu.
The storytelling event series Cincy Stories will be returning this evening to MOTR Pub. The series features well-known public figures telling personal stories from their lives.
