2010 Vision Award Winners
The winers of the 2010 Vision Awards were announced on June 1st. The winners are The Savoy Elementary School and Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School Public Education Campus, Roberts B. Owen, Arthur Cotton Moore, and (presented posthumously) Barbara Zartman.
The Savoy Elementary School and Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School Public Education Campus in Anacostia successfully demonstrate planning, public-private partnerships, and multi-use of buildings for community activities on a scale not seen elsewhere in the District of Columbia’s educational systems. The project is an innovative combined campus serving a private charter high school, a District of Columbia Public School middle school, and Anacostia’s larger community of children, youths and adults. Shared amenities of the campus include a new Multipurpose/Gymnasium building containing classrooms, a kitchen, children’s library, and seating for 400 as well as underground parking and shared recreational areas on the grounds. The campus complex additionally incorporates two prominent street-front window cases along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to be used for various school and community cultural and educational displays. This is the first District of Columbia Public Schools project to have included LEED certification as an integral part of its planning and design. Overall, the project sets a new and higher standard for school modernization and planning for new schools.
Roberts B. Owen‘s successful advocacy before the Federal courts played a crucial role in preventing the construction of a massive freeway system through the District of Columbia, including a new bridge across the Potomac River. The proposed freeways and the Three Sisters Bridge involved local and national issues with enormous implications for the future physical character of the District and the nation’s freeway policy. Owen’s and his legal team spent more than 4,000 pro bono hours over a 5-year period in representing a large coalition of individuals and citizens’ groups, including The Committee of 100, in countering a persistent congressional effort to build a web of new high speed roads through large swaths of Northwest and Northeast Washington that threatened to displace businesses, residents, and buildings estimated in the thousands. His judicial wins prevented extensive destruction of historic neighborhoods and parks and created precedents favoring a limited freeway system and the development of a mass transit system for Washington, DC and the region. Read Roberts Owen’s 2010 acceptance speech…
For the last decade, Arthur Cotton Moore has undertaken a project to restore the long-forgotten Maryland Avenue, SW – one of the primary components of L’Enfant’s geometry. Early in his work Moore realized that key to restoring and developing Maryland Avenue, SW would be the cooperation of the mainline railroad that was re-routed along the Maryland Avenue right-of-way as a part of the early-20th century McMillan Commission Plan for the Mall. Moore’s initial role in this project was as a volunteer, which evolved to his becoming the key designer of a comprehensive urban plan. Not unlike Daniel Burnham, Moore’s work is the culmination of a long cooperative effort that he forged with a variety of players. Notably the plan calls for creating the missing avenue with broad sidewalks and a landscaped median for memorials and a memorial square, a vibrant new community for 2,000 residents on underutilized land, and the creation of 9,000 new jobs. It envisions improved access and traffic levels for this and adjacent parts of the city with a proposed intermodal station and far greater rail commuter passenger capacity and operations. If realized the plan could be a catalyst for revitalization of the surrounding area.
Barbara Zartman Award for Planning and Zoning Advocacy is presented posthumously to Barbara Zartman. The Committee of 100 on the Federal City has created a new award to honor individuals who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the values of the Committee of the 100 through work advocating responsible planning and zoning decisions and laws. This award will be given on a periodic basis to recognize the great contribution that an individual can make in shaping our city. It is an honor for the Committee of 100 to present the inaugural award to Barbara Zartman.