design:SD wrap-up

The design:SD charrette has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean the work is over. Armed with ideas, dreams and sketches, the implementation period has officially begun. Before we begin working on a way to realize some of the visions you described, though, we need to take a minute to recap and debrief on what worked and what didn’t. Corsica was the first community in South Dakota to experience a design team visit, and we need your ideas on how we could make it better. We appreciate your thoughts!

Please take a minute or two to post a comment, or send us an email at rlc@rlcenter.net–you can also call us at (605) 772-5139.

Thanks so much!

Design:South Dakota Team Presentation

Here is the presentation from Saturday, with images of all the design boards. The Corsica charrette was a great experience for the team, and hopefully for you too. Now it’s time to get to work on implementing ideas and dreams about the future of the Corsica region!

Below is the “Original” design:SD Team, who spent three days in the Corsica region learning and dreaming with you.

(pictured left to right, beginning with back row): Alan Weiskemp, Scott Anderson, Joe Bartmann, Eric Ambroson, Lindsey Karlson, Tom Reasoner, Sandy Dickenson and Jim Beddow. Not pictured: Mike Knutson, Terry Aaker and John Deppe.

We’re Here!

  

The design:SD Team arrived in Corsica last night, and we’ve been spending the morning today in the “Learning Studio” at the Legion Hall. We’ll jump on a bus this afternoon to tour the community and the region, and finish our learning day with the Community Potluck tonight at the Public Grade School gym.

   

You can follow along with real time updates on designsd.org.

City Council Tonight (5/7)

I’ll be presenting at the City Council meeting tonight at 7:45 about the design:SD project details. Give us a call at 605-772-5139 if you’d like to visit while I’m in town today. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Joe B.

Rural Learning Center

Update on Our Work

Hard to believe that it has been six months already since Corsica area leaders invited us, The Rural Learning Center, to begin partnering with you about the future. We have formally interviewed over 80 people and had hundreds of other conversations and meetings about a lot of different things – visions for the future, business ideas, creative concepts about building new homes, leadership development strategies, etc. etc. It has been exciting for us to interact with members of the City Council, School Board, Commercial Club, County Commission, Corsica Foundation, Development Corporation, the Housing Commission and other organizations doing outstanding work. No question that the Corsica region has a great “volunteer army.” Our work centers around enabling this “army” to more effectively articulate its visions, work together, and get things done. The next “big thing” will be the Design SD:Project Corsica May 16-19. We are co-sponsoring this event with the Corsica Commercial Club and working to get strong participation from across the region. Public participation in this event actually begins with an informational meeting at the Corsica grade school gym on the evening of April 24th.

Those of us who love and believe in rural South Dakota know that we have significant and difficult challenges in front of us. We are all in this for the long haul. Our pioneer foremothers and forefathers were amazing entrepreneurs who figured out how to successfully adapt to a very difficult environment – we can do it again. We at the Rural Learning Center are honored and energized by our partnership with the good folks of this region. Keep in touch and let us know how we can work with you to realize your dreams.

Thanks for the opportunity,

Jim Beddow, The Rural Learning Center

design:SD Introduced at the Pancake Feed

The Design South Dakota team introduced the project to many Corsica area residents at the Corsica Commercial Club’s Customer Appreciation Days last Saturday. The Commercial Club served pancakes and sausages for free to hundreds of Corsica locals, while Jim Beddow, Ward Whitwam and I talked design and charrette with the locals.

Big thanks go to our friends at the Willmar Design Center in Willmar, MN (especially Bev Daugherty) for allowing us to borrow their charrette boards to use in our display. Also thanks to TSP Architects in Sioux Falls for lending us the display background, to Bobbi Gaukel at one8ty creative for designing the logo and handouts on super short notice, and to Nathan Hinker and the Corsica Commercial Club for inviting us to participate (and giving us the idea for the booth)!

 

Ward Whitwam, AIA and a member of the design:SD planning team, ran into an old friend (or maybe adversary?) at the pancake feed. Ward designed the Corsica Elementary School 39 years ago. At that time, Sid Hoekstra, who still lives in Corsica, was the School Board Chair. Sid and Ward recalled the arguments they had almost 40 years ago over the price of the project.

Ward also visited with the folks in the Douglas County Hospital booth. He learned they will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of building the hospital later this year. As it turns out, Ward also designed that building half a century ago!

Thanks to the Corsica community for the warm welcome!

Joe B.

(you can enlarge any of the above pictures by clicking on them)

RLC to spend 3 days in town

We have a pretty jam-packed schedule in Corsica this week. We’ll begin tonight (Thursday) with a workshop for the Corsica UProcess Team (we’ll be telling you more about this soon). Then on Friday morning we’ll be having breakfast with leaders from the Corsica Development Corp, Housing Commission, School District and City. Lindsey and I will be meeting with the senior class at CHS later in the morning.

Friday afternoon we’ll be hosting the design:South Dakota team at the Legion Hall for a planning session for the upcoming visit in May. In our spare time on Friday, we’ll be finishing up a couple more interviews. Then on Saturday, we’ll be hosting a booth at the Commercial Club’s free Customer Appreciation event at the Legion Hall. The booth will have great information on the design:SD team visit coming up this spring, and we’ll have a few architects from AIA South Dakota on hand too.

We won’t have a whole lot of free time, but if you would like to visit with any or all three of us sometime in the next few days, just drop us an email or give us a call. Or better yet, post a comment on this page. Our contact info is on the “About the Rural Learning Center” page of this site.

One more thing to share. We haven’t done a great job of posting to this blog in the past couple of months. We’ve been super busy, but that’s a lousy excuse. We promise to do a better job of keeping you updated on what we’re up to. It’s been great working with folks in the Corsica region!

take care.

Thursday visit, redo

Jim and I were scheduled to be in town last week on Wednesday, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Hopefully the ice/rain/snow won’t keep us out of Corsica this week. (And a great big appology to the group of guys we skipped out on at 9:30 am that day–sorry about the miscommunication!)

We will be in town Thursday morning (Dec. 28) . If you’d like to visit, just give us an email or phone call. See you soon, and Happy Holidays from the Rural Learning Center,

Joe Bartmann

Join us at City Council

In case you missed us at the elementary gym last week or want to learn more, I will be presenting to the Corsica City Council tomorrow night (Monday, November 13) at 7pm. My focus will be on the potential Community Design Pilot Project, but I’ll answer questions and listen to ideas about anything (I promise it will be worth at least the price of admission). I’ll post some more info about the Design project when I get back to the office in Howard on Thursday.

I will be heading to Pierre on Tuesday for our session at the SD Housing Conference called Flipping the Switch: why we need to rethink rural housing on Wednesday. You can learn more about our rural housing project at rethinkruralhousing.com
I’ll be in Corsica Monday afternoon through Tuesday late morning, so if you would like to visit over a cup of coffee, please shoot me an email or call the office (605.772.5139) and they’ll track me down (actually, I gave up coffee a few weeks ago, so I’ll have an OJ or hot chocolate with you).

Hope to see you while I’m there,

Joe Bartmann

Fifty thank yous

A big Rural Learning Center “thank you” to the fifty or so Corsica area residents who shared soup and sandwiches with us last night at the grade school gym! Jim Beddow, Lindsey Karlson and I presented some things we’ve learned in Corsica over the past few months, and talked about a few ideas we have for the future. You can read the full report by clicking on “reports + docs” at the top of this page or by clicking here. We would also love to hear feedback and ideas from you on our presentation (many of you provided this last night on the little green sheets–thanks!).

The slides from our presentation are available on Slideshare. Click here to see them.

We will be piecing together your suggestions for Leadership Team members, and will keep you up to speed on our work through this blog and in the Corsica Globe. If you ever have any questions or ideas to share with us, you can post them in the “comments” box on the bottom of any page on this web site.

Take care,

Joe Bartmann