How a high quality public realm can improve community vitality. The appearance and condition of our public realm can inspire, invigorate, frighten or deflate us. Transportation infrastructure that is designed to be aesthetically rich, and offer a variety of social and community experiences, can foster civic engagement, encourage social connection, and strengthen community identity.

West Capitol Avenue is a major east-west, 3.5-mile long arterial and commercial spine running through West Sacramento. The Urban Design and Streetscape Master Plan focused on creating a Complete Street to serve as the heart of the community. This involved redesign of the public-private interface, signage and wayfinding, traffic and circulation, infrastructure, financing strategies and overall streetscape standards. Sustainable infrastructure plans were developed to assure underground utilities like sewer, water and storm drainage are adequate for new development. The extensive community participation program included a series of stakeholder interviews and community workshops. Since Phase One improvements, the city has seen investment by a hotelier, bank and small businesses and the street has welcomed a college, community center, an updated library and remodeled transit centers.

From conception to implementation, architectural designs change over time, but the process of that change often goes unseen. SOM Design Director Javier Arizmendi will reveal how and why designs may evolve, in a lecture that will highlight the case study of Geffen Hall—UCLA’s new teaching and learning facility for the David Geffen School of Medicine. He will show how SOM’s initial winning competition design was transformed through the multidisciplinary design firm’s collaborative process together with the university and their stakeholders.