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Bruce Race has made significant contributions to award-winning projects, publications and research as a principal in other companies. He continues to emphasize innovation in his own practice. Since 1994, communities have received 26 awards for plans that RACESTUDIO assisted in preparing. Mr. Race has continued to write and teach for professional organizations. On behalf of the American Planning Association, Mr. Race authored a book providing planners and educators case studies and methods for getting young people involved in the planning process.
Awards
Downtown River Revitalization Strategy, Truckee, CA, 2006 California APA Honor Award
Fair Oaks Boulevard Concept Plan, Carmichael, CA, 2006 Sacramento Valley Section, APA Merit Award
East Downtown Plan, Visalia, CA, 2006 California Central Section, APA Merit Award
Downtown River Revitalization Strategy, Truckee, CA, 2006 Sacramento Valley Section, APA Honor Award
Auburn Boulevard Plan, City of Citrus Heights, 2005 Sacramento Valley Section, APA Honor Award
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2005 AIA Regional and Urban Design Award
Preservation Guidelines, Truckee, CA, 2004 Governor's Historic Preservation Award
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2004 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement Policies and Regulations, Environmental Protection Agency
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2005 Outstanding Planning Award for a Program/ Plan/Tool, National APA
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2004 Award of Excellence, California APA
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2004 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence, League of California Cities
Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Program, 2004 Outstanding Planning: Planning Implementation Award, Northern California Section APA
Truckee Historic Preservation Guidelines, California Preservation Foundation Award, 2004
Sanat Cruz Accessorary Dwelling Unit Manual, 2004 American Institute of Architects/California Council Urban Design Merit Award
Design Guidelines for Heritage Resources, Danville, CA, 2002 Governor's Historic Preservation Award
Davis Downtown and Traditional Residential Neighborhoods Design Guidelines, 2002 Sacramento Valley Section APA Honor Award
Union City General Plan Update, 2002 Northern California Section APA Merit Award
Sylvan Corners Redevelopment Concept Plan, 2002 Sacramento Valley Section APA Merit Award
Broadway/Stockton Urban Design Plan, 1999 California APA Planning Award for Excellence in Focused Issue Planning
Capitol Park Neighborhood Design Plan, Housing the Next 10 Million Design Competition, Award of Excellence, 1999
Broadway/Stockton Urban Design Plan, 1999 Sacramento Valley Section APA Planning Award
Capitol Park Neighborhood Design Plan, Capitol Area Development Authority, 1998 Sacramento Valley Section APA Award for Outstanding Planning and Implementation for a Large Jurisdiction
Curtis Park West, Union Pacific Railroad, 1998 Sacramento Valley Section APA Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Planning
Capitol Park Neighborhood Design Plan, Capitol Area Development Authority, 1997 American Institute of Architects/California Council Urban Design Award
Capitol Park Neighborhood Design Plan, Capitol Area Development Authority, 1997 Local Government Commission, Ahwanhee Community Livability Award
Ohlone/Chynoweth, Santa Clara County Transit Agency, 1995 Local Government Commission Ahwanhee Principles Honor Award
Honors
Richard Upjohn Fellowship, American Institute of Architects, 2004
Special Commendation, American Institute of Architects/California Council, 2004
Certificate of Appreciation, Housing the Next 10 Million Steering Committee, American Institute of Architects/California Council, 2000
The College of Fellows, American Institute of Architects, 1999
Distinguished Alumnus Award, College of Architecture and Planning, Ball State University, 1999
Presidential Citation, American Institute of Architects/California Council, 1998
John S. Bolles, FAIA Fellowship, American Institute of Architects/California Council, 1998
Recent Publications
ADU's of Santa Cruz, arcCA, 2004
Minden's Architect for Life, arcCA, 2004
Graphic Communication Tools in the Community Planning Process, Architectural Representation Handbook, 2000 (Author-Paul Laseau, Bruce Race-Contributor)
SafeScape, Planners Press, American Planning Association, 2000 (Authors-Al Zelinka and Dean Brennan, Bruce Race-Case Study Contributor)
Youth Planning Charrettes: A Manual for Planners and Teachers, Planners Press, American Planning Association, 1998 (Carolyn Torma, Co-Author)
Community Based Design: Seeing the Future in Community Values, Architecture California, Sumner 1997
Union Square Design Competition: Evaluation of Principles, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association Newsletter, July 1997 (Dan Cohen, Co-Author)
The Sky's the Limit: New Visions of Union Square, Focus Magazine, December, 1996 (Author-Meredith Tromble, Bruce Race Contributor)
Union Square: Managing San Francisco's Landmark Retail and Visitor District, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association Newsletter, May 1995 (Dan Cohen, Co-Author)
Recent Courses and Seminars
2006 San Joaquin Valley Blueprint Summit, Regional Mobility and Alternative Futures, Fresno, CA
2006 Great Valley Center Annual Conference, Regional Mobility and Alternative Futures for the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento, CA
2006 Tulare County Farm Bureau Housing and Land Use Conference, Infill vs. Business as Usual, Visalia, CA
2005 River Neighborhood Charrette, Facilitator, Muncie, IN
2005 AIA Convention, Calculating Las Vegas' Ecological Footprint, Las Vegas, NV
2005 APA National Conference, Engaging Youth in Community Planning, San Francisco, CA
2005 Sierra Madre Educational Series, Designing Downtowns, Sierra Madre, CA
2005 AIA South Carolina Convention, Keynote Speaker, The Confluence - Where it all Comes Together, Columbia, SC
2005 Annual Business Meeting, Tulare County Economic Development Corporation, Keynote Speaker, Five Stories about the Future, Visalia, CA
2004 National Governors Association, Keynote Speaker, "What do healthy cities look like?", Charleston, SC
2004 AIA Ohio Convention, Architects as Advocates, Cleveland, OH
2004 Design Review and Guidelines Training, California County Planning Commissioners Association, Yolo County, CA
2004 Advocacy Training Workshop, American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C.
2003 Commercial Corridor Design, Great Valley Center, Willows, CA
2003 Community Charrette, South Muncie, IN
2003 Community Participation, Ball State University Guest Lecture Series
2003 Seven Stories about Housing Density, Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, Keynote
2003 AIA Convention, Embracing the Future: Community Visioning Training for Architects, San Diego, CA
2003 Infill Housing Design Seminar, UC Davis, CA
2003 APA Conference, Dis-integration of Planning and Architecture, Denver, CO
2003 AIAS Conference, Seeing the Future in Community Values Training Workshop, Chicago, IL
2002 AIA Wisconsin Convention, Making Great Places, Madison, WI
2002 APA Conference, Making Planning Engaging, Chicago, IL
2002 APA Conference, The Future of Community Planning, Chicago, IL
2002 APA Conference, E-Government for Economic Development and Planning, Chicago, IL
2001 Infill Housing and Redevelopment, UCLA Seminar, Burbank, CA
2001 California APA Conference, Reinventing the Strip, Sacramento, CA
2001 California APA Conference, SafeScape Panelist, Sacramento, CA
2001 Found Opportunities: Infill Housing Seminar, Santa Cruz, CA
2001 Housing the Next One Million, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association
2001 Image and Economic Development Workshop, Arizona Governor's Economic Development Conference, Nogales, AZ
2001 Building Community and Youth Participation, Center for Youth Citizenship, Sacramento, CA
2001 Urban Design Assistance Team, Downtown Indianapolis, IN
2001 AIA Convention, What were we thinking? Fixing the 70's, Denver, CO
2001 APA Conference, Fixing Urban Renewal, New Orleans, LA
2001 APA Conference, Town Planning in the Sierras, New Orleans, LA
2001 Infill Housing, UC Davis Seminar, Sacramento, CA
2000-2001 Seeing the Future through Community Values, Sierra Business Council Leadership Training Workshops, Nevada City, Auburn, Mammoth Lakes, Lake Tahoe, Bishop, Sonora, and Mariposa, CA
2000 Rail Plan for California and the Central Valley, Great Valley Center Conference, Sacramento, CA
2000 Rail Plan for California, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association
2000 Image and Economic Development Workshop, Arizona Governor's Economic Development Conference, Sedona, AZ
2000 APA Conference, Conservation Districts, New York, NY
1999 Infrastructure Needs for the Central Valley, Urban Land Institute, San Francisco, CA
1999 California APA Conference, Housing the Next 10 Million, Bakersfield, CA
1999 Infill Development: What does it look like and how does it work?, Great Valley Center Conference, Sacramento, CA
1999 Housing the Next 10 Million, California League of Cities, San Jose, CA
1999 Community Image and Economic Development, Arizona Governor's Economic Development Conference, Pine Top-Lakeside, AZ
1999 Writing and Reading Design Guidelines for Historic Districts, California Preservation Foundation Conference, Palm Springs, CA
1999 APA Conference, Urbanization of the West's Great Central Valley, Seattle, WA
1999 Development Options for the Central Valley, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Modesto, CA
1999 Design and Planning Charrettes, Planning for Prosperity Seminar, Sierra Business Council, Sonora, CA
1999 Water and Development in the Central Valley, Water Users Coalition, Great Valley Center, Fresno, CA
1999 Communication through the Design Process, Ball State University Guest Lecture Series
1998 Great Valley Center Water Policy Conference, Fresno, CA
1998 AIA Convention, Childrens Charrette Workshop, San Francisco, CA
1998 APA Conference, Community-Based Design Review, Boston, MA
1998 APA Conference, Protecting Neighborhood Character, Boston, MA
1998 League of California Cities, New Urban Renewal, Long Beach, CA
1997 APA Conference, Childrens Charrette Workshop, San Diego, CA
1997 AIA Urban Design Conference, Past and Future of Union Square, San Francisco, CA
1996 Portland APA Conference, Community-Based Planning Charrettes, Portland, OR
1996 APA Conference, Community Design Charrettes, Orlando, FL
1995 APA Conference, Community Character Management and Design Review, Toronto, Canada
1994 APA Conference, Tools for Guiding Urban Design, San Francisco, CA
1994 Kansas/Missouri APA, Planning Commissioners Training Session, Kansas City, MO
1994 California APA Conference, Three Regions-Three Futures: The Impact of the Information Highway, San Diego, CA
1994 APA Planning and Zoning Institute, Guiding Urban Design, Charlotte, NC
1993 California APA Conference, 90's Style Comprehensive Planning: Blending Growth Management and Economic Development, Modesto, CA
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Recent Articles
Summer 1997, Architecture California
Bruce A. Race, FAIA, AICP
COMMUNITY-BASED DESIGN: Seeing the Future in Community Values
Communities across California are expressing renewed interest in their public places. After years of retreat, the definition of "cocooning" has expanded to include the neighborhood, local shopping street and downtown, as citizens adopt proactive roles and help set design agendas. More and more, citizens expect to have a say in public and private investment decisions that impact the public domain.
Community-Based Design Trends
As California grows and ages, several clear trends have emerged. Communities show increasing interest in revitalizing their central places, enhancing pedestrian-friendly addresses and advocating quality architecture. Most significantly, policymakers are beginning to incorporate citizen input in community design policy, encouraging public participation in the development of community design plans and forming design review committees.
Newcomers during California's booming 1970's and 80's are now settled. They recognize their vested interest in their communities. They know more about local history, are more aware of local architecture and design traditions, and more concerned with fiscal and environmental impacts of new development. As a result, preserving the scale and character of cherished places has become a policy condition. Communities' interests focus on the value created by physical and cultural memory. Victorian and Craftsman neighborhoods, ethnic districts, old industrial districts and even tie-dye era places are venerated for the memories they represent.
Changed values and citizen desire to shape new and preserve existing public places have had a number of positive affects. Increasingly, policymakers look for input from citizen advisory committees (CAC's), task forces and special committees formed to guide professional planning and design teams. Such groups often act as the sponsors of the public participation process. They may also host public workshops, take the lead on public outreach and education, and document the results of civic discourse. Whether blended from standing advisory boards and commissions or created from special interest groups, these CAC's have tremendous responsibility, as well as great clout, in establishing urban design parameters.
Now, public sector clients come to architects for help in facilitating community participation in identifying design solutions that reflect local values. The way architects work with communities shapes their expectations for quality design and environments.
Architects Role in Community Design
The architect's role in community-based design is often lost in media preoccupation with Deconstructivism and Neotraditionalism. Those architects who provide design and planning services for communities operate in a world of policy and politics. Likewise, those who provide design services to project developers also face public and political scrutiny. In both cases, architects must help inform the discussion and document the results.
Designing the Process
Helping develop a community-based design process requires an understanding of what types of decisions a community needs to make. Just as every community is unique, no two processes will be exactly the same. However, there are three general overall phases every community design effort goes through. These include a period of discovery, understanding the available options, and deciding how to make the preferred approach a reality.
Credibility is a primary objective of every community process. Credible community design and policy efforts do not happen by accident. Successful planning efforts are scripted and planned to ensure the community understands recommendations and policies. A credible process, one that the community buys into, captures community values. A credible process has three characteristics.
1. The process is inclusive. All citizens and special interests have to have access to the planning discussion through outreach strategies that include all groups on both sides of critical issues.
2. The process is informed. Because values are intrinsically emotion-laden, they must be discussed openly and directly. Factual information regarding central issues is critical.
3. The process is open and visible. Participants need to see their input documented and reflected in the outcome of the design process.
Informing Community Discussion
Whether the issue relates to community character, traffic patterns, demographics, historical sites or fiscal matters, information is essential. Emotion can only be tamed by information which allows participants to develop a clearer understanding of the critical issues, design options and potential outcomes of various planning futures.
Documenting the Results
Architects must help communities document public values, ideas and decisions. Each decision requires a visible trail that chronicles popular understanding of the issues and choices. The ideal community design process is self-documenting. Each step, workshop, focus group, meeting or survey adopts an approach that guides the community through the discussion and documents the preferences expressed. This makes for an open and visible process and, therefore, adds to its credibility.
Raising Community Expectations for Quality Design
The community-based design process should be an educational and create an opportunity for communities to "self actualize," communities better understand their own physical form and learn what factors influence changes. In the course of a successful process, many participants view their communities in new ways and achieve a growing appreciation for quality design. Higher community expectations usually leads to interesting assignments for architects, as well. The three case studies that follow show some of the ways architects are "upping the ante," raising community expectations for architecture in three very different community design programs.
Case Studies
Carmel: Design Traditions Project
California communities considered desirable destinations and addresses have long-standing architectural and planning traditions that acknowledge their spectacular natural settings. Design policies in such communities generally build on these traditions in an attempt to shape new development. Carmel, for example, has fashioned a community-based design process that frames new development as an extension of the village's architectural memory.
Carmel's Design Traditions Project involves the community in assessing valued assets of its historic wooded residential areas. The process raises public awareness of the architectural and natural assets that make Carmel a unique California place. The community is uses its popular assets as a foundation to review potential policy options and design management tools.
Carmel, California citizen design teams are working to define the desirable characteristics of their residential neighborhoods in the Carmel Design Traditions Project.
El Cerrito: Reinventing the Central Place
Many postwar California communities are now discovering or initiating traditions unique to their community environments. California's recovery from the recession of the early '90's has created economic conditions that permit communities to initiate a dialogue about how to shape the next generation of growth. New residential neighborhoods and redevelopment of older commercial areas offer opportunities for change. One popular theme, adopted by El Cerrito, involves a reconfigured shopping environment to play the role of a town center, which aided community-based efforts to reinvent their central place.
The 30-year-old El Cerrito Plaza lost its anchor department store and required a new tenant mix strategy to survive changes in retailing. During 1996 and 1997, El Cerrito spent several months working through a community-based planning process to develop a framework plan for a new village center. The community had to review a variety of economic, tax base and design objectives before the Redevelopment Agency solicited private sector partners for the project. El Cerrito adopted a three step process: define the planning opportunities and options, identify the urban design principles and test their plan. A summary set of design objectives was then used to solicit a private sector developer partner and guide the site planning and design approach.
El Cerrito, California citizen workshop participants explore conceptual approaches as they create a new village center.
San Pablo: Updating the General Plan
Increasingly, California communities are including community design or image elements in their general plans. They have found that community image, land use and economic development are interdependent variables in terms of overall livability.
In San Pablo, the general plan update process included aggressive public outreach. A series of workshops focused on land use, community design and economic development and generated public input into an integrated vision for the community. Using an alternative futures gaming workshop, community design teams developed long term visions for the city. Subsequent workshops focused on district land use strategies, community design, economic development, and implementation. The result was a popular city-wide vision that integrated community design with land use and economic policies.
In San Pablo, California, "Kids Design San Pablo" provides a fresh view on how children use cities and dream of the future.
Community Design Tool Box
The uniqueness of each community and each project means architects must tailor their approach to community participation to fit every assignment. A variety of interactive design methods exist to facilitate participation and help communities better appreciate design issues.
Environmental Walks
Most community-based design efforts allow participants to become the experts as they help define the issues. Environmental walks, for example, guide participants along a fixed route as they analyze planning and design opportunities. A list of questions helps focus their observations on particular issues.
Cognitive Mapping and Drawing
One effective warm-up exercise involves asking citizens to draw from memory their community or neighborhood. When planning a particular site, for instance, and participants need to consider its context, ask them to draw the surrounding neighborhood or city. This technique works exceptionally well with children. With adults, as an impromptu exercise, it often stimulates productive discussions.
Gaming Solutions
Design games help citizen design teams explore alternative futures effectively. Although these games can be complex, they offer several valuable features: they are interactive, visual and self-documenting. Rules can be formulated by participants as they react to prompter questions that focus on critical issues. Game boards can be based on a site diagram, an aerial photo or even an abstract map diagram. Game pieces contrived from colored pieces of cardboard or cut paper may be used in combination with colored markers. Ideally, participants move game pieces around the board and negotiate their final location.
Scenarios Testing
"Test driving" design plans adds a new layer of player involvement, as teams engage in role-playing. After defining various user scenarios, then map the experience of someone walking through the design. Outcomes may be summarized in a series of stories, plotting movement with colored markers or notes. The economic impact of a project may be addressed by pasting down play money where the scenarios produce sales.
From self-guided walks to elaborate design games, the methods selected depend on the issues the community needs to resolve and their stage in the design process. Involvement is the key. Participants need to feel their concerns have been addressed; they need adequate information to work through the emotional aspects that surround issues; and they need to face the consequences of alternative design decisions. When citizens feel they played a genuine role in the process, they produce better results.
As California matures, communities rely more heavily on local experience and customs. At the same time, the architect's role in this coming-of-age urbanism changes, too. Architects, trained to understand the layers of economic, urban design and historic traditions of cities, are becoming teachers and guides to communities seeking to focus on their uniqueness, articulate their identity and plan more effectively to face the future.
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