NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
14 May 2004

MAYOR REED ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF HARRISBURG URBAN STUDIO TASK FORCE

Harrisburg, PA—Inspired by the Auburn University College of Architecture’s Rural Studio, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced the formation of the Harrisburg Urban Studio Task Force to help improve the City’s neighbor-hoods with architecture.

In 1993 a group of Auburn architecture professors led by Samuel Mockbee founded the Rural Studio as a way to improve community and living conditions in Alabama’s poorest rural counties while providing architecture students with a practical design-build learning environment.

Mayor Reed said the goal is to now apply the Rural Studio’s philosophy to an urban setting. “Through architecture, Auburn University’s students and professors have vastly improved the communities and lives of people in one of the country’s poorest regions. This is a concept that can be applied anywhere,” he said.

During a televised panel discussion following the April 7 airing of “The Rural Studio Film,” on WITF-TV, Mayor Reed offered a challenge to leaders in the architectural design-build community.

“They were asked to help us create the Harrisburg Urban Studio and improve neighborhoods in the state capital,” Mayor Reed said. “Thanks to their initially expressed interest, we have now formed the Harrisburg Urban Studio Task Force.”

The Task Force consists of Bruce Lindsey, head of the Rural Studio at Auburn University; Dianne Nicholas, Associate Professor of Architecture, Temple University; Caru Bowns, PhD, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Penn State University; Luis Rico-Gutierrez, Associate Head of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University; Anthony Viscardi, Associate Professor of Architecture, Lehigh University; Brad Guy, Associate Director of the Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance at Penn State University; David Morrison, Assistant to the President, Harrisburg Area Community College; and Terri Martini, Director of the City of Harrisburg’s Department of Building and Housing Development.

The architectural leaders on the task force will combine their talents and ideas to form strategies for the Harrisburg Urban Studio, which is a part of Mayor Reed’s Harrisburg Urban Studio Initiative program. Robert Philbin, Director of the Harrisburg Urban Initiative and a noted midstate business executive will serve as the coordinator of the task force.

For more information regarding the Harrisburg Urban Initiative or Mayor Reed’s Urban Studio, please contact Nathan Pigott at (717) 975.2148, npigott@hershyphilbin.com, or visit the Hershey Philbin Associates newsroom at www.hersheyphilbin.com.

XXX