Fred Koetter talks with Lynn Bigley and Tony Costello after the presentation.

Tony Costello signs a copy of "Roots and Branches," presented as a gift from the Archives.

Fourth Annual Meeting
City Hall Meeting Room

Featured Presentation :
Fred Koetter and Susie Kim of Koetter Kim & Associates, architects for The Commons and Downtown District

"Where Our Ideas of Community Meet Design

Architects Fred Koetter and Susie Kim, who designed the future Commons and downtown Entertainment District plans, talked about their worldwide designs during the CIAA annual meeting February 11th. Together, they shared with the audience how they approach a project site, client, and program considerations.

Those in attendance were both educated and enchanted with design photos and plans for projects in urban design in Chatanooga, TN; Cambridge, MA; Dallas, TX; London, England; Aktau, Kazakstan, and Columbus, IN. The Koetter Kim & Associates firm was established in Boston, MA in 1978. Both principals are active lecturers and professors. Mr. Koetter was Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale University from 1993-1998. A video of the presentation is available through CIAA as well as the Powerpoint presentation of their projects.

The Commons will be an $18 million project built upon the site of the original Commons which opened in 1973. The original Commons project was designed by renowned architect Cesar Pelli. Mr. Pelli suggested Koetter Kim & Associates for the re-design of the downtown. One of the most striking features of the Koetter Kim design is the circular plan for the indoor playground, which will form an outcropping at the intersection of Third and Washington streets. Koetter Kim's award-winning architecture, master plans, and urban design have revitalized places as diverse as London's docklands and wharves, inner-city Boston, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Asbury Park waterfront in New Jersey.

Founded in 1978 by Fred Koetter and Susie Kim, the firm is preeminent in the planning movement known as new urbanism, which seeks to enhance the sense of place, historical context, and cultural continuity in the city.

Koetter Kim has also won praise for its sensitive design of dozens of campus and office buildings.

GO > to Koetter Kim web site

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