City Dock Action Committee

Over the past nine months we’ve had the opportunity to be apart of an unprecedented and historic opportunity for the City of Annapolis. In response to the NTHP’s designation of City Dock as an endangered site, and the last ULI Baltimore TAP ‘Reclaiming a Local and National Treasure’ City Dock, The City of Annapolis and Historic Annapolis have banded together like never before to create the City Dock Action Committee. They have assembled a group of experts and stakeholders to lead an extensive outreach effort into the community and to prepare an implementation strategy moving forward. We have had the honor of engaging the public through workshops and community meetings to create a framework for the city to ‘Take Action’ at City Dock.

It was a full roster Tuesday night with two separate public presentations, the first being a public Action Committee Workshop, and the second a Ward One Community Presentation. BCT along with Wilson Hammond, Hord Coplan Macht, Moody Graham, Michael J. Dowling, and others presented the latest Consensus Plan that took all nine Action Committee teams’ comments, considerations, and recommendations into consideration to develop an actionable plan.

The nine Action Committee Teams:

• Design/ Placemaking

• Financial Tools/Development

• Programming/Community Access

• Parking/Pedestrian and Bike Connections

• Maritime

• Resiliency

• Burtis House

• Business/Property Owners and Retail

• Community Benefits, Character, and Livability

Bryce Turner delivering the Consensus Plan to Ward One Residents Association, Tuesday, 09.17.19

The overall community reception to the ideas presented was a positive one, with many citizens giving thanks to all the committee members for their effort put forth thus far. BCT is thrilled and humbled to have participated in such a historic committee. Following these latest meetings, all teams will go back and make their final recommendations which will be consolidated into a final report. This report will then be handed over to Historic Annapolis and the City of Annapolis to create an RFQ to implement the Action Committee’s final recommendations. The Action Committee is definitely on its way to reclaiming City Dock for the Citizen of Annapolis.

Designing Experiences for Seniors

Our expertise in the retail and food + beverage industry is an asset to the of our senior communities.

BCT understands that good design has a measurable impact on experiences. Places that are authentic, unique, beautiful, and comfortable, foster the best experiences. With 20+ plus years working in the senior housing arena, (and even more working with Boomers and placemaking) and a comprehensive knowledge of all care requirements, BCT plans and designs memorable multi-generational communities.

Design Trends: The Woonerf

Woonerf (pronounced VONE-erf; and roughly translated as “living streets”) is the Dutch term for a special kind of street (or group of streets) that functions as shared public space — for pedestrians, cyclists, children and, in some cases, slow-moving, cautiously driven cars as well. It is intended to function without traffic lights, stop signs, lane dividers or even sidewalks. Indeed, the whole point is to encourage human interaction, and those who use the space are forced to be aware of both others and the environment around them (i.e. – making eye contact and engaging in person-to-person interactions). People have recognized that many residential streets are unattractive to live on, as well as unsafe for children to play in, because they are designed for little more than motor vehicle access and parking. Along with “complete streets”, urban design is trending towards these types of considerations to make the pedestrian environment more welcoming. In the appropriate location, these are great places for artisans, co-working, retail and food!

Some common design elements include: shared and paved space that is intended for all street users; use of physical barriers, like curves, to maintain slow vehicular speeds; accommodation of landscaping and street furniture. At BCT we see opportunities to study incorporation of programmatic elements like retail, residential dwellings, creative / artisan uses, and public/private open spaces so as to make these types of urban design elements more engaging for both users and visitors alike.

Designing the Waterfront!

Our waterfront experience crosses the spectrum – from single-family custom-designed houses in Florida, to an exclusive resort on Kuta Bay in Bali, to waterfront redevelopment on Wardie Bay in Edinburgh, Scotland, and of course, the design of several waterfront mixed-use developments around our inner harbor in Baltimore. The diversity of projects, both in region and in magnitude, has given us the unique opportunity to provide developers with creative designs that are both distinctive and efficient functionally. We are not a “formula-driven” firm – rather, we strive to create designs that re-think and re-shape the old rules into innovative and bold works that are at the cutting edge of design. It is this perspective, that every project presents a fresh challenge – a new possibility – to re-shape the way we experience architecture, that is the foundation of our award-winning success.