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CILCP JOINS URBAN STUDIO ADA COMMITTEE Center for Independent Living of Central Pa. executive director lectures Penn State class on accessible design Penn State students review designs they created for the Harrisburg Urban Studio. CILCP and the Urban Studio ADA Access Committee will help students address accessible design issues.   (Camp Hill, Pa.) - The Center for Independent Living of Central Pennsylvania (CILCP) announced that the organization has joined the Harrisburg Urban Studio's Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Access Committee. CILCP has continually supported Mayor Stephen R. Reed's innovative Harrisburg Urban Studio architecture education program. The new committee's responsibilities include informing the architectural community of city guidelines, reviewing Urban Studio student's ADA work, and identifying and preparing legal language to address accessibility issues. The committee consists of Janetta Green, director of operations for CILCP; Lynn Stewart, Local Housing Options Team leader; Dan Leppo, deputy director of planning for the City of Harrisburg; Tim Allen, architect and principle of Timothy Paul Allen, Architect; Guy Beneventano, attorney for Nauman, Smith, Shissler and Hall; and Victoria Radabaugh, senior vice president and COO, Hershey Philbin Associates. Theotis Braddy, the executive director for the CILCP, recently lectured a group of second year architecture students at Penn State University who are designing projects for the Urban Studio. His lecture included detailed discussion about problems that people with disabilities have in finding both employment and adequate housing. He said that accessibility coupled with good-quality design is an exciting challenge for architects and students alike. Earlier this year Braddy announced that CILCP would underwrite an accessibility design course for the fall 2005 semester of the Harrisburg Urban Studio. Penn State professor of architecture Lisa Iulo is instructing the class. "CILCP saw this relationship as an opportunity to help future architects understand the need to go above and beyond ADA guidelines when it comes to accessible design," Braddy said. Iulo said that about 70 Penn State students are participating in the project and have produced, "a wide range of proposals, including housing units that were tightly bundled or scattered on the site, with ramps, external corridors and elevators, sometimes combined with communal porches or 'atrium' spaces, providing access to the individual units as well as links between the housing and the public street." Braddy and CILCP joined the Urban Studio effort during an architecture summit held at HACC on June 29, 2005. During the summit, representatives from Penn State, HACC and Morgan State University (Baltimore) committed to have students work on various urban design projects assigned by the City of Harrisburg. Theotis Braddy CILCP Executive Director   "The Center for Independent Living supports the Harrisburg Urban Studio and the idea of community-driven architecture," Braddy said. "As part of the community, people with disabilities certainly have specific needs to be able to access and use buildings. Community-driven architecture and the Harrisburg Urban Studio in particular provides a venue for addressing these needs in the design-build world." On July 25, 2005, CILCP and the City of Harrisburg launched an accessibility design guidelines manual that provides instructions for making properties more accessible to people with disabilities. The manual can be found at http://www.cilcp.org/resources/CILCP_publications.php. The Harrisburg Urban Studio is an architecture education program started in 2004 by Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed. The Urban Studio is designed to have architecture students design and build projects to help improve disadvantaged communities. By working with city planners, a number of locations throughout Harrisburg have been identified as potential Urban Studio projects. According to Urban Studio Task Force Coordinator Robert Philbin, accessibility is one of the primary concerns of the program. The Urban Studio is a project of Mayor Stephen R. Reed's Harrisburg Urban Initiative. For more information visit www.nichenews.com/urbanstudio or contact Nathan Pigott, Hershey Philbin Associates, npigott@hersheyphilbin.com or 717.975.2148. The Center for Independent Living of Central Pennsylvania is a nonprofit, nonresidential organization established for and by people with disabilities and serves Cumberland, Dauphin, Perry, Mifflin, and Juniata counties. CILCP's vision is to empower people with disabilities to fully participate in all aspects of society. For more information on the CILCP visit www.cilcp.org or contact Nathan Pigott at 717-975-2148 or via email at npigott@hersheyphilbin.com. Back to the Newsroom