Place-making is a process that creates areas where all demographics want to eat, work, rest, play, and learn. If the best interests of all demographics are not considered in this process, then it is not actual place-making. Saint Petersburg differs from any other Florida City because, in the 1920s, urban planners designed wide streets connecting the gulf and bay waters edges, enabling walkability. These wide sidewalks were activated with street-level stores and beautiful arcades, providing an excellent porosity to move north and south. These were intentional ingredients of urban design that were added to enable people to enjoy the city; however, not all were allowed. The lecture reflects on Saint Petersburg's historical placemaking strategies and social structures to describe a City’s identity. While also reflecting on the future growth opportunities of the 86-acre Historic Gas Plant Redevelopment as a potential strategy for equitable growth.
This lecture is sponsored by Marywood University’s School of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
AIA CEU Credit is available for this lecture.
This event is in-person and virtual. In-person lecture at Marywood University School of Architecture, Shields Building. Register here for on-line stream. Space is limited but the event will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel afterward.
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Everald COlas, AIA, NOMA, Founding Principal
Everald Colas is an award-winning Haitian American architect, educator and storyteller and is the founder of Storyn Studio for Architecture. He has led a variety of internationally acclaimed projects during his time as an architect and specializes in projects that require a sensitive approach to integrating mixed-use buildings in a historical context.
As a practitioner, he is committed to civic engagement and how design can promote stronger communities, create more inclusive spaces, foster place making to a neighborhood, and be identity affirming to individuals within a community and greater city. He is motivated to find solutions for designing equitable spaces for all voices and believes that design is a tool for social change.
As a practice, Storyn Studio uniquely balances its work at both the local scale and the international scale. The studio engages in precise research of a community’s ethos and economic parameters in order to foster unique spaces that tell a project’s sole story. Storyn has been engaged in place making in Kreuzberg, Denver, Deep Elum Dallas, and St. Petersburg Florida.
Before creating Storyn, Everald was a senior architect for Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Everald holds both a Master of Architecture degree and a Master of Science in Architectural Pedagogy from The University of Florida. In 2018, he co-founded and organized the annual University of Florida School of Architecture COMING HOME Alumni Lecture Series.
He has been awarded the Garcia award for Design excellence by the Tampa Bay AIA, the Florida’s Young Architect Design Award, and the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Florida.
Everald is a board director for The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art, was a board director for Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts and is currently an advisory council member for the University of Florida School of Architecture. In each of his board service positions his common focus is creating space for learning and inspiring open dialogues about marginalized people and voices.
