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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, October 19, 2002

Harvard students size up Kaka'ako

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

It happened in Tokyo. Beijing. The Canary Islands. Cuba.

Now it's happening in Kaka'ako.

For six days this week, 11 Harvard graduate students in urban design have perused Kaka'ako from every point of view. They've heard its noises, seen the limitless blue ocean at its edge, talked to its major stakeholders, pondered its spotty neighborhoods, its gritty warehouses, its power plant, its retail areas. And yesterday they were to climb Diamond Head to take a look at how this burgeoning urban core fits into the overall landscape of coastal O'ahu.

It's the first time that Hawai'i has been the site of a studio course offered by the prestigious Harvard Design School, which immerses graduate students in a real-life situation and challenges them to come up with a redevelopment plan.

Now comes the tough part.

They'll go back to Harvard and come up with a plan for redesign that creates a coherent whole for Kaka'ako that's true to its history, the economic desires of its owners, and the well-being and culture of the state.

"Think big," Mayor Jeremy Harris told them when they met, according to their professor, Janine Clifford. "Small ideas we can dream up ourselves," Harris added. "And ordinary ideas we can do, too."

Part of the reason the Harvard students are in Hawai'i is Clifford. Last year the Honolulu architect who runs a design firm with her husband, Don Clifford, was the first person to receive a doctoral degree in design from Harvard through distance education. And now she's teaching Harvard's first urban design studio course through distance education, utilizing interactive media that allow her to talk to students in real time from her Honolulu office and even sketch out plans together.

"Of 15 optional studios we're the only one doing it virtually in this fashion," said Clifford, who has pioneered this process for Harvard.

But every three weeks she flies to the Mainland to be with her class in person.

Clifford co-teaches the studio class with renowned architect Alex Krieger, Harvard professor and chairman of the Urban Planning and Design Department of the Harvard Design School.

"We like to educate future designers with the real world, not just abstract thinking," explained Krieger, of the studio course. "If they create something that compels the imagination of people in Honolulu, it will be wonderful."

The academic exercise is costing Honolulu nothing, said Krieger, with costs borne by Harvard, with some assistance from local benefactors, including the various big and small landowners in Kaka'ako.

But the students are free to imagine the best for the area, without bowing to any particular pressure group.

The students have already realized how monumental is the task before them and how gingerly they need to step in order to take into consideration conflicting forces.

"The biggest job is going to be reconciling the interests of the big landowners," said Jeff Barnes. It's they who want shopping malls everywhere, he said, to maximize investments.

Another pressure will be how to create affordable housing. The students feel a key element for creating a true neighborhood is offering housing that will draw workers and families. They hope the jobs will be provided by the new John A. Burns School of Medicine, which breaks ground next week and will be the first stepping stone of a growing biotech industry for the state.

"The emphasis is on Kaka'ako as a catalyst for major future economic growth and change," said Kirstin Garcia, a student from Mau'i who is part of the group. "That puts even more responsibility on us."

As they work their way through the issues, they've been guided by Clifford, who is anxious that they understand what vibrant urban communities are about and how they are formed. They have already done intensive study on parts of Hong Kong, Bali, Boston's back bay, and have backgrounded themselves in Hawai'i issues.

The students are expected to complete their plans by the end of the semester, shortly before Christmas. At that point they'll make a presentation and then their work will be published in a monograph, with several thousand copies printed.

And it will come back to Honolulu for discussion, and, possibly, consideration as the planning process marches forward.

"Maybe they'll come up with brilliant ideas, maybe naive ideas," said Krieger. "And maybe they'll have an additional insight that allows others to advance the conversation for years to come."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.