Another detour today, this time down Main Street, or The Main Street Project, which began in 1977 and (until last year) was operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It started as architectural and economic analysis meant to help local governments come up with strategies to revitalize their downtown. The Main Street Project summarize their approach under umbrella terms: organization; promotion; design; economic restructuring.
Barracks Row is a stretch of 8th St SE running between Pennsylvania Ave and the Navy Yard, and has been a “Main Street” for a decade. A few years back they served as outside consultant (faux-client) for a school project at CUArch. That project, the Eastern Market Plaza, proposed a small welcome center kiosk anchoring a sloped lawn and communal gathering space. This past year the Barracks Row Main Street presented two master plans for the entire plaza (6 irregularly shaped blocks) which can be found on their website here. They are taking public feedback until the 15th of this month. The feedback website looks like this:
A quick look at the two contenders, Concept A – “The Bosque”, and Concept B – “The Library”.
And another look at the project I proposed back in 2010 with Ryan Monahan, Phu Nguyen and Edwin Perez:
Adam Achrati 
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