San Diego Today: Designing the Urban Future
Panel Discussion May 21, 2016
The Friends of San Diego Architecture has Vicki Estrada returning this month to moderate a discussion on designing the future of San Diego’s urban environment with panelists Nicola Hedge and William A. Adams. A landscape architect, an environmentalist, and a land use attorney—all three have vested interests in San Diego’s built environment. What ideas will they have for designing a livable, sustainable city for the people living in San Diego now and the generations ahead?
Vicki Estrada, FASLA, grew up in and around downtown San Diego. She walked the streets around Sherman Heights with her grandfather, wandered down to the Harbor to see the tuna boats, watched the Chargers play at Balboa Stadium, and salivated at the wonderful smells wafting from the Wonder Bread factory. After graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in Landscape Architecture and working for other firms for a period, she opened her own company, Estrada Land Planning, in 1985 in the Gaslamp District. The company is now in the NBC building on Broadway. She can look down and view many of the landscapes designed by her company (e.g., the Convention Center, the medians along Broadway). The firm specializes in large-scale projects scattered all over the county from San Ysidro to Oceanside and Santee to Ocean Beach, from trolley stations to skate parks. Projects include the Balboa Park Master Plan, the Otay Ranch New Town Plan, the San Ysidro Mobility Study, the Rancho San Diego Specific Plan and the Downtown San Diego Streetscape Manual. In 2000 Vicki became a Fellow, the highest honor awarded by the American Society of Landscape Architects. She is a great collaborator with associates from other building professionals and sits on many civic boards and committees.
Note: A few of Vicki’s designs are on display right now at the Mission Valley Library for FSDA’s Breaking Barriers Exhibit, a collection of work from 30 San Diego women in the architectural professions.
Nicola Hedge, MPIA, is the Director of Environment Initiatives at the San Diego Foundation. She joined The Foundation in 2008 as a Thomas Murphy Research Fellow and has managed the Climate Initiative since 2010, a regional effort to “spur action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deepen community awareness about the local impacts of climate change.” She works with donors, non-profits, business and government partners to protect our region’s clean air and water, natural resources and quality of life. Hedge, who holds the degree Master of Public and International Affairs from UCSD, previously had experience in managing a field office for a World Bank research project in rural Malawi, worked with a production team on a public affairs show in public radio, and was a consultant on a student-run sustainable development project in Baja California, Mexico.
In a recent interview on KUSI, Nicola talked about Opening the Outdoors Grants. The San Diego Foundation offers grants to increase access to trails in the region, encouraging kids to stay safe outside.
See her interview here.
William Adams, Attorney is a partner in Norton, Moore, & Adams LLP. He is also the founder and chief editor of UrbDeZine, a blog on “urban planning, architecture, preservation + design.” For nearly 30 years Adams has been involved with land use and urban renewal in his business and, like many people, the same passion has carried over to become a personal passion. He sits on several boards which reflect his interests: San Diego Historic Streetcars, San Diego Architectural Foundation, The Food and Beverage Association of San Diego County and The Gaslamp Quarter Association Land Use Planning Committee.
Recently, Mr. Adams was one of the founders of a group called ‘Heal the Gash’. It is a group which is exploring ways to reknit the communities and amenities divided by the construction of I-5 through downtown San Diego which devastated several communities. Putting a “lid” over the freeway in order to rejoin downtown to Balboa Park and the urban residential neighborhoods is the vision of this group. You can learn more about this on their Facebook page.