By Gia Hale
Hollister
– Architecture student Lanette Lanning is applying her design
skills and architectural ambitions to downtown Hollister for her
senior thesis at California Polytechnic University, San Luis
Obispo.
Hollister – Architecture student Lanette Lanning is applying her design skills and architectural ambitions to downtown Hollister for her senior thesis at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
“I was born and raised here,” said 21-year-old Lanning, who is entering her fifth and final year at Cal Poly this fall. “I think Hollister has a lot of potential and hopefully this project will show people that we can achieve that potential.”
Lanning came up with the idea for the project through her work with the Hollister New Urban Independent Research Group, a local nonprofit organization that hired her to do some renderings of what parts of Hollister could look like.
“The opportunity came up when Lynette came home for the summer,” said Tony Ruiz, one of the group’s founders. “I put two and two together and offered her the job.”
The Hollister New Urban Independent Research Group aims to show that urban development can be both functional and environmentally friendly.
“We need to design a city with all of our attractions and assets that will lead to a better quality of life for everyone,” Ruiz said, “especially the next generation that will inherit our endeavors.”
The group’s goals aligned perfectly with Lanning’s academic interests.
“I’m minoring in sustainable environment,” Lanning said. “I was very interested in walkability, so I’ve been interested in pursuing that in our community.”
Lanning’s designs center on downtown areas of San Benito Street, between South and Fourth streets, and cannery areas between San Benito and McCray streets.
“We wanted to focus on making areas that have pedestrian access rather than relying on vehicles,” Lanning said.
Among these areas are a Farmer’s Market Plaza, a Civic Plaza, and a Mixed-Use complex with shopping on the ground level and apartments above. Lanning also made use of space in the cannery areas for residential housing.
“There could be townhouses and low-income housing,” she said.
Though some of the plans would require alterations on existing buildings, they have tried to work within the current structure of the city and have met with the planning department to make the designs as realistic as possible.
“We hope that they’ll use us as a resource if nothing else,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz said Lanning’s expertise was exactly what they needed to help educate the public.
“She’s very easy to work with, very open and understanding, and she’s a good communicator,” Ruiz said. “We basically left her alone to use her imagination and her abilities.”
So far Lanning has done a lot of the designing by computer using CAD (Computer Aided Design) and rendering in Adobe Photoshop. She has also done 3-D modeling on the computer. Her thesis project would incorporate scale miniatures, which she will be building with the help of the Hollister New Urban Independent Research Group, which is funded through contributions from the community.
Though there are no plans to execute the project, Lanning said feedback has been very positive.
“We’ve met with the planning department and they were really excited to have someone doing something to get the public excited about,” she said.
Lanning also noted that often people are afraid of change, but that projects like hers can open the minds of the public.
“Hopefully it will help people to see what the possibilities are.”
Contributions to the Hollister New Urban Independent Research Group can be made to the Community Foundation for San Benito County under the New Urban Project. For more information, visit the group’s Web site at www.cffsbc.org.
