The Bluegrass and Beyond

Holmes Hall on Euclid Avenue was built by the University of Kentucky in 1956-1958 and designed by Ernst V. Johnson. Its most distinguishing feature is a covered walkway of stone, brick and concrete canopy. Photo by Tom Eblen

When local architects started emailing me about preliminary plans to demolish several Modernist-style buildings on the University of Kentucky campus, my first reaction was to roll my eyes.

Like many people, I have always struggled to appreciate, much less like, a lot of mid-20th century architecture. It seems so plain, boxy, cold and, in the hands of some architects, just plain ugly.

To try to understand why so many professionals consider these buildings important and worth saving, I decided to take a closer look and learn more about them.

Nearly 30 percent of UK’s structures date from the 1950s and 1960s, and many academic buildings and residence halls have been neglected for years. To his credit, UK President Eli Capilouto is trying to catch up, initiating construction and renovation projects all over campus.

Initial plans included demolishing as many as seven of the 13 campus buildings designed between the 1930s and 1950s by noted Lexington architect Ernst V. Johnson: Jewell (1938), Holmes (1956) and Donovan (1955) residence halls, the Engineering Quadrangle (1938), the Wenner-Gren Aeronautical Research Laboratory (1941), the Funkhouser Biological Science Building (1942) and the Mineral Industries Building (1951).

The wrecking ball may also be aimed at the Kirwan-Blanding residential complex (1967), designed by Edward Durrell Stone. He was one of America’s best-known and most prolific Modernist architects, and his work has always been widely loved — and hated.

“It’s easy to see why most people don’t turn on to it,” said Graham Pohl, a Lexington architect with Pohl Rosa Pohl.

Modernism was the first architectural style in centuries that didn’t reference the past. Modernism began in Europe nearly a century ago, but didn’t catch on in this country until after World War II. Then it was everywhere.

“People felt free to be expressive and experiment with forms and new materials that felt right to them,” Pohl said. “It was a product of economic growth and national optimism about the future.”

But Pohl acknowledges that the style was widely abused. When so-called Urban Renewal reshaped America’s cities into concrete jungles built around the automobile, it included a lot of slap-dash architecture that was called “modern.”

“One of the reasons people don’t like Modernism is that it has been used as an excuse to do shoddy work,” Pohl said. “It’s more difficult to do good Modernism than good traditional work.”

Pohl said most of the buildings UK has considered tearing down are anything but shoddy. As an example, he cited Holmes Hall, an International-style building with an elegant stone and concrete stair-step canopy and interesting brick work.

Johnson’s buildings all have elegant brick work, perhaps because he was the son of a Swedish mason and worked his way through Yale as a union bricklayer.

“It’s more than decorative,” Pohl said of Johnson’s brick patterns on Holmes Hall. “It speaks to aspects of the building and the relationship between walls and openings. There’s a lot about that building that suggests someone thought deeply about it.”

Pohl also likes Stone’s Kirwan-Blanding complex, with its 23-story towers surrounded by smaller buildings arranged in a park-like setting. He likes the relationship of the vertical towers to the “incredibly elegant” horizontal canopies that connect the buildings.

“A lot of people see those forms as being part of their parents’ generation and they intentionally don’t want to relate to them,” said Pohl, adding that these buildings have much more architectural merit than anything that is likely to replace them in this era of budget-cutting austerity.

I grew up around the corner from Holmes Hall, on the block where UK is now building a massive dormitory complex. I have always admired Holmes Hall’s stair- step canopy, if not the rest of the building.

But I never liked Kirwan-Blanding — until, that is, I went to photograph it for this column on a beautiful evening last week. The moon was rising between the towers, which were bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Students were all around the buildings, studying among the trees and flowers or throwing Frisbees and footballs. I appreciated those buildings for the first time.

Architecture, like art, is often subjective, said Sarah Tate, an architect and founder of the Lexington firm Tate Hill Jacobs. She greatly admires Johnson’s work, for example, yet has never liked Stone’s. But that is not the point, she emphasized.

“Architecture is a reflection of history and culture, and that campus is a little museum of modern architecture,” Tate said. “Johnson’s buildings give us an architectural handbook of the influences that got us from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. I don’t think (UK officials) know what they have here.

“These mid-century buildings are part of our DNA,” she added. “You don’t want to take them all away. They are important links in our history and culture.”

Sasaki Associates, the Boston planning firm that UK hired to develop a new campus master plan, recently recommended as its first scenario renovating and reusing these historic Modernist buildings. UK officials should take that advice.

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 The CentrePointe block awaits development. Photo by Charles Bertram

For a project yet to be built, CentrePointe has had a big impact on Lexington.

The most immediate impact was the election of Mayor Jim Gray in November 2010. Were it not for the controversy surrounding CentrePointe, I doubt then-Vice Mayor Gray would have run against, much less unseated, Mayor Jim Newberry.

What Gray understood — and Newberry didn’t — was that CentrePointe focused many people’s longtime frustrations about development in Lexington. People didn’t like the secrecy, the politics and the often-mediocre results.

Most of all, people wanted more say in how their city looks. They didn’t want Lexington’s architectural heritage bulldozed at a developer’s whim. Development occurs on private property, but everyone must look at it and live with it.

Five years later, CentrePointe is still a grassy field waiting for developer Dudley Webb to find financing and tenants. But the project has taught Lexington some valuable lessons.

One lesson is the value of historic preservation. Webb was quick to demolish an entire block, including some buildings that were more than a century old and could have been renovated into unique, valuable space within his larger development.

Lexington’s biggest development trend since then has been for entrepreneurs to renovate fine old buildings and adapt them for new uses — restaurants, bars, stores, offices and homes. These projects make economic sense and preserve Lexington’s history and unique charm.

Another lesson is that good design matters. With CentrePointe stalled and Gray in the mayor’s office, Webb felt pressure to hire top architectural talent and get public input to redesign his project. That work dramatically improved his development plan.

The CentrePointe redesign also helped pave the way for Louisville-based 21c to decide to build one of its acclaimed hotels and contemporary art museums across the street.

The 21c Museum Hotel will be in the century-old Fayette National building, which will get an extensive renovation.

That momentum helped Lexington attract world-class talent to design competitions for two public projects that could transform downtown: the Arena, Arts and Entertainment District and Town Branch Commons.

The arena area plan calls for renovating Rupp Arena, building a bigger convention center and gradually redeveloping more than 30 acres ofunderused, city-owned surface parking lots.

The winning plan for Town Branch Commons would turn marginalized downtown property into a linear park along the historic path of Town Branch Creek. Such projects in other cities have created popular amenities that have attracted many times their cost in new private investment.

Gary Bates, a highly regarded American architect now based in Norway, was chosen to develop the arena district plan.

The winning Town Branch Commons plan was designed by Kate Orff of New York, one of landscape architecture’s rising stars.

Why is such world-class talent suddenly being attracted to Lexington? Because the city has set the bar higher. Why is that important? Because if Lexington wants to attract the best employers, it must create an environment where the best and brightest people want to live and work.

One final lesson from CentrePointe is that Lexington needs better laws and processes to both encourage good development and prevent bad development, especially downtown.

A city task force has spent a lot of time studying “design excellence.” Now, with new leadership from Councilman Steve Kay and help from a consultant, task force members have begun trying to figure out how to turn talk into action.

That won’t be easy. It is not just a matter of creating laws and systems to keep developers from doing bad things. It is about creating laws, systems and incentives so developers can do great things. This will require rules that provide both clarity and flexibility. It will require high standards, but also processes that minimize hassle and unnecessary costs for developers.

I don’t know if the Webb Companies will ever succeed in building CentrePointe. And I worry that the longer the block sits empty, the harder it will be to attract outside investment for other major downtown projects.

But something will eventually be built on the CentrePointe block, and now is the time to make sure that it and other new construction downtown enhances the city rather than detracts from it.

 Watch a video about the CentrePointe block’s demolition:

Time lapse: Tearing down a block, one building at a time from David Stephenson on Vimeo.

To read previous CentrePointe columns and see photos of the project as it evolved, click here.

A CentrePointe gallery:

Greg Dike, right, executive director of the Morehead Area Habitat for Humanity group, helps build an interior wall for a house near Morehead with a group of volunteers from Lexington on Jan. 19.  Photos by Tom Eblen

MOREHEAD — When Greg Dike became the director — and only employee — of Habitat for Humanity’s Rowan County unit more than two years ago, he thought he knew the mission. Then that mission got a whole lot bigger.

A cluster of tornados tore through Eastern Kentucky last March 2, killing 22 people. Eight died in neighboring Morgan and Menifee counties and dozens more were left homeless.

“When the tornadoes came, we decided to expand our service area,” said Dike, 61, whose previous careers included electrical engineer, United Methodist minister and emergency room nurse.

Dike figured that Habitat could provide valuable help in storm recovery for a couple of reasons. Habitat, an ecumenical Christian ministry, builds houses that low-income working people can afford to buy, in part through their own labors. Plus, the three-county Morehead Area unit of Habitat specializes in super energy-efficient housing.

Morehead Area Habitat’s most common house has 1,100 square feet of living space on one floor and costs about $45,000 to build. Through smart design and lots of insulation — including a foundation insulated below the frost line — each house has an average heating and cooling cost of only about $12 a month. A poorly insulated house or mobile home often has a monthly utility bill of $200 or more.

So far, in addition to its regular work in Rowan County, Habitat has built one house each in Morgan and Menifee counties for storm victims, Dike said. Six more are under construction in Morgan and two more in Menifee, with seven additional houses planned in those counties.

Judge Executives Tim Conley in Morgan County and James Trimble in Menifee County have been very supportive, and have helped Habitat identify building sites.

“They see Habitat as a way to get people into quality housing,” Dike said.

Because some people who lost their homes in the storms were elderly, disabled or otherwise unable to take on even a small mortgage, as typical Habitat clients do, the Kentucky Housing Corp. and other organizations and foundations have provided several hundred thousand dollars in grants to build homes. The state Habitat organization also has been very helpful, Dike said.

Materials for each house cost about $35,000, so the total price is kept low largely through volunteer labor. While Habitat is always happy to receive cash donations, Dike said, his biggest need is regular construction volunteers.

Dike is working with Diane James of Lexington, a longtime Habitat volunteer and former construction manager, to recruit and organize groups of regular volunteers from Central Kentucky, which is only an hour or two away by car.

The ideal volunteers are men or women who can gather several friends together and commit to one or two work days a month, ideally on the same house so they can become familiar with it.

“I think there are a lot of people out there with skills,” Dike said. “We’re not looking for award-winning carpenters; just people with some skills and common sense.”

Dike and James hopes to hear from churches, businesses or just groups of friends who think they could commit to a series of work days over the next few months. Those interested in volunteering can email James at buildwestliberty@gmail.com or call Dike at (606) 776-0022.

“It’s an easy trip, and we get a lot of work done in a day,” James said. “Most people have really enjoyed it.”

That’s certainly what I found earlier this month, when I accompanied James, Dike and a group of volunteers from several Lexington Disciples of Christ churches who were framing interior walls on a Habitat house near Morehead.

“I just love doing it,” said Bettye Burns, a retiree who volunteered through her church for a women-only Habitat build in the early 1990s and has been doing it ever since.

“It’s fun, and I’ve learned so much,” Burns said. “I credit Diane for me not getting empty-nest syndrome when my kids grew up. I was so busy helping her build houses, I didn’t have time for that.”

Steve Seithers, who began volunteering through his church in 1992, said he enjoys the fellowship and sense of accomplishment he gets from Habitat work. “Plus, it helps make a difference in people’s lives,” Seithers said. “This is something I can do, so I’m doing it.”

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Helm Place on Bowman Mill Road. Photos by Tom Eblen

Do political disagreements make things tense in your family? It could be worse. You could have been Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.

They were in a tough spot: He was leading the Union through the Civil War. She had 14 brothers and sisters from Lexington; most were Southern sympathizers, and three were killed in Confederate service. Lincoln threatened to jail one of his wife’s sisters when she came to visit, but she still kept smuggling contraband to the South.

Hardest of all was the strain war created between the Lincolns and their favorite Todd relatives: half-sister Emilie Todd Helm and her husband, Benjamin Hardin Helm, a Confederate general.

After Helm was killed in battle, his grieving widow and her three children made tense visits to the White House. Lincoln’s political enemies howled that he was sheltering a traitor. Even the children quarreled: Tad Lincoln said his daddy was the president, but little Katherine Helm insisted the real president was Jefferson Davis.

You know how most of this story ends: The Union prevails; Abraham Lincoln is assassinated; Mary Todd Lincoln struggles with mental illness. But what about her favorite little sister, Emilie, the prettiest of the Todd daughters? The Kentucky Mansions Preservation Foundation will soon be able to tell that story.

Helm Place, the Greek Revival mansion on Bowman Mill Road where Emilie and her children spent the last decades of their lives, has been donated to the foundation to become a museum. There is a lot of renovation and fund-raising ahead, but the mansion already contains enough Lincoln, Helm, Todd and other local artifacts to get off to a great start.

The foundation will celebrate the gift at a dinner and presentation about Helm Place on Sept. 18 at Malone’s Banquets, 3373 Tates Creek Road. Tickets are $38 for members, $42 for others. For reservations, call (859) 233-9999 by Sept. 10.

“This place is a treasure, and we’re excited about the possibilities,” said Gwen Thompson, executive director of the Mary Todd Lincoln House, which also is operated by the foundation.

Mary Genevieve Townsend Murphy, a co-founder and longtime board member of the foundation, left Helm Place to it in trust after her death in 2000 and the death of her husband, Joseph, in April 2011. The foundation took control of the 150-acre property in March and has spent the past few months installing a high-tech security system and live-in caretaker.

Oddly enough, the first white settler on the property was the Todd sisters’ grandfather Levi Todd, who built Todd’s Station fort there in 1779. But because of Indian attacks, Todd abandoned the claim and moved closer to Lexington.

The land later went to Abraham Bowman for his service in the Revolutionary War. In the 1850s, one of Bowman’s descendants built the mansion, originally called Cedar Hall, which sits on a hill at the end of a majestic lawn.

Emilie Todd Helm and her grown children bought the mansion in 1912 — almost exactly a century before the foundation acquired title. Katherine, an accomplished painter, did several family portraits for the house and painted a dining room mural depicting nearby South Elkhorn Creek at sunset. One of her portraits of Mary Todd Lincoln now hangs in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.

Emilie Helm remained an unreconstructed Confederate until her death in 1930. When Elodie, her youngest daughter, was getting old, she sold the house in 1946 to William H. Townsend, a Lexington lawyer, author and accomplished Lincoln scholar and collector. His daughter Mary moved in with Elodie, who died in 1953. Mary married Joseph Murphy in 1960.

William Townsend, who died in 1964, amassed an amazing collection of Lincoln and early Kentucky artifacts, many of which remain in the house with the Helm family’s possessions. They include several portraits by Matthew Jouett; a table made by Abraham Lincoln’s father; writer James Lane Allen’s desk and documents signed by Lincoln and Henry Clay.

The foundation’s next step is to conduct a study of the mansion’s possibilities as a museum, decide on a plan and raise the money to make it happen. Thompson said she didn’t know how long it would be before Helm Place could welcome visitors.

“Our big priority since March has been making sure the property is secured and cared for,” she said. “We’re just taking it a step at a time.”

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Lexington’s Kinkead House is much more than just another historical home. For nearly a century and a half, its occupants have been on the cutting edge of progress.

The mansion was built in 1847 by Abraham Lincoln’s local lawyer, abolitionist George B. Kinkead. After the Civil War, he realized that former slaves would want to own their own homes, so he bought land for them behind his estate. Kinkeadtown became the heart of what is now the East End neighborhood.

A century later, Kinkead’s descendants shared the dream of residents who thought Lexington’s young people needed more exposure to science and the arts. In 1971, they loaned and later donated the mansion and surrounding 1.5 acres to become the Living Arts and Science Center.

The next chapter of the story begins Wednesday, when the LASC launches a $5 million capital campaign to renovate the Kinkead House and more than double the center’s size and programming capacity with a beautiful contemporary addition.

LASC will add a 65-seat planetarium/auditorium, a digital arts center, a recording studio, a children’s art gallery, more classroom and meeting space, and a guest artist’s studio. There also will be a “teaching kitchen” for uses as varied as teaching neighbors to prepare and preserve food they grow in their gardens and classes in chocolate sculpture. A “magic carpet” walkway, which includes outdoor sculptures, will tie the campus together.

The campaign begins with $300,000 in grants and donations, plus a $1 million matching grant from the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Foundation. The LASC board hopes to raise the rest of the money by summer 2013.

“It’s hard to raise $5 million in this environment without some credible reasons,” said downtown developer Phil Holoubek, who with his wife, Marnie, is leading the campaign. “But this project can be a game-changer. We can better serve the community and improve the neighborhood and downtown.”

The LASC’s mission is to use art and science to inspire children and adults. During the past year, more than 6,000 school children from 21 Kentucky counties took field trips to the center, executive director Heather Lyons said. The LASC offered more than 400 classes and workshops, plus frequent community events.

The expansion already is creating buzz, because the Kinkead House addition promises to be one of Lexington’s most exciting pieces of contemporary architecture. It is the work of Louisville’s De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop, which two weeks after receiving the LASC commission last year won a prestigious Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record magazine.

Architect Ross Primmer said the design is based on extensive conversations with the board, staff and neighbors of the LASC, which faces North Martin Luther King Boulevard between Campsie Place and East Fourth Street.

“It’s like they were hearing everything we were thinking,” said Kathy Plomin, the LASC’s development director.

The 11,000-square-foot addition is really a separate building, tucked along the south side and back of Kinkead House, complementing the scale of the 7,000-square-foot mansion and surrounding homes. An outdoor classroom separates the two buildings, which are connected by a glass walkway. Parking will move away from the front to create a larger lawn.

Primmer said the addition will have walls of dark-green wood siding and clear glass to visually connect with the outside and allow people to see inside. It will meet environmentally friendly LEED Silver standards and minimize energy use.

Steve Kay, an Urban County Council member who lives on Campsie Place, is excited about the LASC’s expansion and the new programming it will make possible. “We’re thrilled that such a good neighbor is investing in the neighborhood,” he said.

The design follows a trend of modern-style additions to classic old buildings. When designed well, these additions both honor the integrity of the historical structure and become a more functional piece of contemporary architecture.

“The goal is to create something that fits with it, but doesn’t mimic it,” Primmer said of the Kinkead House.

“I think it’s just brilliant,” Mayor Jim Gray said of the design. “This project is an example of great urban planning and great architecture that respects the character of the historic neighborhood and lifts it up. This is extremely exciting.”

I knew that a successful partnership between Lexington developer Dudley Webb and world-class architect Jeanne Gang would require a triumph of hope over experience.

At the urging of Mayor Jim Gray, Webb hired Gang in March to re-imagine CentrePointe, his stalled hotel, retail, office and residential development that for two years has been a conspicuously empty field in the center of the city.

CentrePointe, version 1

Webb’s initial CentrePointe designs were towering monstrosities. But Chicago-based Studio Gang developed a plan that was elegant, inspirational and appropriate to the human scale of downtown Lexington. Gang’s creative approach — and the thoughtful process by which she explained it — charmed a skeptical public.

So what did Webb do? He dumped her.

Gang is becoming one of America’s most sought-after architects. She has designed innovative, successful buildings around the world, including Chicago’s new Aqua tower. Last month, she became only the third architect to receive one of the MacArthur Foundation’s $500,000 “genius” grants.

Webb, on the other hand, has a record of building towers in downtown Lexington that look as if they belong in a suburban Atlanta office park. Works of genius? Not even close.

CentrePointe, version 2

Rather than cap his career by building a Jeanne Gang creation — and score a big marketing coup for himself and Lexington — Webb said last week that he had chosen to go in a “different direction.” He replaced Gang with EOP Architects, one of five Lexington firms that she had brought in to help her.

EOP does not have Studio Gang’s world-class stature, but it has done some excellent work. The firm is capable of producing a good design for CentrePointe, especially if it sticks with Gang’s vision.

That vision includes a varied, human-scale facade along Main Street that complements the interesting old buildings across the street; breathing space inside the block rather than one dense mass; and towers along Vine Street that look special and don’t overwhelm their neighbors.

But an architect can only be as good as his client allows. EOP’s biggest challenge on this job might be keeping its own good reputation intact.

CentrePointe, version 3 compared with version 2

Gang’s departure from CentrePointe is disappointing, but she leaves an important legacy. She set a high bar for new architecture in Lexington. She also showed how builders can honestly engage a community that finally seems to understand that good design will contribute to Lexington’s beauty, functionality and economic success.

The CentrePointe fiasco has made Lexington more demanding of high-profile developments, both their quality and their process. People are less willing to accept the way developers used to do business here: make plans in secret, unveil them with a “like it or lump it” attitude and bulldoze through opposition.

The University of Kentucky’s new Davis Marksbury building has set a high standard for good, environmentally sensitive architecture by which future UK projects will be judged.

Barry McNees has worked hard to incorporate good design and public participation into his plans for the Lexington Distillery District along Manchester Street.

Bluegrass Community and Technical College President Augusta Julian hired talented professionals and encouraged public input for plans for a new campus on the former site of Eastern State Hospital.

The Arena, Arts and Entertainment Task Force has hired world-class architect Gary Bates to oversee a public process for planning the long-term redevelopment of 46 acres of underused city land that include Rupp Arena and the Lexington Center convention complex.

Meanwhile, the Urban County Council’s Design Excellence Task Force is looking at ways to change laws and standards to encourage higher-quality downtown development than what Lexington has seen in recent decades.

All of this work is more significant than CentrePointe. Still, Lexington has a lot at stake in what happens on the block in the center of the city. People will be paying close attention to how Webb and landowner Joe Rosenberg handle that responsibility — assuming, of course, that anyone lends them the more than $200 million needed to build Webb’s dream.

Will CentrePointe help usher in a new era of good architecture in Lexington? Or will it become just another Webb development? I’m still pulling for a triumph of hope over experience.

Jeanne Gang's CentrePointe concept

This rendering, looking west on Vine Street, shows a bundled tower concept for the tallest portion of the CentrePointe development. The tower would contain a hotel, condos and apartments. The tallest portion of the tower would be 388 feet, slightly shorter than Fifth Third’s neighboring “blue” building, architect Jeanne Gang said Wednesday. Over the existing Phoenix Building at right is a rendering of what the top of CentrePointe’s eight-story office building portion might look like. (Click on the image to make it larger.) Image: Studio Gang

This view from Vine Street shows what the lower portion of CentrePointe’s tower and the eight-story office building at the corner of Main and Limestone streets could look like. The rendering doesn’t show five buildings that five Lexington architects would design along Main Street. (Click on the image to make it larger.) Image: Studio Gang

Ron Klemencic, a structural engineer from Magnusson Klemencic Associates, architect Jeanne Gang and Lexington developer Dudley Webb discuss design concepts during a meeting at Studio Gang Architects in Chicago. Gang will show and discuss a current model of her firm’s concepts for CentrePointe at a public meeting Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre on Main Street.  Image: Studio Gang.

* * * * * *

Jeanne Gang of Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects will be back in Lexington for a public meeting Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre to show her refined concepts for redesign of the proposed CentrePointe block — and they are impressive.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Gang said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Gang, one of the nation’s most celebrated young architects, unveiled initial concepts for re-imagining CentrePointe at a public meeting June 2 that packed an old courtroom in the Lexington History Museum.

At this meeting, Gang will show a model, discuss refined concepts and announce the five Kentucky architects who will work with her firm to design five buildings in the project that will run along the block’s Main Street side.

Gang said the five were selected from 25 architects who applied to work on the project. Selection criteria included their design ideas for the block, experience, connections to Kentucky, history of collaboration and previous work with environmentally sustainable development.

Gang said her firm has worked closely with The Webb Companies during the design process “to get their feedback. I’ve found them to be very positive … relationship at this point, and fun to work with. I think they’ve really tried hard to engage the new process.”

Gang and her firm have done several major projects around the world, including Chicago’s acclaimed new Aqua tower.

Keep your fingers crossed. There seems to be a real possibility that the ugly duckling proposed for that vacant lot downtown could be replaced by a swan.

Developer Dudley Webb, unable to finance the 1980s-style tower he proposed to replace the block of old buildings he demolished, has taken a new approach. With help from Mayor Jim Gray, Webb has hired one of the world’s best up-and-coming architects to rethink the design of his hotel-condo-office-retail project, CentrePointe.

Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang in Chicago will present her initial site plan Thursday at the first of at least two public meetings in Lexington. Stop by the Lexington History Museum at 4 p.m. to hear from her, Webb and Gray — and contribute your thoughts.

Gang said in a telephone interview Wednesday that her design is rough and flexible at this point because she wants input from more people who live in Lexington. She also wants help from Kentucky architects to give the block variety and local flavor.

I found Gang’s concepts for the development encouraging. She wants it to be pedestrian-friendly, compatible with its surroundings, unique to Lexington and “a place that is interesting to be.”

Gang envisions a cluster of buildings along Main Street — like there used to be — rather than a single edifice. The buildings would include a variety of locally designed, contemporary architecture that complements in scale and design the 19th and 20th century buildings across the street. “It will give it that authenticity and feel without it being forced,” she said.

The new CentrePointe — it really needs a new name, by the way — would have two towers instead of one. The shorter tower would house offices and the taller one would have a hotel and condos. The size of the towers would depend on the tenants Webb secures, but Gang said she would use computer models to show where the shadows would fall to help place the towers so they don’t hulk over Main Street or neighboring buildings.

Gang has designed amazing buildings all over the world, so why is she bothering to work in Lexington? Gang said she was familiar with the controversy surrounding CentrePointe from her visits to the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, and she sensed a opportunity to create something special.

She was impressed by Lexington’s rural land preservation efforts and historic downtown architecture, she said, which together offered the possibility for creating vibrant urban space on the block. “It is truly a livable city,” she said. “And this is truly the heart of Lexington.”

Also, Gang said, she was impressed by the mayor’s commitment to design excellence. “He gets it,” she said. “That makes a huge difference in deciding where we want to work. So many places don’t get it.”

Gang’s creativity and reputation may well be the key to Webb securing the financing and tenants he needs to transform CentrePointe from a failure into a success. And for the city, it could mean the difference between another generic concrete box and a landmark Lexingtonians will be proud to have at their city’s heart.

Good things can come from bad times. Consider two recent examples in Lexington.

The first was the announcement Tuesday by the mayor, most Urban County Council members, land preservationist groups and the Home Builders Association that there is no need any time soon to expand the 53-year-old Urban Service Boundary.

That is good news — and a big deal. Lexington’s periodic review of its comprehensive land-use plan is usually dominated by a bitter fight over whether to open more irreplaceable farmland for development.

Because the demand for new homes is so weak, the fight won’t happen this time. That will allow Lexington’s leaders to focus on making the highest and best use of the 6,700 acres available for development or redevelopment inside the boundary.

“A sour economy has brought Lexington a sweet planning opportunity,” said Councilman Bill Farmer, chairman of the council’s planning committee.

It is a perfect opportunity to come up with better ways for Lexington to grow and prosper without destroying more of the precious natural resource — the unique rural landscape — that makes the Bluegrass special.

We should use this opportunity to create better planning and zoning mechanisms to encourage neighborhood revitalization and the restoration and reuse of old buildings and high-quality new construction, especially downtown. Councilman Tom Blues is leading a “design excellence” task force looking at many of these issues.

“It’s very complicated,” said Knox van Nagell, executive director of the Fayette Alliance, a land preservation group. “But we’ve got to make it easier for developers to do the right thing in the city.”

A second good thing to come out of this bad economy is the latest news about Dudley Webb’s CentrePointe project. It is not only good, it could be great, both for the developer and for Lexington.

In March 2008, Webb and property owner Joe Rosenberg unveiled plans to tear down some of Lexington’s oldest commercial buildings to construct a generic skyscraper that would house a luxury hotel, high-priced condominiums, stores, restaurants and offices. The historic buildings were demolished, but Webb was unable to finance CentrePointe. The two-acre block is now a vacant lot.

Webb recently hired one of the world’s best up-and-coming architects to help him re-imagine CentrePointe. Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang in Chicago has designed acclaimed projects all over the world, including Chicago’s new Aqua building.

Studio Gang is one of the best three or four firms Webb could have hired for this project, said Michael Speaks, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design. “They are good and smart and have built a lot of big things already,” he said. “They have a light touch, but their designs are very beautiful.”

When I contacted Gang recently, she said the work is under way but she isn’t ready to talk about it. I can’t wait to see what she and her associates come up with. I suspect it will be very different from three earlier CentrePointe designs, which featured boxy towers.

“We’re mostly brought in to think about something differently,” Gang told Herald-Leader reporter Beverly Fortune, who first reported her hiring April 8. Gang said she likes to design buildings that emphasize a city’s sense of place.

During the go-go years that led to the real estate bubble and financial crisis, developers could make money building almost anything. No more. To attract financing and tenants, CentrePointe must be something special — an exciting place where businesses and people want to be. What if, for example, the design could find ways to reference Lexington’s rich 19th century architectural heritage with a unique, contemporary twist?

CentrePointe also must address a different market than Webb envisioned three years ago. A 200-plus-room J.W. Marriott hotel? Doubtful. This market is more likely to support a boutique hotel half that size — ideally one that offers a unique experience like, say, Louisville’s 21C Museum Hotel.

Just imagine what world-class architecture that meets the needs of a changed market could do for Lexington. Based on her work, Gang is capable of creating something very special — something that could transform CentrePointe from a liability into an asset.

How do you turn liabilities into assets, then use them to improve the economy? That is a challenge facing the University of Kentucky’s College of Design and leaders in three Kentucky cities along the Ohio River.

While the work in Henderson, Paducah and Louisville is still in early stages, it could soon get some international attention. UK hopes to receive confirmation next week that its Kentucky River Cities project has been chosen for inclusion in the 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in April 2012.

The architecture and urban planning exhibition, held every other year in Holland, says it “aspires to stimulate a wider discourse on the relationship between our environments and the quality of our lives.” Next year’s Biennale will explore new ways of planning and creating more sustainable cities, which over the next few decades are projected to house 80 percent of the world’s people on less than 3 percent of the earth’s surface.

The exhibition will focus on three cities — Rotterdam, Istanbul, and Sao Paulo, — but will include other examples of innovation around the world. “It’s a big deal to be included,” said Michael Speaks, dean of the UK College of Design. “They get a huge number of applications from all over the world.”

Henk Ovink, director of national spatial planning for the Netherlands and a Biennale organizer, has visited Kentucky three times to speak at the college and observe the River Cities project.

The River Cities project began nearly four years ago as a five-day design workshop in Henderson by the college and the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, where Speaks then directed the graduate program. Several people from those schools were Henderson natives, and they were trying to help local business and civic leaders imagine how to redesign and revitalize the cities to adapt to the changing economy.

After Speaks moved to UK a year later, “The Henderson Project” was broadened to include other Ohio River cities that face similar issues. Along with local leaders and design professionals, the college is working with UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research and architects from Los Angeles, Detroit, Holland and Norway.

“It’s an opportunity to show that design is not just about aesthetics,” Speaks said. “Good design can be a real economic value-adder, and it can change the economics and cultural makeup of cities.”

UK students also are working on redevelopment ideas for an area of Louisville’s West End near the Ford Motor Co. plant and investigating long-term possibilities for reusing a former uranium enrichment plant in Paducah.

But most of the work has been in Henderson, with a focus on the Henderson Municipal Power & Light Plant No. 1, an old coal-fired plant that was decommissioned a few years ago.

Originally, city leaders thought the power plant needed to be demolished to redevelop the area. But Speaks said that has turned to looking for ways to renovate the huge plant for uses such as a convention center, offices for energy-related companies or even an IMAX movie theater.

“We have tried to make ourselves part of these communities,” Speaks said, by working closely with local leaders to help create design solutions that will meet their needs and achieve their goals.

The River Cities project is an example of how Speaks wants the college to become a state resource, offering design-related help for economic and social issues. Another example is a project that has designed attractive, affordable and energy-efficient homes that can be mass produced at idle houseboat factories around Lake Cumberland. Another idea on the horizon: creating a Kentucky Mayor’s Institute for Design to help local officials with urban planning issues.

This kind of collaboration could have applications far beyond Kentucky, which is why the Biennale is interested in showcasing UK’s work.

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For 35 years, Rupp Arena has been one of the great college basketball venues. Photo by Jonathan Palmer

Should Rupp Arena be renovated or replaced?

That has been a hot topic since Mayor Jim Gray announced plans in January to create the Arena, Arts and Entertainment District Task Force to study redevelopment of the Lexington Center complex.

The 47-member task force Gray appointed last week will soon begin the process of creating a long-term plan. It should be a lot more than a study to determine the future home of the University of Kentucky’s basketball team.

Lexington Center and the surrounding city property is 23-times larger than the infamous CentrePointe block, and almost as strategically located. What happens with this property could transform downtown Lexington — or be a huge missed opportunity.

The arena question is an emotional one. This is Final Four weekend, after all, and Louisville’s new $238 million KFC Yum Center has given many citizens of Big Blue Nation a serious case of arena envy.

UK Athletics officials want a new arena because it would give them more space to create luxury facilities to rent to wealthy fans. But is a new arena in the best economic interests of Lexington and its taxpayers?

Jim Host, the Lexington resident and UK booster who was the force behind building Louisville’s arena, thinks a Rupp renovation makes more sense. Host, who declined Gray’s request to chair this task force, has said 35-year-old Rupp Arena should be remodeled into the Wrigley Field of college basketball.

Gray, who came to the mayor’s office with more than three decades of major construction experience, has indicated that he also favors a Rupp renovation.

I suspect they are correct, but the issue needs to be decided with a thorough financial analysis.

While the arena question is important, the task force must be focused on the bigger picture. That means fixing old mistakes and making the most of opportunities to jump-start a part of downtown already on the rise.

Rupp and Lexington Center were created as part of the tragically misnamed “urban renewal” process that swept the nation after World War II. A largely African-American neighborhood of historic homes was bulldozed to create acres of surface parking for the new Rupp Arena and what was then called the Civic Center.

The complex emerged as a fortress island, surrounded by surface parking and symbolically walled off from downtown by the Triangle Park fountain and the Vine Street curve. Lexington Center is a huge civic asset, but less than it could be.

Lots of people have ideas for redeveloping Lexington Center’s vast asphalt desert. Once the economy recovers, there will be demand for more affordable downtown housing and retail space. Lexington needs a performing arts venue comparable to Centre College’s Norton Center in Danville and Eastern Kentucky University’s new Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond. Some people dream of an art museum.

What makes this property so important is its location. It is surrounded by unique community assets: the Mary Todd Lincoln House, Historic Pleasant Green and Main Street Baptist churches, Victorian Square and the revitalized neighborhoods of Woodward Heights, the Old Western Suburb and what remains of South Hill.

Lexington Center is near three emerging restaurant and entertainment districts, along Jefferson and Manchester Streets as well as downtown, where the renovated Triangle Park can play a key connecting role.

The whole area has attracted significant private investment in recent years, from new and restored homes to Alltech’s Kentucky Ale brewery. Alltech also has renovated the old Ice House into a visitors center, and it plans to build a distillery and restore two adjacent Victorian homes.

This task force of well-qualified Lexingtonians with a variety of perspectives is an important first step in the process. Task force members should identify Lexington’s needs, desires and dreams for this area. The next step will be to raise $350,000 in private money to hire world-class experts to help design and execute a plan.

These 46 acres cry out for a higher level of urban planning and architectural excellence than Lexington has been accustomed to in recent decades. The opportunity is too great, and the stakes are too high, to do anything less.

RICHARDSVILLE — This rural community near Bowling Green looks like a tableau of 20th-century Americana, right down to the stone-covered WPA school.

But the week after next, the 500 students and teachers of Richardsville Elementary will leave their 1930s building for a new one next door that is the latest in environmentally friendly 21st-century design. It will be the first school in Kentucky, and one of the first in the nation, to be “net-zero” — generating as much energy as it consumes.

Expect to see more like it. That’s because this 77,000-square-foot school cost about the same to build as a conventional one but will be substantially cheaper to operate.

“The important thing this school shows people is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a sustainable building that saves energy and money,” said the architect, Ken Stanfield of the Lexington firm Sherman Carter Barnhart.

Richardsville might seem like an unlikely place to be on the vanguard of “green.” But this school is the result of years of collaboration between Sherman Carter Barnhart and a forward-thinking Warren County school system. The fast-growing county has built and renovated many schools in recent years, and each has experimented with energy-saving materials, design and construction techniques.

Thanks to those experiments, Warren County has saved $5.3 million on its utility bills since 2003, said Jay Wilson, the school district’s energy manager. That’s enough to pay a year’s salaries and benefits to 79 teachers, he said.

Richardsville Elementary brings together all of those energy-saving lessons: It will consume only 26 percent of the energy used by a conventional school its size. The building is oriented with the sun, and windows are strategically placed, including an insulated clerestory window that runs across the center of the roof to let sunlight into the interior gymnasium and lunchroom.

Mirrored tubes reflect light from the roof into the school’s second-story classrooms and hallways. Automated systems balance natural and artificial light throughout the day, but teachers can override them when necessary.

The school’s Insulated Concrete Form walls — in which concrete is poured into polystyrene forms — were economical and efficient to build, and they produce superior insulation. And because they can withstand winds of 250 mph, “you’re looking at a safer structure for the kids to be in during a storm,” Wilson said.

Most floors are stained and polished concrete, which will save substantially on janitorial costs, Wilson said. The gymnasium floor is made of fast-growing bamboo rather than hardwood.

The geothermal heating and cooling system saves electricity, as does the lunchroom kitchen. In a typical school this size, Stanfield said, the kitchen consumes about 22 percent of the entire building’s energy. That will be dramatically reduced by using energy-efficient ovens and steam cookers. An added benefit: the cooked food will be healthier.

“We’ve been trying so many things over the years that building a net-zero school wasn’t pie in the sky,” Stanfield said. “It was the next logical step.”

That next step involved installing two kinds of solar panels to generate electricity: a thin film attached to the roof with industrial-strength Velcro and 1,200 square feet of panels in one corner of the parking lot. The school will feed excess power into the Tennessee Valley Authority’s grid on sunny days, drawing it out on cloudy ones.

State guidelines say new schools should cost no more than about $200 per square foot to build, Stanfield said. Richardsville Elementary cost $156, and the solar-panel system was an additional $39, for a total of $195 per square foot. The solar-panel system will pay for itself in 14 years but is warranted for 20 years, he said.

For all of its practicality, the school also is attractive, especially considering that “it’s really just a two-story box,” Stanfield said. The building is filled with light and space, and it has architectural elements and interior stone trim that echo the 1930s school. (The old school will be demolished, and the rubble will be recycled as fill for a new ball field.)

Richardsville Elementary is designed to be good for the environment and the school district’s bottom line, but it also will be a conservation lesson for students. The solar panels’ performance will be shown on video screens in the front hallway, and the school’s design and other systems will be incorporated into the curriculum.

“Not every school district is going to want to run out and put solar panels on the roof tomorrow, but everything else we did here is really simple,” Stanfield said. “The big thing is convincing people you don’t have to step out of your comfort zone too far. You don’t have to count on technology that isn’t tested. It’s just using everything we already know and sweating the details.”

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A few miles down the Kentucky River from where Daniel Boone built his frontier fort, there lives another kind of pioneer.

Richard S. Levine, a University of Kentucky architecture professor, was recently honored with the 2010 Passive Solar Pioneer Award by the American Solar Energy Society. It recognizes Levine’s four decades of innovative work in building design and urban sustainability.

Levine, 70, developed some of the first integrated approaches for making buildings more energy-efficient, and they have been widely adapted around the world. He holds several patents, has designed award-winning solar buildings, is a frequent international lecturer and is the author of more than 200 publications.

The biggest impact of his work may be yet to come. Levine thinks rising energy prices will soon prompt America to follow Europe in radically changing the way buildings are constructed to save both energy and money.

Levine was a young architect thinking about a home for his family when the 1973 Arab oil embargo first focused America on alternative energy. He decided to use his 32 acres of woods along Raven Run Creek near the Kentucky River in southeast Fayette County as a live-in laboratory for energy-efficient design.

Raven Run House, which Levine designed and largely built himself, was unique because it combined many kinds of solar-energy technology with good insulation and design elements to minimize energy use and environmental impact. The home has been widely publicized in architectural journals, and many of its approaches have been adapted by others. (I wrote about Levine’s home in January.)

Levine said his house prompted a former classmate to hire him in 1978 as design and energy consultant for the new Hooker Chemical Co. headquarters in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Before he had to leave the project because of injuries received in an automobile accident, Levine developed the basic design and systems of the revolutionary building.

The Hooker Building’s double glass walls and automated panel systems used sunlight and a “thermal chimney” effect to control inside temperatures so the structure used only 12 percent of the energy required by a typical office building in that climate, according to an analysis by Progressive Architecture magazine.

“It became the granddaddy of thousands of commercial buildings that used the same principles in more and more sophisticated ways,” Levine said.

America was the world’s leader in alternative energy research in the 1970s, but that came to a sudden halt when incentives, subsidies and research funding were slashed after President Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. Since then, most solar innovation has come from Europe, with huge advances being made in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia.

Much of Levine’s consulting work has been in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He is co-director with political science professor Ernest Yanarella of UK’s Center for Sustainable Cities and research director of Oikodrom: The Vienna Institute for Urban Sustainability in Austria. Levine also has his own company, CSC Design Studio.

Levine said one lesson he learned working in Europe is the importance of insulation. He thinks new building techniques that use insulation and better design to minimize energy loss will play a huge role in American construction very soon.

Levine’s most recent design work has focused on “net zero” houses, which use innovative design and better insulation to reduce energy consumption by 90 percent. Increasingly cheap photo-voltaic panel systems are then used to generate the remaining 10 percent of power.

Because utilities allow such systems to feed electricity into the grid on sunny days and pull it out on cloudy days and at night, ongoing energy costs can be reduced to nothing, saving homeowners hundreds of dollars each month. The cost of construction can be comparable to conventional building methods, he said.

“These approaches are just starting to attract attention here,” said Levine, who is still pioneering new methods and strategies. “More and more, people will see that they can’t afford to do anything else.”

A Q&A With Richard Levine

New technology can be a game-changer. It is how automobiles replaced horses, computers replaced typewriters, compact discs replaced phonograph records and MP3 players are replacing compact discs.

Richard S. Levine, a University of Kentucky architecture professor who recently received the 2010 Passive Solar Pioneer Award from the American Solar Energy Society, thinks advances in building techniques and alternative energy technology, combined with rising fossil fuel prices, will soon do the same for construction. I talked with Levine about that last week. Here are excerpts:

Question: Your recent work has been on passive houses. What are they?

Answer: “This is a way of building that saves 90 percent of the heating and cooling requirements of a house and somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 percent of total energy requirements. A third of all new and retrofitted buildings in Austria are built to this standard. That’s the way we’re going to be doing things in the future. And it will end up costing a good deal less because energy bills will be very low.

Now we’re building zero-energy homes where there won’t be an energy bill. So if you now have a $200 energy bill each month, you can afford a more expensive house or put that money in the bank or someplace else.”

Q: How important is good insulation?

A: “Insulation is cheap and it’s the most cost-effective thing you can do. The thing to do is build a tight house. Even the best conventional house leaks like a sieve. It’s not just around windows and doors; it’s everywhere. And you pay for this continually with your heating bills.

Another place houses leak is through thermal bridges. We think of wood as being a relatively good insulator — it’s many times better than glass — but even wood conducts a lot of heat to the outside. All of the hundreds of studs in a house are leaking heat through the wall at an unacceptable rate.

Our passive house strategy is to almost eliminate these thermal bridges with good insulation. We can build a house now that costs only a little bit more than a conventional house and uses only a fraction of the energy. There aren’t many builders who are familiar with these techniques, but they’re not rocket science.”

Q: What are the obstacles and opportunities?

A: “A speculative builder won’t go to the trouble unless they know they have a market. And the people who finance construction loans and mortgages won’t be so keen unless they know that everyone else is on board. But we are at a moment in time where with the recovery funds, with federal and state programs, with 30 percent tax credits that are available for doing this, it probably would lower the cost to below conventional.

Now that we have saved 90 percent of the heating costs, with that last 10 percent we can afford to spend money on more expensive renewable (energy) systems like photo-voltaics. The price is coming down amazingly. It would be an enormous cost if you had a conventional house, but if you only have to do 10 percent, you need a fraction of the system. It’s very affordable.

Another thing is that you don’t have to supply all of the electricity all of the time. You tie into the grid, and when you’re producing excess electricity the utility buys it back from you, and at night when there’s no sun, you buy it back from them. We’re designing houses that on a net basis go even with the utility company and you don’t have any electric use.”

Q: How soon do you expect widespread change?

A: “The way we’re building today is not the way we’ll be building in four or five years. It will completely change, which will mean that conventional houses’ value will go down significantly relative to the new way of building.

Right now there seems to be a lot of movement. I think even the homebuilders are looking for new marketing strategies. It’s the kind of revolution that once it starts, there will be some early adopters and people will see how well they work and how good an investment it is.”

Yvette Hurt, an environmental lawyer and anti-smoking advocate, doesn’t have a background in public art or public transportation. But Art in Motion, the all-volunteer organization she and science teacher Scott Diamond started four years ago, has had a big effect on both.

Art in Motion has built two public-art bus shelters in Lexington, has two more approved for construction and is planning more. The organization will have a fund-raiser Saturday night.

“Sometimes I wonder how I got involved in this,” said Hurt, who was co-chair of Bluegrass Action, which pushed for Lexington’s 2004 public smoking ban. “I like art and public art, but I really see it as an environmental project. Building public transportation in Lexington is a huge environmental issue.”

The design for Art in Motion’s fourth bus shelter was chosen Monday from among 18 proposals by an eight-member jury of representatives from LexTran, the University of Kentucky, LexArts and the Aylesford Neighborhood Association. By fall, it should be in place on Euclid Avenue at Linden Walk, beside the UK Alumni House.

The garden-themed shelter was designed by Prajna Design & Construction, a Lexington firm whose principals and staff are all UK College of Architecture graduates.

The design is inspired by the simple sheds found on some Bluegrass horse farms. Made primarily of recycled steel and salvaged barn oak, the shelter will include a “green” roof of blooming sedum plants, a wall of ivy and low-voltage LED lighting.

“It’s not just public art; it’s a shelter. That’s what attracted us to it,” said Garry Murphy of Prajna. “I like the idea of architecture as art, and expressing a city’s individual qualities.”

Claudia Michler, who was on the jury as a neighborhood representative, said Prajna’s design stood out. “I think it will be nice to drive down that street and see a functional art piece,” she said. “Now it’s really a dull corner; it’s just concrete and asphalt and automobiles.”

The third Art in Motion shelter, Bluegrass, on Newtown Pike across from the Fayette County Health Department, also is expected to be completed in the fall, about the same time Garden Shelter is built. The Bluegrass shelter’s roof is supported by blue steel pipes resembling blades of grass, and the back has frames for two-dimensional art that can be changed periodically.

Art in Motion’s two completed shelters have drawn much public praise: The first, Bottlestop on Versailles Road, was finished in January 2009 and was built with translucent walls made from green Ale 8 One bottles. The East End Artstop, at Third Street and Elm Tree Lane diagonally across from the Lyric Theater, includes murals and a colorful sculpture called Lyrical Movement.

Each of the two newest shelters will cost about half the $36,000 that was needed for Artstop. UK contributed $12,000 toward Garden Shelter. Last August, Art in Motion and LexTran received a $150,000 federal grant through the state to help with future shelter projects. Other funding has come from a variety of sources, including LexTran and private donations of money and services.

Because Art in Motion, a part of the Bluegrass Community Foundation, is an all-volunteer effort, all money raised goes to shelter construction, Hurt said.

“Public art is the art that crosses all boundaries,” Hurt said. “In this case, it helps attract ‘choice’ riders to public transportation — people who could drive if they chose to. The more choice riders you attract, the more efficient public transportation becomes, and that’s good for the environment.”

If you go

Art in Motion Shakedown

What: Dance party and silent art auction to benefit Art in Motion.

When: 7 p.m.-2:30 a.m. April 17.

Where: Buster’s Billiards & Backroom, 899 Manchester St.

Admission: $8 donation at the door.

More info: www.art-in-motion.us

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Take a look at this cool art installation, which has been put up in Lexington Center for the three days of the Creative Cities Summit.

Called “Big Pink,” it is an undulating wall surface fabricated from hundreds of hand-cut pieces of pink insulation.  Curving apertures bend light coming in from the window where the installation is mounted.

In the closeup photo, historic St. Paul’s Catholic Church on Short Street is framed in the large aperture.

The installation is the work of Liz Swanson and Mike McKay, architecture professors at the University of Kentucky’s College of Design.

Lexington’s political and business leaders often talk about the importance of the “creative class” in building a vibrant 21st-century economy.

It makes sense that an economy based on innovation and technology needs young, creative, well-educated innovators.

On the Sunday after Christmas, I spent the afternoon listening to members of the creative class — a dozen or so of the smartest young people Kentucky has produced in recent years.

We sat in a circle of chairs inside the Miller House, a little-known landmark of modernist architecture that a small group of fans rescued from vandals, restored and is struggling to preserve.

Most of the people there were in their late 20s or early 30s. Some were former Gaines Fellows at the University of Kentucky. Others were Lexington natives, spouses and significant others with educations from Harvard, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

They were architects, educators and entrepreneurs in the arts and technology. Some were back in Lexington after a few years in larger cities. Others were home visiting family, on break from successful careers in New York and Boston. I could sense, though, that they hoped to return to Lexington. Someday. If only.

The question that brought them together was this: How can Lexington do a better job of keeping its brightest young people and attracting more? Rather than suffering from brain drain, how could this city become a brain magnet?

Several of them had begun the discussion Labor Day weekend at a retreat organized by former Gaines Center director Dan Rowland and Vice Mayor Jim Gray. After I left, the talk continued at a reception at Gray’s home.

Among the laments: Lexington doesn’t have enough economic opportunities, especially in technology. UK and other universities aren’t integrated enough into civic life. Too few people are risk-takers. Lexington leaders look elsewhere for innovation but often don’t recognize it under their noses. The local arts community is vibrant — and growing more so — but lacks the acceptance and philanthropy found elsewhere.

Their expectations weren’t unrealistic. They didn’t want to change Lexington so much as to expand its horizons. Things are moving in the right direction, they said, just more slowly than in many of the cities Lexington competes with economically.

What they loved about Lexington was its beauty, people and authentic culture. It’s a place big enough to have world-class amenities yet small enough that an individual can make a difference.

They loved Lexington’s quality of life, livable neighborhoods and the potential of its human-scale downtown. They wondered why there wasn’t more connectivity with Louisville and Cincinnati, which are so close yet seem so far away.

They saw great potential for reviving parts of town that have seen better days, such as the Distillery District and old Northside neighborhoods. They wondered why Lexington doesn’t do more to capitalize on local treasures, such as McConnell Springs, the Kentucky Horse Park and the Miller House.

None of these young professionals seemed to be horse people. Yet they were excited about next fall’s Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, and they were surprised more people in Lexington seem not to be.

These young people understood that an international event like the Games can have a transformative effect on a city. But when they started talking about how people should take advantage of it, there was an interesting dichotomy.

Several of those living here said they were confused about how they could harness the Games to develop or promote their slice of Lexington. Who is in charge? What is the process?

It doesn’t really matter, the people living in Boston and New York replied. Organize your own events, activities and celebrations around the Games. While it’s nice to be part of the official program, it’s hardly necessary. Seize the day and put your stamp on it. Just do it.

It’s good to read books and listen to consultants. But if Lexington really wants to tap the creative class, we must recognize and listen more to its members. Many of them are right under our noses. And many more would like to come home, if given the right opportunity.

Richard Levine has heard all of the arguments about why solar energy won’t work in Kentucky.

And he has been defying them for three decades.

Levine, a University of Kentucky architecture professor, designed and built one of the nation’s first solar homes on 32 acres he bought in 1974 near Raven Run Nature Sanctuary. He has been living there ever since.

Last month, he finished adding new high-tech solar panels to the roof of a studio next to his home that will make both buildings “net zero.” That means, over the course of a year, the photo-voltaic cells will produce as much electricity as the buildings consume.

“But to do it I may have to unplug my hot tub and convince my daughter to turn off her computer at night,” Levine said with a smile.Raven Run House has been written about in books, magazines and architecture journals all over the world but has received little attention in Kentucky. That’s mostly because Levine’s late wife, artist Anne Kemper Frye, who died in 2005, wanted privacy.

Levine, co-director of UK’s Center for Sustainable Cities, is continuing to use his live-in laboratory to explore new home design and energy technologies he thinks will become more important as utility rates rise and environmental concerns grow.

“All of these things are pointing to the fact that in the coming years we’re not going to be building houses the way we do now,” he said. “It’s coming very quickly.”

Levine was a young architect in the early 1970s when the Arab oil embargo and the fledgling environmental movement first got Americans thinking about renewable energy.

At the time, solar energy was the province of scientists and hippies; few architects paid much attention to it. Levine thought buildings would need to become more energy-efficient, so he decided to explore the possibilities.

He spent nearly a year researching and designing his home to use both kinds of solar energy: “passive,” in which design exploits the sun’s natural light and warmth, and “active,” in which mechanical devices capture and store it.

Levine began work on the house in 1975. The project took eight years, mostly because he and students did most of the construction — and because the Levine family lived there the whole time. He has never figured the total cost, but said, “It wasn’t terribly expensive.”

The design Levine created was a 40-foot cube, sliced diagonally to create a large hexagonal surface. That surface faced south at a 54-degree angle, the optimal position to catch winter sunlight.

On that 32-foot sloping surface, Levine installed vertical rows of solar collectors, which warmed air and stored it in bins of crushed stone in the basement to provide heat with a system he patented. He alternated those collectors with rows of narrow windows he called “sundows” that let in natural light and warmth.

A greenhouse at the base of the slope also helps light and heat the home, and it provides a year-round growing environment for vegetables and exotic plants.

The tall sides of the home that face northeast and northwest have many small, square windows of three kinds. Double-layered glass windows provide views and light. Screened ones provide ventilation; cool night breezes coming up from Raven Run Creek make summer air conditioning unnecessary. Translucent windows made of six layers of plastic (for insulation) light each room.

The home’s walls were well-insulated by 1970s standards, but the materials weren’t nearly as good as the super-insulation available today. Likewise, most of today’s high-efficiency windows didn’t exist then, so Levine designed and made his own window systems.

Levine installed two composting toilets in the house, which have worked well with minimal maintenance. There are several experimental energy systems he installed — but rarely needs to use — such as a geothermal heat pump, a highly efficient wood-burning boiler and an air-circulating fireplace.

Levine’s decision to take 1970s technology as far as he could resulted in a home that is as weird-looking outside as it is strikingly beautiful inside.

The living area is open and airy, with white walls, oak woodwork and a central oak staircase that provides a visual centerpiece. Variously shaped rooms on multiple levels open to the staircase, making the 3,000-square-foot space seem larger.

Levine just added 30 new photo-voltaic panels to the roof of his studio to generate electricity. The panels have micro-inverters that make solar-generated power usable at a lower cost than old inverter systems did. Each panel’s performance can be monitored by computer; you can see it from a link on Levine’s Web site: www.cscdesignstudio.com.

He doesn’t need batteries to store the power his photo-voltaic cells produce, because “net metering” allows him to feed power to his utility company on sunny days and draw from it on cloudy ones. Over the course of a year, it should balance out.

Some utilities, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, buy from small renewable power producers, allowing them to make a profit. In Central Kentucky, though, utilities are only required to swap power, so the best a solar-generating homeowner can do is break even.

Levine thinks changing Kentucky’s net-metering law to allow producers to profit would encourage more solar generation by both homes and commercial buildings.

In addition to Levine’s studio renovation, construction is wrapping up on a weekend home he designed on Herrington Lake for another UK professor. It has well-insulated walls and windows and a $10,000 photo-voltaic system that will make the home net-zero.

“That’s really very little to pay for energy independence,” Levine said. Solar systems are getting better and cheaper all the time, and tax credits provide attractive incentives for installing them.

Once the first energy crisis passed in the early 1980s, Americans went back to then-cheap fossil fuels and paid little attention to renewable energy. European countries have become the technology leaders.

“It’s just amazing how far ahead they are in many ways; even China is ahead of us,” Levine said. “It’s very sad, really. They used to come here for ideas.”

About 40 percent of all U.S. energy is consumed by buildings. Levine thinks “green” architecture for new buildings — and retrofitting of old ones — will become more popular as energy prices rise. Homes offer some of the best opportunities for better design, better insulation and small-scale renewable energy systems.

“I think it’s something that any rational homeowner will want to consider,” Levine said with the pride of a pioneer. “I can’t see a better, more guaranteed investment.”

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Efforts to build the 35-story CentrePointe tower seem to be as dead as developer Dudley Webb’s mysterious financier.

Since the project stalled more than a year ago, CentrePointe has become the ultimate Lexington irony: a block developed for more than two centuries that has been cleared, planted in grass and fenced like a horse farm.

As CentrePointe became CentrePit and then CentrePasture, I received many calls and e-mail messages from readers with ideas for what that block in the center of Lexington should become.

Some wanted to see it remain a grassy park — sans fence — or planted in trees or even vegetable gardens. Others would like to see the next herd of Horse Mania statues graze there during the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. My younger daughter thinks it would be a great place to give pony rides.

Conspiracy theorists have whispered that the block was always intended to become the new federal courthouse or local government center. The strangest rumor I’ve heard? A casino will go there if the General Assembly allows them.

CentrePointe never made much economic sense, even before the real estate bubble burst. Hotel people doubt Lexington can support a J.W. Marriott. Real estate people question the market for 91 million-dollar condos.

But I think a big reason CentrePointe has drawn public ire is that its design just isn’t good enough to be Lexington’s centerpiece. Renderings make the tower look massive, generic and out-of-place — a monument to a developer’s edifice complex.

Earlier this month, I attended a presentation by some University of Kentucky landscape architecture students who re-imaged the 1.7-acre block for a class project. Their concepts were thoughtful and engaging.

The designs called for clusters of buildings, with no tower taller than 15 stories. The students factored in the block’s surroundings and patterns of sunlight and shade. They included creative use of open space, water features and roof gardens.

In a grander academic exercise, the UK College of Design brought in prominent architects for a 48-hour workshop in July 2008 that produced three fascinating redesign concepts for CentrePointe. Traditionalists giggled and gasped.

But if Webb wanted to make a bold statement about himself as a developer and Lexington as a city, iconic architecture would get the world’s attention.

I saw a great example of that when I went to Spain recently. People from all over the world have come to Bilbao, an out-of-the-way industrial city, to see Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao since it opened in 1997. It is a magnet that the Basque government estimates has pulled more than $2 billion into the local economy.

There are many more modest examples, including several close to home. Michael Graves’ 1985 Humana Building brought a lot of attention to Louisville. Daniel Libeskind’s 2008 condo tower, Ascent at Roebling’s Bridge, is doing the same for Covington.

Webb and landowner Joe Rosenberg have millions tied up in the CentrePointe block. Once the economy improves, something important is sure to be built there. Something important needs to be; it’s Lexington’s best development site.

I just hope that whatever is built is a long-term success. We sure don’t need what Don Blevins Jr., the Fayette County clerk and former Urban County Council member, warned could become “a vertical Lexington Mall right in the heart of downtown.”

I also hope that Webb — or whoever ends up developing the property for whatever purpose — hires a great architect to create something of lasting esthetic value.

Lexington hasn’t paid much attention to architecture in a very long time. Good design just hasn’t been part of our civic conversation. Whatever was profitable for developers was good enough for us. The more conventional — and boring — the better.

CentrePointe seems to have changed the civic conversation. I now hear people talk about how great design could help make Lexington more economically successful and a more interesting place to live. I hope the talk continues — and leads to an urban landscape that is as special as the rural landscape that surrounds it.

The old building doesn’t look like much, standing across East Third Street from a demolition site and the King Cobras motorcycle club. A small sign in a window behind a steel-bar security door says: LOT Parrish Rash.

Since early this year, it has been the Land of Tomorrow, an occasional gallery, and the workshop of Parrish Rash & van Dissel, a small company with big ambitions.

PR&vD hopes to encourage artists and industrial designers around the world to innovate by creating new and more profitable ways for them to produce and market their work.

At the company’s workshop last week, there were three projects under way: A high-design chaise being made of Styrofoam and urethane for a Vienna art museum; a stage set for The xx, a British rock band; and another UK professor’s project that involves creating a LED lighting system for a large model of a planned community in China that will be exhibited in Germany.

Upcoming work includes a piece for a show at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and two pieces for a show at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Later this month, LOT will bring collectors from across the country together with an international group of designers represented by the NOUS Gallery of London, England. The event will include a mixed-media show called Boys and Their Toys, which will be on display from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8. The opening reception Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. is open to the public.

Why would these collectors and designers travel thousands of miles for an event in Lexington?

“High-end collectors are looking for new places to discover work,” said LOT founder Drura Parrish. The event will include a dinner, an afternoon at Keeneland and plenty of bourbon. “You sell the destination, not the art.”

It also didn’t hurt that one of the British gallery’s principals, designer Melissa Woolford, is originally from Evansville, Ind., across the Ohio River from Parrish’s hometown of Henderson.

Good connections and a “why not?” attitude have enabled Parrish and his business partner, Rives Rash, to build an international reputation over the past six years by working with contemporary artists and architects to produce their designs. Their work has appeared at such venues as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Vienna’s MAK Center and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Parrish and Rash are faculty members at the University of Kentucky’s College of Design. They’re also workshop wizards who never outgrew playing with sticks and glue.

“The reputation got out there that if you wanted to do something crazy, there’s these guys from Virginia and Kentucky who will help you do something crazy,” said Parrish, who, like Rash, earned a graduate degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

During the past 15 years, technology has revolutionized architecture and design. Parrish, 33, and Rash, 30, have created a niche by exploring the possibilities of new design geometries and materials.

The company’s newest partner, Bart van Dissel, 55, a former Harvard Business School professor and McKinsey & Co. consultant, sees an opportunity for PR&vD to change the economics of design by connecting designers, manufacturers and customers.

That means working with designers to build prototypes and figure out manufacturing processes and costs. PR&vD would do some manufacturing itself and outsource some work to other Kentucky manufacturers.

In addition to fine art, PR&vD is interested in making furniture and household items — really, any object that might be improved by innovative design.

“There needs to be a democratization of design,” Parrish said. “People used to not give a damn about design because they couldn’t afford it.” That is changing as high-design items show up on the shelves of such retailers as IKEA and Target.

Designers haven’t been well-served by traditional retail models, where mass production and big sales volume are necessary and retailers get as much as 60 percent of the price. It gives designers little incentive to innovate or take risks.

For that reason, PR&vD also is interested in exploring new retail models, from online sales to distribution through museum stores.

“The key point is to shift the way the designers do business,” Parrish said. “Our paradigm is simple: Put designers first, and they become the brand.”

PR&vD has begun making several products for sale on www.etsy.com, an arts and crafts site. They include flatware, lamps, chairs and decorative items made from a mix of urethane and tree limbs salvaged from last winter’s ice storm.

There are limits to what can be made in PR&vD’s rented workshop, which also must accommodate the building owner’s bass boat. It is moved around the room as space is needed.

“It adds soul to the workshop,” Parrish said of the bass boat.

“And it reminds us that we don’t go fishing enough,” van Dissel added.

Parrish thinks Kentucky is an ideal place for the kind of creative, specialized manufacturing that PR&vD has in mind. The state has a wealth of aluminum and plastics fabricators who located here for the auto industry but could use more work.

“Kentucky, more than any place I know, is tied to making and doing,” he said. “If we don’t do it as a profession, we often do it as a hobby. It’s just what we do.”

After all, look what PR&vD has done so far with limited equipment in an old building on East Third Street. In the land of tomorrow, what’s important are ideas — and people with the knowledge and connections to make them work.