Location, Location, Location

Designed to serve their burgeoning urban population, many of the new and existing cultural facilities we work with are located in dense urban areas. However, as populations have moved outward from their city's urban cores, civic leaders have examined how best to bring needed services to these new population centers.

Transportation infrastructure planning could serve as an interesting example regarding a city's cultural services. Public transportation design is about efficiency and access, the goal being the creation of a system – whether bus, subway or light rail – which can accommodate the majority of the population in a particular region.

The parallel from public transportation for cultural facilities planning, and urban design more broadly, is the notion of access. Some of the most successful public transportation systems (subways in New York and London; buses in Curitiba, Brazil) are organized around a ''hub and spoke'' type of system in which a ''hub'' station is at a centralized location and houses the majority of transportation lines for the region. The individual lines may follow parallel paths for part of their routes, but eventually split apart to serve particular neighborhoods, along ''spoke'' paths. In the true test of access and efficiency, these systems are well-utilized, both within downtown areas and along routes originating downtown to the surrounding fringes of the city and beyond.

Providing convenient and efficient access to cultural programs is a constant challenge for urban cultural facilities. One of their inherent characteristics is that they are fixed in one location, unable to move physically to various neighborhoods within a city or region.

Consequently, many people lack access to their regional or local cultural facilities because the barriers to reaching them (cost and time), combined, in some cases, with a lack of incentive, create a nearly insurmountable access challenge for cultural facilities. Of course, outreach programming is a strong component of any facility's plan to increase access (performance 'run-outs,' traveling art and book vans, school programs, special shuttles, etc.); however, research has shown that general cultural participation and community enhancement is greatly affected by the nearby physical presence of a cultural facility. The benefits received (economic, social, and educational) are directly related to location – the closer one lives to a cultural facility, the greater the benefits.

Transportation systems could serve as one example for cultural planning aimed at increasing access to cultural programs and facilities. One strategy might be to have a system of art district ''hubs' – major facilities in central locations, downtowns or major retail/entertainment centers – in coordination with neighborhood-based arts activities at other community facilities such as libraries or community centers. Another option might be to create satellites of major cultural institutions in other areas of a region, thereby 'transporting' the main facility and its programs to another neighborhood altogether (albeit on a different scale) while continuing to promote the original facility itself. A third way to increase access might be to partner with other cultural and social facilities in various neighborhoods, creating a 'web' of programs, dialogue and mutual support between specific communities and the main cultural facility.

With the continued expansion of extra-urban population centers, location will continue to be a challenge for cultural institutions. Looking outside our industry (at transportation systems, for example) may provide us the opportunity to re-examine the question of access and – potentially – develop creative solutions that may strengthen the viability and impact of cultural facilities throughout a region.

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