![]() |
430 Richards Ave Portsmouth, NH 03801 603.373.8651 phone 603-479-7195 mobile 877-299-6212 fax Retain TND |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chester “Rick” Chellman, principal of TND Engineering in Ossipee, New Hampshire, has been selected as one of thirteen Knight Fellows in Community Building by the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture. Over the next year the Knight Fellows will take part in a prestigious mid-career educational program that brings together community leaders, policymakers, architects, urban planners, environmentalists, journalists, and transportation experts from across the nation for seminars and workshops on the techniques of building and rebuilding communities.
The Knight Program Fellowship was established to nurture future leaders and encourage those who have a proven history and commitment to community building and effectively shaping the physical environment. Communities across the nation are challenged to plan wisely for future growth. Cities and towns have to balance the needs and concerns of residential development, economic growth, transportation, environmental protection, and quality-of-life issues.
Mr. Chellman’s firm, TND Engineering, provides transportation and traffic engineering, engineering consulting and Traditional Neighborhood Development design services. Clients range from private developers to municipalities and citizen’s groups throughout North America. Specialties include the engineering and traffic engineering aspects of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), particularly in connection with the matters of TND street design, vehicular and human-powered traffic control, and external transportation connections. Mr. Chellman has authored and co-authored numerous works on topics related to the traffic and transportation aspects of TND design.
Through his Knight Fellowship, Mr. Chellman will explore the functional characteristics of streets that have been designed to encourage pedestrian activity in communities such as: I’on, South Carolina; Kentlands, Maryland; Seaside, Florida, and other locations across the United States.
“Traditionally, traffic engineering has focused primarily on moving ever-increasing volumes of vehicles efficiently,” Mr. Chellman noted. “But more walkable communities are increasingly desirable and more sustainable. Many designers have learned from studying several older communities such as Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Nantucket, Massachusetts that more walkable areas are usually mixed-use and have streets that comfortably accommodate more pedestrians; a lot of my professional focus for the past several years has been to design and build these more walkable streets while still accommodating vehicles.”
“Fellowship nominees were judged on the basis of their demonstrated interest in community building and their accomplishments. We were looking for a diverse group of people who have a clear vision for advancing community building efforts in their hometowns and careers,” stated Charles Bohl, director of the Knight Program. “The Knight Program brings the Fellows into contact with leading thinkers and practitioners involved in the building of livable communities. Through their interaction with each other they will come to understand how professionals from other backgrounds and disciplines approach community building - it’s the type of mutual learning and shared discourse that you can’t find from within a particular profession, and that’s been a big part of the problem in how we plan, build, and manage our cities and regions for the past fifty years.”
The University of Miami’s School of Architecture, under the leadership of Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, is internationally known as a center for research, practice and teaching focused on the concepts of New Urbanism and smart growth. Since its inception in 1983, the School of Architecture has gained a national reputation for training hands-on practitioners who view architecture as intrinsically linked with urban planning and public policy. As a leading advocate for New Urbanism, the school’s curriculum incorporates regional issues of environment and transportation, community issues of social integration, and street and building design that make neighborhoods pedestrian-friendly and safe.
###
The general press release at The University of Miami is also available.