An effort to explore what the City of Fort Wayne needs to promote awareness and accelerate the adoption of energy savings and sustainable techniques/practices within the daily operation of its city residents and businesses.
The City of Fort Wayne is currently researching the feasibility of creating a Green Technology Center that could serve the Fort Wayne/Northeast Indiana area as a resource focused on a variety of sustainable components. This study is centered on the following thesis:
“What does Fort Wayne need to promote awareness and accelerate adoption of energy saving and sustainable techniques and practices throughout our city’s residents and businesses?”
Within a “one-stop-shop” concept, this study focused on what elements could create the scenario shown in the graphic below; posing the question – “what functions would produce these results?” This exploration serves as a framework to allow all the evolution of this concept to have some baseline understanding of the methodology of the proposed center.
The premise of this exercise is to explore how some sense of a “one-stop shop” learning center can make sustainable living a more approachable methodology in northeast Indiana. This study is that exploration…
The 1st Charrette
The first charrette in this exploration was conducted at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory ( 1100 South Calhoun Street , Fort Wayne, IN ) on September 6, 2007 from 1:00-3:30 PM.
Following the charrette the exploration tailored itself around ideas that resulted from the final interactive voting exercise that concluded the workshop. Over a third of the votes cast by the invited participants were accumulated with the votes for the two most popular concepts:
[A] Outreach/Coordination Information and Education 21%
[B] Encourage Collaboration 14%
Knowing this thinking summarized the majority of the discussion from the exercise, the remainder of ideas were then organized using these concepts as a respective ordering system. Most uniquely, as a secondary tier of information each idea falling under this matrix was then challenged to accommodate two of the three criteria below:
[1] Partner with Local Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Organizations (as well as governmental organizations)
[2] Education and Demonstration of “Best Practices”
[3] Provide Services Resources to the Public
Encouraging the concept of “one-stop shop” experiences, this diagram highlights the readiness of shared sources and common resources with the facility for both the public and private sector. Furthermore, it allow a portion of the ideas to be concentrated and labeled as “website content” – which is proposed to be the starting point for the organization and marketing of the center.
The 2nd Charrette
The second charrette in this exploration was conducted at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory ( 1100 South Calhoun Street , Fort Wayne, IN ) on October 18, 2007 from 6:00-8:00 PM.
We welcome your comments. “What does Fort Wayne need to promote awareness and accelerate adoption of energy saving and sustainable techniques and practices throughout our city’s residents and businesses?” Send your suggestions/comments to
Green Technology Center 
