At a glance
The village of Canaseraga recently received some help with envisioning its comprehensive plan after Alfred State architecture students presented their designs for the future layout of the municipality recently at the Canaseraga High School.
The village of Canaseraga recently received some help with envisioning its comprehensive plan after Alfred State architecture students presented their designs for the future layout of the municipality recently at the Canaseraga High School.
Village officials and roughly 30 residents listened as 12 students in Professor William Dean’s Urban Design Studio class shared their visions for four areas of Canaseraga. This included revitalizing the historic district, improving the streetscape, proposing new businesses, and creating civic spaces to give the village a clear identity more closely tied to the surrounding recreational areas.
“The goal was to create a vision from the work that the community had already done to further develop the ideas identified in the comprehensive plan,” said Dean, a professor in the Department of Architecture and Design. “We tried to remain as faithful to that plan as possible. That’s not to say that the students didn’t bring their own design experience into it, but we wanted our work to be an extension of the comprehensive plan.”
The students spent eight weeks on the project, which began in August with a tour of the village led by Town of Burns Supervisor Lauren Oliver, and included a series of interim reviews with invited guests including Dan Bower, CEO of Hunt Architects and Engineers; Nicolette Wagoner, director of Planning for Chemung County; and Michelle M. Denhoff, planning and development specialist for the Allegany County Department of Planning. Oliver and H. Kier Dirlam, Allegany County planner, were also instrumental in supporting the students in their work.
“After meeting with the supervisor and members of the village board, as well as a wide range of design professionals, the students took their comments to heart and continued to develop their designs for the final presentation,” Dean said.
According to Dean, the students’ designs received a lot of positive feedback throughout the process and were well-received during the presentation.
Christofer Hydos, an architectural technology major from Cornwall, said, “We were pleased to be able to take our education and apply it to helping the communities of Burns and Canaseraga.”
