Situated within one of the premier technological research universities in the US, the School of Architecture at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute works in collaboration with leading scientists, engineers, technologists, artists and entrepreneurs.
Bridge Tha Gap is a community outreach program with the mission to fill the gaps in our community. We aim to supply support to families and individuals that have a need. We at Bridge Tha Gap believe that the unity within the community is the key to reviving our community as a whole. Please come together with me to lift those up who have falling into the gaps of life. Lets do this together so that we can thrive as a strong united community.
The Albany Host Lions Club and the Troy Lions Club were both founded in 1925. The two clubs joined forces in July, 2006 to become the Albany & Troy Lions Club, which currently has 46 members – men and women who volunteer their time to perform a variety of community service activities. The group is one of approximately 45,000 clubs in Lions Clubs International, the world’s largest service club organization.
Grateful Villages is a non-profit charitable organization focused on the design and implementation of community programs to help spur development, sustainability and empowerment at the local level, with lasting global effects.
We believe the answers we seek for our community cannot be found in the focus of any one institution but in the very tenets of community itself. Families don’t need houses, they need homes. We live in an environment of shared effect and our equity is woven in the fabric of our community.
Every garden, every home, every student and teacher, every parent and child. Every hope and opportunity. With every movement we make we write a line in the store that will define a new narrative… one we write together, one we write for our selves.
The Urban Conga is an international award-winning multidisciplinary design studio focused on promoting community activity and social interaction through open-ended play. We achieve this by designing, fabricating, and installing interactive installations, custom playable products, and immersive environments that spark creativity, exploration, and free-choice learning into the built environment. As Plato once said “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation,” and these are the exact moments we strive to create and advocate for all demographics to share through our work. As a key part of our studio we are exploring the idea for play to exist in everyday spaces, and encourage people to think about these spaces that could become PLAYces: like a crosswalk, park bench, street light, building facade, sidewalk, bus stop, or just the everyday space in-between. Looking at how these often once boring or underutilized situations can turn into stimulating creative outlets for social interaction and community activity through open-ended play. To create these PLAYces we utilize methods of participatory design workshops, a variety of multi-sensory technology, and both qualitative and quantitative research on the impact of the work in the community. Through this work, we have collaborated with public and private organizations and businesses, governments, and universities all around the US as well as in Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, and the UK delivering workshops, lectures, urban interventions, playable products, custom installations, development plans, and public policy recommendations. Through our work, we continue to push the power of play for all within the development of our built environment.
Represented by Mayor Sheehan and the Department of Planning and Development, the City of Albany is one of our partners for the Lucid Project: Albany. They’ll participate in our community-led process to define the use and design of the City-owned alley in West Hill. The City will participate throughout the entire process and will implement plans in Phase 3.
Albany 518 SNUG (‘guns’ spelled backwards) is an anti-violence program aimed at reducing gun violence by providing proactive intervention for gang activity or at-risk youth. SNUG mentors and directs youth from under-resourced communities to new healthy and formative experiences that allow them to envision a different life and future.
We’re active members of the communities we serve. That’s why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind. The Stantec community unites approximately 22,000 employees working in over 350 locations across six continents. We collaborate across disciplines and industries to bring buildings, energy and resource, environmental, and infrastructure projects to life. Our work—engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics, from initial project concept and planning through design, construction, and commissioning—begins at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. Our local strength, knowledge, and relationships, coupled with our world-class expertise, have allowed us to go anywhere to meet our clients’ needs in more creative and personalized ways. With a long-term commitment to the people and places we serve, Stantec has the unique ability to connect to projects on a personal level and advance the quality of life in communities across the globe. Stantec trades on the TSX and the NYSE under the symbol STN. Visit us at stantec.com or find us on our other social media channels.
Albany Victory Gardens (AVG) is a project to upcycle vacant lots in low-income communities, transforming them into vibrant farmland that supports urban agriculture and circular economy training.
The project began with the purchase of five vacant lots at the core of West Hill and quickly expanded to 20 lots for farming, training, and as their market space. The garden looks to provide trainings and resources to involved community members, turning a still-expanding swath of land into a network of individually-owned plots and a space for community organizing.
Get in touch with Albany Victory Gardens: albanyvictorygardens@gmail.com