For his work on the study and design of the 6,000-year-old concept of public spaces such as plazas and markets, Mark Childs, associate professor of architecture and planning, has received this month's Faculty Acknowledgement Award.
Childs was honored with the award yesterday while giving a presentation about public spaces and his book Square Design, set to be published by UNM Press in 2004.
"The design of public spaces is as old as cities," Childs said.
Childs, who is the director of the Design and Planning Assistance Center, teaches courses in various subjects including public space and urban design theory.
"He's one of our major leaders in service learning," said Roger Schluntz, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. "He's a great colleague of ours."
The award is presented each month and honors faculty from various colleges and schools at UNM. Schools and colleges rotate each month so that faculty from every program and department on campus have an opportunity to be honored.
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Next month a faculty member from the School of Fine Arts will be honored with the award.
The award is presented by the UNM General Library and is meant to honor faculty for achievement in research and publication work.
"It's the library's way to do a goodwill gesture for the community and the UNM campus," said Clara De La Cruz Watral, senior program manager for general library services.
Childs' presentation, which was given in Zimmerman Library's Willard Reading Room, included a slide show and discussion of the most recent of his three books.
Childs discussed the concept of public spaces and the role they play in establishing or renewing a sense of community.
In his book, Childs identifies six themes he said work to create conviviality, or the factors that establish a space's liveliness. Those themes included stories created by the space, interaction between the space and the environment and the role technology plays in reshaping traditional public spaces.
His presentation included slide photographs of various squares, plazas and city centers throughout New Mexico, the United States and some in Europe. Slides helped reinforce Childs' point that public space can either create a festive sense of togetherness in a tight community, or a lack of them can completely take away from one.
After his presentation, Childs answered audience members' questions about the role of public spaces and talked about some specific locations in Albuquerque.
One audience member asked about the sheer size and quality of downtown's Civic Plaza as an active public space for the community.
Childs explained that many in his field believe that about 50 percent of a public space's area should be backed up to areas of traffic such as shops and restaurants to guide people to it.
"Civic Plaza fails in that sense," he said.
Another audience member asked what can be done to improve Albuquerque's other public spaces.
Childs explained that designers should use what exists and work from there out.
"I think you can build on whatever assets that exist," he said.
Childs went on to address the role of the automobile in society and how because of it, the community perception of the need for public space has changed, particularly among youth.
"And that's scary," he said.
Childs earned his bachelor's degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his master's in architecture from the University of Oregon and his master's in public administration from the University of Washington.
This is his eighth year of teaching at UNM.
