Good, Thoughtful Hosts #401: Equitable Social Infrastructure in Placemaking

Episodes transcribed by AI and proofed for accuracy and spelling by our team.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Equitable infrastructure, placemaking, Boise YMCA, social engagement, community gathering, universal design, accessibility, inclusive design, community square, healthcare partnership, financial assistance, multi-generational programs, urban design, social equity, community connection.

Sarah Steimer 00:07
Hi everyone, and welcome to the first episode of our fourth season of Good, Thoughtful Hosts. I’m Sarah Steimer, and today we’re discussing a new trend in placemaking. The concept of placemaking has been around for some time and can be described as spaces that facilitate social engagement and chance interaction. It’s more than just promoting better urban design. Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use and pays particular attention to the physical, cultural and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution. With all of that in mind, the enormous growth that Boise has seen makes it ripe for opportunities for placemaking, and among the many projects happening in the city, we decided to focus on the new YMCA, which is scheduled to open in 2026.

What makes this such an interesting project is that its design reflects an emerging trend in placemaking: equitable infrastructure. This was a trend that was noticed by Project for Public Spaces at the Fourth International Placemaking Week last year. This was when the organization noticed a growing interest in how large investments in things like streets, transportation systems, bridges, and tunnels provided multiple benefits to the community, beyond basic improvements, and with efforts that uplift, reinforce, and build the existing community and culture.

So what I learned about the new Boise YMCA project is that it started in much the same way as pretty much any infrastructure project might. Its old bones needed some basic but essential updates, things like plumbing and electrical improvements. But after evaluating the costs, it actually made more sense to just build a brand new Y, and thus an opportunity to broaden its reach and more fully enrich the community was born. In fact, they’re actually anticipating a 25% increase in membership, and more members means more diversity and meeting new needs. I’ll be talking with two of the Cushing Terrell leaders on this project, but I actually want to begin with the client. I spoke with Boise YMCA’s Kathryn Hunter, and she provided an overview of the Y’s mission, which itself focuses quite a bit on social equity.

Producer 02:38
Today’s special guest.

Kathryn Hunter 02:52
I am Kathryn Hunter, director of real estate development and construction for the Treasure Valley Family YMCA. And for our current project, I am the project manager and owner’s representative.

Sarah Steimer 03:09
Kathryn, I want to start by just getting an overview of what the YMCA’s missions and goals are. Everyone knows the YMCA, but what really is the mission here.

Kathryn Hunter 03:20
At the Y, we welcome everyone whose behavior adheres to our core values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility, and we advance that cause by building a stronger and more equitable community where everyone has the opportunity to learn, grow, thrive and reach their full potential. Our Y is a force for building bridges among all people in our community, our nation and our world.

Sarah Steimer 03:48
Let’s localize it a little bit here, then: What were we really trying to do with this location in Boise?

Kathryn Hunter 03:55
It gave us that opportunity to design a building that is welcoming, inclusive, accessible, and that community gathering space where we welcome all, to make it a Y for all. If you’ve ever been in our existing Y, you know that it’s very challenging to get around, especially people with mobility challenges, so that was one of the number one considerations as we started this design process of what we wanted our new Y to be. We also wanted it to be innovative and exciting and truly that destination place where people would travel and families will come and spend hours and hours at our new downtown Y.

Sarah Steimer 04:43
You’re really broadening who’s able to have access to the Y, which is incredible. And something that I was thinking about for this episode, something that we’ll be talking about, really, is this idea of equitable infrastructure. And in this case, it’s equitable social infrastructure. You’re bringing many people under one roof. And when it came to sitting down with the design team and talking about this mission, talking about your design goals, what you saw as YMCA’s— at YMCAs across the country, too, since I know you visited quite a few. What was that conversation like between your team and the Cushing Terrell team? Like, how did you feel the design met the mission of the Y, and maybe not just met the mission, but specifically the mission of the Y in Boise.

Kathryn Hunter 05:28
When you are coming in to downtown Boise on State Street, we knew and we wanted our new downtown Y to be that flagship and that beacon of life and energy and community. So the Cushing Terrell team really did an amazing job of helping us design that, and it’s the exterior lighting and the exterior facade and the signage that really helped to drive that. It really has been a great collaborative effort with them, and we will be that beacon. We will be one of those Ys that people come to see best practices that we have done in our new Y. One of my favorite things in this process, and I’ve had a lot of favorite things over the couple years, but when Amy Lindgren and Tom Calla presented to our City of Boise Design Review Committee, oh, I am going to get choked up here, one of the commissioners said this Y is so sophisticated looking and so beautiful, and it’s just what Boise needs.

Sarah Steimer 06:53
Now that we have a feel for the project from the client side, let’s explore how that affected design choices that really underscore this idea of equitable social infrastructure in placemaking. Something that I hope you pay particular attention to is that this would be equitable not just for the many different types of people coming to the YMCA, but for the many different types of activities that might take place there, which, for the record, was far more than I really ever anticipated or realized could happen at a YMCA. So this project considers placemaking not just as a space to promote social engagement, but also as a way to move the community into, through, and around the rest of the city, acting in many ways as sort of a main street within a main street. So let’s go ahead and talk to Amy and Jason.

Amy Lindgren 07:51
Hello. My name is Amy Lindgren. I’m an architect and an associate here at Cushing. Terrell, been here for about 15 years practicing architecture.

Jason Butler 08:01
And I’m Jason Butler. I’m a principal here with Cushing Terrell, an architect, and I was privileged enough just to celebrate my 20th anniversary with Cushing Terrell.

Sarah Steimer 08:10
Awesome. Happy anniversary, first of all. So that means you get most of the questions. All right, so I kind of wanted to break our conversation into a couple of pieces here, because when we’re talking about equity and inclusion and placemaking, those are a lot of different things. So I wanted to start off by really focusing on the equity and inclusion piece. So when we are talking about equity and inclusion, you know, especially as it relates to design, are we talking about universal design, or is it something so much more, so much broader? And Amy, I’m going to kick the question to you.

Amy Lindgren 08:47
Yeah. So we’re talking about the YMCA down here in Boise downtown, and when we talk about equity and inclusion, that’s basically the cornerstone of what the YMCA does for their communities as it relates to design. You know, universal design is a is a word that gets used a lot, but the meaning of it is that it’s universally accessible for everyone. So, you know, we try to eliminate barriers for folks who are trying to utilize the facility, and that can manifest in a lot of different ways. From, you know, not having tile transitions on the floor, having people to greet folks who need special assistance, to get into places like the pool or the locker room or any of the workout spaces. And so that’s just universally intrinsic in what the Y means, and which fits really nicely into what we have to do for design, for accessibility, for all.

Jason Butler 09:24
Amy touched on just those ease of access topics, and I know the team and Amy in particular was really mindful along the way, even, even greater than universal design to access mobility from, you know, just users experiencing the building and being able to get to the building efficiently and and successfully within the community’s context, transportation options, a comfortable, approachable entry, as you ease through into the many great topics that she was mentioning on from a universal design standpoint.

Sarah Steimer 10:19
So we’re talking a lot about a lot of these physical manifestations of it, right? So when I talked to Kathryn, you know, she she shared the Y’s mission, you know, really, this idea of the Y for All. And she uses these phrases, these values of caring, honesty, respect, responsibility. How do you hear things like that? How do you hear those sorts of phrases, those words, and think about how that goes into the design. Because, of course, when we think of inclusion, it’s like, Okay, anyone should be able to use these doors. Anyone should be able to flow through the building. But when you hear things like, you know, respect, care, honesty, how does that then play into the design? I’ll start with you, Jason.

Jason Butler 11:03
Yeah, I think that’s really very much about a place for all, where all are welcome, regardless of age, gender, affiliation, nationality, history, just experience, personal experience. So it’s very much a, on a, on a bigger sense and a bigger scale, than you might — at least that’s what our design team and us architects hear from clients like Kathryn.

Amy Lindgren 11:27
We started out every single one of our design meetings with a Y moment, so a moment where somebody has experienced at the, at the YMCA that brings all of those words from the mission and vision of the Y into that meeting. So we start with the Y moment. We practice all of those in our meetings. It’s not just about, how do we translate that into design, it’s how do we live that in our design? And I think that shows through in the architecture, from, you know, laying out a floor plan all the way to, how do we conduct our meetings? And it might not be tangible and it might not be scalable, or something that people can look at and say, Oh, they had a respectful meeting. It’s more of the way that we present ourselves to our clients and then to the community. And so when you have that, and it carries all the way through, from those design meetings to every design participant showing up to celebrate the project milestones, all the way through the end, where, as Kathryn probably would mention, that all of the construction team and design people should be, now, Y members. So, you know, that’s.

Sarah Steimer 12:41
I just, I want to pause there real quick, because I feel like I actually have in in rooms or buildings where I feel like the meeting didn’t show a lot of respect. You know, we were joking now about, like, Oh, no one’s gonna look at that and say, like, Oh, my God, they started with so much respect. I feel like we can feel it a little bit. You know, I would love, though, if you could give me an example of maybe an element of the building, an element of the design, where you did started with maybe a concept, and how it did flow into not just the conversation, but really in the design itself as well.

Amy Lindgren 13:13
Yeah, so I think the biggest design element that you can really notice in the building is kind of like its main street, or its designed corridor that brings folks from across the street into the front area or the front plaza, through the front doors, through the gates, whether or not they’re a member, or they’re signing up for membership, or whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish at the Y all the way through the first floor, down through the pool, where, you know, a lot of activity happens in YMCAs. And I think that element was very important to the Y for connectivity to the community, but also it was something they had identified as what they would spend their money on. So when we talk about meeting with contractors or design team members or users, we’re saying, this is where we’re going to spend our money. And everyone in that process like holds on to that and says, Okay, we won’t sacrifice anything for this. And so that is a, is an element that you can see. It’s an it’s an element that everyone can talk about and something they can point to in the design process. And contractors get it, architects get it, clients get it, users will get it. So it’s pretty universal.

Jason Butler 14:37
Yeah, it’s really that community square and, and, and through the design process to protect that as Amy was touching on, everybody became really respectful and acknowledged and knew that that was an important component within the success of the of the building, a long-term usability and and experience within the building for all users.

Sarah Steimer 14:56
So talking a little bit more about those users too, you know. I, I will be the first to admit that I don’t think I realized— not just how many different types of people are using the Y, but what they’re using it for. Yeah, you know, I know that there is a health partner with the Y, with the, with the Boise Y. I know that there is a financial services partner with this Y. You know, I’m truly sitting around thinking like, great, you can lift weights and there’s a nursery school or daycare. But this is so much— so when we’re talking about designing, not just for all but for all activities, is this about having, you know, these hyper-specific rooms or spots or spaces, or is it more about each room can do everything?

Amy Lindgren 15:47
Yeah, so our community has a lot of individuals who struggle, and so the Y is always there to help those individuals better themselves. And with this particular one, you know, they wanted to partner with a healthcare, which is St. Luke’s, and so they’ll have space within the Y to help people who have mobility issues or need access to basic healthcare. And so those individuals can go there. Then there’s also a financial institution, CapEd, which is, they’re embedding themselves into the YMCA, so they can provide financial assistance. And so as an individual who needs help, can come in, they can get financial care. They can get health care. They can get social networks. They can work on their physical needs, emotional needs. They have counselors there. There’s obviously child care, so it’s really a place where the YMCA can wrap their services around an individual and help them out.

Sarah Steimer 16:43
Let’s kind of move into, because I think we’re very naturally doing this already, let’s move into this conversation about placemaking then. You know, we’re talking about the fact that this is meant to be, not just where you go and lift some weights for 30 minutes and things like that, but it’s really, you are getting many services, and it could, very simply, just be a place where you get to talk to someone for 20 minutes. I was just listening to a different podcast yesterday where physicians said that one of his big pieces of advice for elderly people is just to get 20 minutes of social time a day, you know. So this is, this could be that, of course, but I wanted to really talk about, you know, these YMCAs: They’re not just plug and play, maybe once upon, once upon a time they were, but not anymore, certainly. But how are they becoming more reflective of the community? And of you know, Amy, you just started talking about this, where it’s, you know, there might be some need in the community, so it’s responding to that need. How are they reflecting Boise with this new design?

Amy Lindgren 17:42
Boise is one of the bigger cities that has a lot of refugees. We have a lot of various nationalities here, and so one of the things I think about is designing an open and welcoming space, which, to be honest, isn’t that hard to do, but to make it a place for everyone. And so how you work through that, you know, and the YMCA has, like, great messaging. They have great tools, so it makes it really easy. So really, you just got to provide a space that they can fill with, I guess, love, honesty, caring, respect, all of those things, hire the right people, and attract that kind of population. And that’s not to say that, you know, Boise is unique in that way, but.

Jason Butler 18:30
I’m drawn to the overall footprint of the building: very, very urban. It’s holding the street edge, but it’s also subtractive in some regard. The entry’s pulled back off of 11th Street, which is a very hip, kind of cool, emerging street in Boise. But more importantly, I think of the uppermost floors and the views to our foothills, the foothills of Boise, and the, our views from downtown to the north are really special. That indoor-outdoor, healthy lifestyle, that Boise city, that Boise is, really is resonated within the Y and in their core mission of just betterment for, you know, the way people live and engage with their community.

Sarah Steimer 19:11
Jason, you had mentioned earlier, and I really like this idea, and I know it’s not necessarily unique to design, but as we’re talking about this concept of placemaking, certainly, you know, you talked about the entrance way and really kind of leading through the building as this main street, and that, in and of itself, sounds rather reflective of, you know, what’s happening here. And I was kind of curious if this is such an anchor for this part of town, this hip part of town and everything, is the idea to pull people into the Y, is it to kind of almost act as, you know, those this is, gosh, I wish I knew the name of them, but like when you’re playing Hot Wheels, and there’s that little part of the Hot Wheels track where you make it go really super fast, does it kind of engage with people that way and kind of get them like onto the rest of the city? You know, tell me more about, you know, how this sits within this kind of smaller Main Street, I suppose.

Jason Butler 20:08
Yeah, yeah. No, I think the slot car analogy, or whatever the terminology might be, but the placement of the building, the Y is really, really blessed to have a just a neat property right in the middle of not just downtown. It’s kind of at the edge, north edge of downtown, but the greater community and the historic portion of the original plat of Boise. It’s really a connection between the foothills and Camel’s Back Park and to the north and then certainly a wonderful amenity we haven’t mentioned yet, the Boise River that rolls through the edge of downtown. The Y is virtually right between the north, south, between the two natural amenities and then the importance of State Street. And the improvements of State Street, the remodel and modernization of the infrastructure is kind of this part of State Street is spawned by the YMCA project, or enabled, launched out of the YMCA project, if you will, and really form a gateway into downtown Boise from from the west and into the Capitol Mall area. The State Capitol is just two blocks beyond the YMCA. So there’s this sense of edge, urbanness, permanence and quality that is really reflective in the, in the materials usage, in the, in the building, but also this notion of kind of transparency and creating a fun, engaging, hip place to be.

Sarah Steimer 21:27
I really do love the idea that this sounds like the Y sounds like a microcosm of the city in a lot of ways, which is so cool. Amy, were you about to hop in on that?

Amy Lindgren 21:36
I was just going to note the connection to Boise High School, which is just a couple of blocks away. And so when we were in design, we had a lot of conversations about what that corridor that Jason’s talking about on 11th street, you know, it connects Boise high school all the way to the Y and then down through to the river. So our big conversations circled around, how do we get safe transit for high school students who are going to be bombarding downtown, bombarding the YMCA, and then onto the river and the parks close by. So having its location and where it’s at in the 11th Street corridor is super important for that area.

Sarah Steimer 22:15
So let’s sort of tie all of this together, then. You know, the placemaking, the equity and inclusion. — this all came about because I had been reading about, sort of some upcoming trends as it relates to placemaking and design. I had seen a really interesting conversation about inclusive, equitable infrastructure, excuse me. And something that they had talked about was, you know, maybe cleaning up and doing something beautiful with, you know, maybe difficult crossways, crosswalks, et cetera, in neighborhoods that could use some more folks walking about to reduce crime, things like that. This to me, this YMCA, to me, sounds so much like equitable social infrastructure. And I was wondering if that resonates with you guys at all when it comes to placemaking, when it comes to equity and inclusion.

Amy Lindgren 23:06
Yeah, we’ve been seeing it all along, but a YMCA is a place for social connection, and so it will always be equitable. It will always be needed, it will always be utilized. But making a space or a building — you know, since you’re talking to architects, how do we make it last for the next 100 years? How do we build 100-year buildings? And that just, once you accomplish that, then you basically solidify that, yes, this will be equitable socially for the next 100 years. Because, to be honest, YMCAs are always going to be busy, and so that’s in the materiality that we pick. It’s in the location that we select. And it’s, you know, on the Y side, it’s the people they hire and how they run their facility. So to answer your question shortly, yes, it will always be equitable. The other thing I would add is that, you know, YMCAs evolve to become from what they once were, which is like a pool, maybe some racquetball courts and a basketball court, and maybe a place where you drop your kids off to, say, you have a family member that just got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. What do we do? You can go to the Y, and they can enroll them in a program, and they can know that they’re doing all that they can to assist their family members. So there’s one option. We have the Thrive center in this facility, which is a place for folks who need a little bit more help learning or have mobility issues, lifelong mobility issues. So they have a program there to help those folks. There’s a teen center, which all Ys have teen centers, or at least they should, where they can go out and go to a maker space and build a project together, or get electronics, or whatever it is they want to do. So it hits that multigenerational community, and that was really what we strive for with all of the programs. Programs that they wanted to include in this Y.

Sarah Steimer 25:02
So I’m curious, one of my final questions to you both, so much has gone into this, of course, and there are going to be so many people utilizing it, so many different types of people utilizing, so many different programs utilizing this space. What would you say is your favorite design element of this project? And Jason, I’ll start with you.

Jason Butler 25:21
Yeah, I think I’ve really got to lean into the interior street and just the play space that’s adjacent to it. It’s going to be very transparent, just the youth and the energy and the color, the children in that street zone, so to speak, or that internal community kind of courtyard area is going to offer. It’s going to be fun to see. It’s going to be, it’s going to be neat to experience that. And really, the kiddos in there will engage and create that energy and atmosphere that that’ll resonate up through the facility, frankly.

Sarah Steimer 25:52
Amy, what’s your favorite?

Amy Lindgren 25:54
Um, that’s a really tough question, but I’m, I’m gonna have to say the pool, because I used to be a swimmer. So and seeing how a pool, one, gets designed, because I’ve never designed one before, how it gets designed, how it gets built, and how you put a gymnasium above it. So this facility is like one of the only ones in the country that I could find in my own research where a gym is stacked above a pool. So I’m going to be nerdy and say the construction of the pools could be my favorite part.

Sarah Steimer 26:24
We like a nerdy answer. This is, this is the best place that you can do a nerd, a nerdy answer. So, you know, those are most of my questions for you guys today. Was there anything that I didn’t ask as it relates to, you know, the equity in placemaking portion of the design of this Y? Because, by the way, everything I’ve heard about, it sounds incredible, and I’m so envious. None of the YMCAs in Chicago are super close to me, which I’m like, Why do I not have a, I have friends who swear by it. Anything else that I didn’t ask that you wanted to be sure to mention

Amy Lindgren 26:56
The one thing I wanted to talk about. And I know when we were preparing for this, you had to ask the question about, How do you design specific spaces? And my response to that was, you can’t design a room for a specific thing or design a room for flexibility. When a client asks you that, in my mind, it’s always, it’s just a big room. It’s really, what they’re asking for is a big room, and as basic as that sounds, that’s all you can give them. And then they fill it with all the purposes and the needs and the technology and whatever it is they want to fill it with. But once you get done and you present them with that big room, they’re like, This is amazing. It’s so flexible, and it’s so wonderful. And I always find that really interesting as an architect. Like everyone talked about high design and high-value design and really interesting design stuff, but in the end, it’s all just space that you give a client and they fill it with their needs, and that’s the most important part of architecture to me.

Sarah Steimer 27:55
I like that a lot. I feel like it’s like, the best gift you can give an artist is a blank canvas, and that’s a good gift, if they’re a good artist. So you know, YMCA, they’re a good client, they’re going to do something with this big space. How about you, Jason, anything that you wanted to add that I didn’t ask?

Jason Butler 28:11
Yeah, Amy, I couldn’t agree more. Just really wonderful. How I, how space gets programmed, utilized, and and the Y is going to provide that energy and that creativity, and ultimately, the users that engage that space are gonna be well served for years to come.

Sarah Steimer 28:26
I love the idea of 100-year-old space so that we can just keep the good things that we have. Well, thank you guys so much for your time. I really so greatly appreciate it, and one of these days I’ll, once it’s built, I’ll get out there. I know, I know Kathryn gave me the opening date, so I’ll come check it out at some point. But thank you guys so much.

Producer 28:52
Music for Good, Thoughtful Hosts was written, produced and performed by Sam Clapp. Our moderator is Sarah Steimer, editing by Travis Estvold. And a special thank you to our content development team, Marni Moore and Trisha Miller. For more information about the podcast, visit thoughtfulhosts.com. Thanks for listening.