Co-founders of a student venture, The Front – Nilus Klingel ‘11, G’12 (School of Architecture) and Stephen Klimek ‘11, G’12 (School of Architecture) – recently received the “Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship” CAPES 2012. The Front launched in 2010 and incubated for two years in the Student Sandbox at The Tech Garden, winning a RvD IDEA award at last year’s “Emerging Talk” student venture summit. The Front is focused on adapting empty retail and commercial space in downtown Syracuse, working out of Storefront:Syracuse, a decades vacant storefront in the State Tower building in historic Hanover Square. Both Klingel and Klimek are also 2011-2012 Engagement Fellows, a yearlong program supported by the Kauffman Foundation. Through that program, Klimek is working with SU’s Office of Community Engagement and Economic Development(CEED)on the Near Westside and Connective Corridor, as well as other initiatives. (He is the multi-talented designer of this fabulous e-news template, along with many other CEED projects that include urban design, public art, graphics and web-applications, façade and landscape design, and other projects.)

“Storefront:Syracuse” is a center for design, a forum for public engagement, and a space to imagine and realize the city’s latent potentials, according to its founders. “It is a place to connect designers and the populations they design for through the transformation and occupation of a vacant storefront.” Among The Front’s many projects are: partnering with the public arts task force; pop-up art shows; a “flash” park on Wyoming Street in the NWS; a large-scale mural project on Warren Street; design exhibits; and PARK(ing) Day, as part of a national event that created momentum around developing urban green spaces.

Learn more about The Front and its many innovative projects at: http://orgs.syr.edu/aias/