Idea: ​“Recycle Or Die”

Among the dreamers building a cardboard Model City to launch the Arts & Ideas festival were two women who didn’t fit the demographic. They worked from blueprints that were 55 years old.

Mikki and Betsy Ratner (left and right in photo) joined the kids constructing their visions of ideal buildings at an event called ​“Box City,” one of the family-geared events that took place during the opening weekend of the 15th annual festival.

The Ratners built a model house from blueprints drawn up by Arthur ​“Art” Ratner, Mikki’s son and Betsy’s late husband.

Art came up with the idea for ​“Box City” when it premiered at last year’s festival. Then he died last August at age 60. (Click here for Ratner’s obituary in the Independent.) The founder of Ratner Architects, Art Ratner helped design buildings in and around New Haven for 30 years, with an emphasis on ​“green” building and sustainability.

Art’s father was also an architect. Inspired by his dad’s work, at age 6 Art produced a drawing of a house with windows on nearly every available surface, and with curtains on every window. Mikki gave that drawing to her daughter-in-law on the day of Art and Betsy’s wedding.

Mikki made sure to come celebrate her son’s life and ideas this past weekend.

“Today, [Betsy] asked me, ​‘What should we do today?” Mikki said. ​“And I said, ​‘We better go build that house.’”

Aside from the windows, the Ratner house also featured the admonition, ​“Recycle or Die,” which, according to Mikki, was one of her son’s favorite sayings.

“Well, I don’t think he said, ​‘or Die,’” Betsy interrupted. ​“But he certainly talked a lot about recycling and sustainability.”

It was partly that passion for environmentally-friendly development that inspired Art’s idea for Box City, according to Betsy. He wanted to introduce kids to some basic ideas about urban planning and architecture — but he also wanted to keep things fun.

Among the novice urban planners was Jonah Marks (pictured), whose skyscrapers dominated the growing mock-city skyline. There was also Katie Morrissey, who built a gynasium with a trampoline and gymnastics bars — even though, as Katie confessed, ​“I’m not old enough to swing from the bars at gymnastics class.” 

Bringing a bit more experience to the table was John Good, a newly-minted Yale graduate with a degree in environmental studies, who constructed his vision for the food co-op that’s planned for the ground floor of 360 State.

“I’m not sure how many of the kids payed attention when [the Arts and Ideas staffers] started talking about urbanism,” Good said. ​“But this is a great venue to get kids to start thinking about the different parts that make up a city.”

Prior to construction, John, Jonah and Katie obtained ​“building permits” from Arts and Ideas staffers, entitling them to construction materials — paper clips, pipe cleaners, foam paper, cardboard boxes — and a plot for their buildings on one of the nine painted wooden tables (reminiscent of New Haven’s nine wards) inside the lobby of 900 Chapel St.

Doling out the cardboard boxes was Anstress Farwell (at left in photo with Jonah Marks), president of the New Haven Urban Design League, who was also on hand to interview the young architects and to point out some principles of urban planning that they had, knowingly or not, incorporated into their designs.

“The kids built tons of animal shelters, lots of hospitals — not many schools,” Farwell noted. ​“But a lot of them understood that you also need things like recycling and factories. Now, the plan for the city didn’t develop in any organized way — it was really helter-skelter. But that’s somewhat like everyday life, like real urban planning.”

Farwell was particularly impressed with some of the most creative design plans. ​“Some people were definitely thinking outside the box,” she said with a smile.