Urban Design

The controversial plan to turn Parole from a traffic-choked commercial suburb designed for driving into a livable town center designed for walking is slowly taking shape under the guidance of a citizens committee and county planners.The 15-member committee, made up of area residents and business people, was to meet last night to review the county design team's latest draft. The preliminary proposal calls for a tree-lined downtown in place of Parole Plaza that mixes stores, offices and residences; new shops and roads to serve existing commercial areas; and a new, open look for Annapolis Mall.

NATIONAL Midwest tornado kills 22 A tornado tore across western Kentucky and Indiana early yesterday, killing at least 22 people as it cut through a mobile home park and obliterated trailers and houses as residents slept. pg 3a WORLD Russian Communists seek role As Russia's Communists celebrate the 88th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution that brought Lenin to power and laid the foundation of the Soviet state, their party finds itself without reason to celebrate much else. pg 1a Marine dies in Iraq offensive A Marine was killed in an insurgent ambush yesterday when his patrol raided a house in the tense border town of Husaybah, the first American casualty in a Marine-led sweep through the area aimed at stopping foreign jihadists from infiltrating Iraq through the Syrian border.

Architects, engineers, developers and planners will soon spend a marathon weekend dreaming up ways to transform Parole from a congested area beset by suburban sprawl into an ideal place to live, work, shop,play and take a walk.The round-the-clock brainstorming session, scheduled for Nov. 15-17 at the old Garfinkel's store in Annapolis Mall, will produce design proposals for the 2.2-square-mile suburb justwest of Annapolis.Anne Arundel County and the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the American Institute of Architects are sponsoring the design effort to flesh out general land-use guidelines with specific plans and 3-D models.

Baltimore's Architectural Review Board will have its first meeting this week with the developer and designers of what might be Baltimore's next large office building, a proposed $97 million headquarters for the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration, but details of the design are being kept secret.The review panel is scheduled to meet tomorrow morning with the developers for the project, a group headed by the Rouse Co., Whiting Turner Contracting Co. and Daniel P. Henson III, and representatives of the project architect, Stubbins Associates Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.

In Dundalk, the trained eye of Peter Batchelor saw worldly treasures in giant rusted gears, magic in the name of Doolittle and an untapped celebration of a rich past to spring into a modern future. Batchelor, a noted professor of architecture and urban design, led an 11-member team of professionals that unveiled yesterday a stunning array of design dreams for the eastern Baltimore County community, which has languished in a rust belt of closed shipyards and downsized steel plants. "The consciousness of the great history of Dundalk was seemingly buried in the minds of the proud people who live here," said Batchelor.

Baltimore's Morris A. Mechanic Theatre will not be added to the city's landmark list, even though the city's preservation commission determined more than a year ago that it met the criteria for designation and recommended that it be listed. Baltimore's Planning Commission voted 7-0 yesterday to keep the shuttered theater at 1 W. Baltimore St. off the landmark list, after hearing testimony that its owners didn't want it to be added but do plan to preserve "80 to 90 percent" of its shell as part of a large redevelopment project.

Local architects are dusting off a 1990 plan that would create a large, parklike setting for the future Ravens football stadium. They plan to submit their suggestions to the team, whose current stadium plans have been criticized as run-of-the-mill.Designs for the stadium, which is following a rapid construction timetable, have elicited complaints from city planners and the Baltimore Architectural Review Board, who say the stadium plan is bland and offers little compatibility with neighboring Oriole Park.

Bozzuto & Associates and Copley Real Estate Advisors have begun construction of Beacon Place, a $17.8 million, 240-unit luxury rental project in the Kentlands development in Gaithersburg.Bozzuto is the sixth builder to become active in Kentlands, a "neo - traditional community" developed by Joseph Aflandre and Co. Venture equity funding was arranged by Paine-Webber Mortgage Finance, Inc. and provided by Chevy Chase F. S. B. of Bethesda.Niles, Bolton Associates of Atlanta was the architect, site planner and landscape designer.

Donald D. Duncan, a longtime city planner who was an instrumental behind-the-scenes player in Inner Harbor renewal, died of brain cancer Tuesday at his home in Sedona, Ariz. He was 73. In 1967, he and two other graduate students at Cornell University had devised a master's thesis that concentrated on Baltimore, including a revitalization focus centered on the Inner Harbor. He was immediately hired by Baltimore's legendary Planning Director Larry Reich when he graduated with a master's degree in urban planning in 1967.