The National Charrette Institute (NCI) is a nonprofit educational institution that is dedicated to using the Charrette planning process to create healthy community plans. A charrette is an intense, collaborative effort to solve a specific design or planning problem. The term "charrette," which means "cart," originated in the late nineteenth century at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where to be "en charrette" was to describe students who, when finishing competition drawings, would jump on the collection cart as it rolled away. In a modern charrette, interested citizens work along side design professionals to draw out their own vision for their community.
For a fact sheet on the Charrette process, please click here.
For more information on the National Charrette Institute, please visit their website at http://www.charretteinstitute.org