SFI9 PANEL II

COMMUNITY BASED LEARNING

Architectural education has long embraced hands-on application of academic education through design/build studio courses, but the last 5 years have seen a significant increase in the number of programs that integrate community engagement into the design/build format. Ideally, such courses enable students to develop relationships with community members through which physical projects are developed and constructed (hence ‘community-based learning’ and not simply ‘service-learning’). In reality, such projects fall along a continuum, ranging from those designed with a community in mind, to those designed with and within a community. This panel is a collective of students and former students who have been invited to describe the projects in which they were involved, but also to reflect on the processes of design and engagement and the particular challenges presented by the academic environment.

Simon Mance

With an early introduction to a lifestyle of social awareness while growing up in the city of Milwaukee, my education continues to push me to become an architect with a social conscience.  In 2008 I received a Masters in Architecture from the University of Kansas where I was a part of Studio 804.  Studio 804 is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit and a comprehensive design and construction experience for students in their last year of architecture school.  I currently reside in Washington, D.C. working with KCCT Architects and enjoy volunteering with Architecture in the Schools, an architectural education program for students in the DC area.  With the “architecture for all” attitude I am working on creating a relationship with the WorkingBoysCenter in Quito, Ecuador to establish a designing and building experience for volunteers with the help of private funds and donations.      

 Benje Feehan is currently working as Project Coordinator for the buildingcommunityWORKSHOP’s Congo Street Initiative. A New Zealand-born native, he has lived, worked and studied in Australia, Boston and Texas respectively. While traveling through the States he met his wife Sarah, and what was meant to be a 6 week trip has turned into a ten year marriage, and as a result, Benje is now the father of an incredible little boy, Levi.

After meeting the bcWORKSHOP’s founder in a design/build studio at UTA SOA and finding a shared philosophy that architecture has the ability to be a tool of empowerment and activism, Benje postponed his graduation timeline to fully engage in the proposed work on Congo. Benje brings ten years of carpentry/construction experience and a deep cultural diversity to his design and built works. He believes that the power of memory and experience can strongly drive the design process as well as the act of constructing such works, and that a partner ship must exist between the Architect, Tradesman and Client - the strength of which will bring a deeper soul to the design, and strengthen the experiential memories, both past and present, of the client.

“ I see the home as the gallery of life, the space in which all our most beautiful and heartbreaking moments happen”

How do we allow our design to cradle these moments?

How do we insure that these walls stand a hundred years?

How do we insure that all are included in this life?

How do we connect all this back to the earth?

Where is our sense of place?

Brad Deal is a hands-on design professional whose career has centered around design/build projects that emphasize social, economic, and environmental responsibility. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Louisiana Tech University in 2003, Interned in Los Angeles, CA and spent 2 years managing multifamily residential projects in Houston, TX prior to his graduate school experience at the University of Texas at Austin from 2005-2007. There he was a central figure in the initiation of the Alley Flat Initiative, an ongoing program that integrates sustainable, infill, affordable housing units into the existing urban fabric of the minority communities of East Austin, TX. Currently Brad works for KRDB, an award winning design/build office, managing the design and construction of an affordable net zero energy urban infill community. 

 Dan Stanislaw 

 I am an M.Arch student at North Carolina State University with a strong interest in alternative modes of practice, particularly design-build with a socially and environmentally sustainable disposition.  Having spent my formative years in rural New Jersey working in residential construction and volunteering to build community structures, I have grown to appreciate the impact that design has on the built environment, as well as on our experience with nature.  I believe that architects can have a major role in making the benefits and beauty of good design accessible to every rung of the social ladder.  In the summer of 2008, I participated in the DesignCorps summer studio in New Orleans with 5 other students.  We immersed ourselves in a community-based design-build process that resulted in the Freret Bus Shelter.  After graduating, I plan to stay hands-on and socially conscious in practice.