About
From my work in the Syracuse community over the last four years by means of several student engagement projects I have become a passionate advocate for Public Interest Design. As a student in the Syracuse University School of Architecture I began applying design based thinking to real world community problems, quickly learning that it is an invaluable lesson for architects and designers to remove themselves from the studio and begin engaging in the community their work effects.
Applying the skills I have developed in the School of Architecture as well as in the Maxwell School of Citizenship equipped me to engage in the many community activities which defined my undergraduate career. In 2009 I was a co-founder of the Freedom by Design program, a design build program that aids disabled persons in the greater Syracuse community through the design, financing and construction of ramps, doorways and other small scale solutions in order to promote safety, dignity, and comfort in our clients’ lives. I helped to create the overall administrative structure of the program as well as set adamant standards for a high level of design in our projects. I fought for the legitimacy of the program, stressing the importance for architecture students to engage in scholarship in action, applying our design education to the real world through helping others. Today, the School of Architecture and its student organizations work on design build projects in many different capacities in part due to the catalytic nature of the Freedom by Design program.
Additionally, I was a co-founder of a similar design build program called The Front (www.aias.syr.edu/front), a student-driven urban revitalization effort focused on vacant storefront renovation and guerilla design projects in downtown Syracuse. While Freedom by Design demonstrated the importance of applying design to real world situations, The Front advocates for the importance of using design strategically and intelligently in order to spur development and prosper a community on a more grassroots level. To date this initiative has created three public installations throughout the downtown neighborhood and has occupied two vacant storefront spaces, transforming them into temporary exhibition and event spaces for students and community members alike.
Each of these projects were part of a conference called “Reclaiming Architecture,” www.aias.syr.edu/quad gathering over three hundred students and professionals from over 23 northeast schools to call for and discuss design activism and public interest design with several of architectures leading practitioners and theorists. I lead the two year planning and coordination initiative for the entire conference, organizing a team of over twenty students in the planning of a symposium, workshops, tours of the Near Westside neighborhood and the Center of Excellence, and other conference events. As the conference called for action students from across the region ended with the weekend with the construction of a temporary park on the Near Westside as a way of leaving Syracuse better than the way they found it. More information on the conference can be found at aias.syr.edu/quad.
My engagement in the greater Syracuse community has been an invaluable part of my undergraduate education and the duality between the two has determined the future focus of my graduate studies and professional practice. Public Interest Design has become a passion to me as a result of my work and experiences both in and out of the classroom.
I am currently serving as one of 18 “Engagement Fellows” at Syracuse University. As such, I will first continue my investment in the community by working at the Syracuse University Center for Engagement and Economic Development; focusing on implementing the Near Westside Initiative Neighborhood plan and the Connective Corridor. Second, I will expand the scale and scope of work at The Front, establishing a series of exhibitions, publications, forums, mixers, and conferences surrounding the issues of architecture and urbanism in Syracuse and the 21st century city. Finally, each of these initiatives will culminate in a collaborative M.Arch II research project. While exploring the participatory mode of architectural research-practice through CEED and The Front we will complete a close reading of texts surrounding “the right to the city” and “the contract of capitalism.”