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| 2009 shade structure. Above photos show (L-R) build process x2, salvaged material explorations, and a student who wasn't even in the class but was stoked to work with their hands. Not pictured is a "Priestley Panther Pride" plywood mural painted by students for the left side of the structure. |
In Spring 2009, Burke Rafter and I approached Priestley Charter School of Architecture and Construction about initiating their first design-build program. The 7 students of the Community Design Studio (CDS) created "favorite space" maps where students chose spaces that they enjoyed and unwrapped why they made such an impression. By layering systems operating within these environments, they created discussions as to how and why different actions and uses were interrelated. These maps expanded outwards, leading to analyzing of development issues around their environments, and eventually focused on their common environment: the school campus.
CDS identified problems around the school and surveyed the student population, coming to a concensus that their free-time during lunch was when many problems occured, and partially because there were no outdoor spaces to sit other than the ground. Also, they didn't feel as much pride in their school because the campus never stayed the same (they had already moved twice) and there werefew consistencies in their learning environment. This led to the design and build of a modular shade structure that could be easily brought along to the new campus in the back of a truck, with found concrete benches and other seating brought from unused nooks of the campus.
In Spring 2010, I worked with Patrick Rhodes' classes at Priestley to design and build a set of adaptive reuse shade structures for the parking lot which surrounded the school. LSU Landscape Architecture students had recently built modular seating for the sight, and the structures were adapted to be added to these, giving students an additional structural system to dissect (see above video).