Building with Communities

Goals

This VIP has three goals:  

Incorporate equity as an important sustainability objective in engineering, technology, and architecture design practices at Georgia Tech; 

Collaborate with partners from communities surrounding campus to advance equity, resilience, and sustainability in the built environment and in the city and region broadly 

Emphasize a place-based approach and anchor institution approach to learning and partnership formation through projects guided by partners’ vision

Sub-teams and projects continue, start, and stop depending on students’ interests and the state of the project. Sub-teams will be determined at the start of the new term; we will collaborate with various community partners, and each community partner project will have a sub-team dedicated to advancing its goals.

The VIP currently has three sub-teams, each with its own community partner and defined scope. The West Atlanta Watershed Alliance sub-team will continue the work of the WAWA Outdoor Classroom Project. WAWA is an internationally recognized, community-based organization advancing environmental justice, environmental education, and environmental stewardship in Atlanta’s historically Black neighborhoods. WAWA has partnered with Georgia Tech for nearly two decades to advance community-led, equity-centered environmental and community development work and support their vision for their Outdoor Activity Center to serve as an Environmental Education and Resiliency Hub.

The Cascade Springs Nature Conservancy sub-team will support three of CSNC’s priorities: the design and execution of an outdoor amphitheater at the conservancy; research focused on urban forests and CSNC’s status as Georgia’s largest urban forest; and the formation of a community advisory committee. CSNC is is Atlanta’s first Black-led conservancy, stewarding a 125-acre old-growth urban forest located in the Cascade Heights neighborhood. The preserve contains rare ecological and geological features—including artesian springs, a waterfall, diverse native species, and 250-million-year-old rock formations—and is the most forested property within the City of Atlanta, forming a core habitat within the Utoy Creek Watershed.

The Rural Communities Innovation Team will partner with the Henderson School Alumni Association and Trust. HSAAT is a Jackson, Georgia community-based organization redeveloping the buildings and property of the former Henderson School (75,000 square feet on 20 + acres) into a hub for K12 STEM education, workforce development, community health and wellness, entrepreneurship, and multigenerational education. This sub-team is focused on the design and execution of an intergenerational learning garden on the property of the former school; the development of social media strategy and campaigns that extend the organization’s reach into the Jackson community; and expanding the content and affordances of the HSAAT website.

To better understand the kind of partnerships that SCoRE stewards, take a look at SCoRE’s Principles for Engaging in Equitable Research Partnerships which feature partners such as WAWA and HSAAT: https://scre.research.gatech.edu/signature-partnerships.

Issues Involved or Addressed

Georgia Tech and its surrounding communities have been making major strides to advance equity as a key piece of creating a sustainable built environment – and sustainable and resilient communities overall. The Kendeda Building is at the forefront of this innovation. This VIP aims to push Georgia Tech to deepen and broaden its focus on equity as core to sustainability. Our research will explore equity in theory and practice. Our action will involve trying out new ideas about equity to see how they work in practice