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Atlanta, GA | Posted: September 29, 2015
Summary Sentence:
Georgia Tech professors and students created 33 “Blueprints for Successful Communities” through a signature collaboration with the Georgia Conservancy.
Full Summary:
Georgia Tech professors and students created 33 “Blueprints for Successful Communities” – strategic plans based on architecture and city planning that address specific community concerns -- through a signature collaboration with the Georgia Conservancy.
Georgia Conservancy Award
ecoBenefeteIt was easy to feel Georgia Tech’s impact at the Georgia Conservancy’s eco Benefête last week.
As they celebrated the “Blueprints for Successful Communities” program -- a 20-year collaboration between Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture and the Georgia Conservancy -- professors and alumni reminisced while videos documenting the 33 Blueprints projects played in chronological order during the gala.
“This partnership with the Georgia Conservancy has provided a great opportunity for our students to engage in real world problems, in real communities,” said Dean Steve French.
The joint effort began in 1996, designed to help Georgia communities grow sustainably, develop economically and do so in ways that conserve natural resources. To date, the Blueprints for Successful Communities program has directly impacted 41 communities across Georgia.
The College of Architecture was honored with the Distinguished Conservationist Award in commemoration of this far-reaching achievement.
Three College of Architecture professors were also lauded as “Blueprint Legacy Professors”: Retired Associate Professor Emeritus Randy Roark, a founding member of the Blueprints for Successful Communities initiative; School of City & Regional Planning Professor of the Practice Mike Dobbins, who joined the Blueprints program in 1997; and School of Architecture Professor Emeritus Richard Dagenhart, founder of the Georgia Conservancy’s community design education program, “Good Urbanism 101.”
“This award represents the work of many faculty and students, especially Randy Roark, Richard Dagenhard and Mike Dobbins. We’re very proud to receive this recognition,” said Dean French.
They and other College of Architecture faculty have guided nearly 300 Georgia Tech students in Blueprints for Successful Communities studios.
These studio classes researched specific urban and community planning issues, resulting in a report of actionable recommendations. Working together with community leaders and industry partners, the College of Architecture community helped a diverse group of Georgia cities, towns and regions, from Covington, Lithonia and the Georgia Coast to Georgia Tech campus neighbors like Home Park, Berkeley Park and Westside.
“The communities we have served, mostly self-selected and many without the resources to engage in planning and design processes to guide their futures, have benefitted greatly. Often the Blueprints plans directly affect private and public action to implement the vision they have guided,” said Dobbins.
“The Blueprints projects, along with Good Urbanism 101 is all about public education,” Dagenhart said.
“So much of this has to do with Serve-Learn-Sustain. It’s sustainability research, it’s serving the populations that we deal with and it’s educating.” The Blueprints studio lessons learned in one community can be understood somewhere else, too, he said.
One of Dagenhart’s Blueprints studios examined the problem of storm water management in Atlanta. For “Storm Water is an Urban Design Problem, Urban Design is a Storm Water Problem,” his students studied four sites along the BeltLine that struggled with storm water flooding.
“I’ve used it for teaching and it turned into a way to advocate that the understanding of storm water in urban design is something everyone should know about. Dealing with storm water as a design issue when creating sustainable cities is a big, big deal,” he said.
School of City & Regional Planning Professor Emeritus, Larry Keating, points to the award-winning “Northern Georgia Coastal Sea Rise Effects” Blueprints studio as an example of how another natural occurrence, like rising sea water levels, can impact multiple Georgia communities.
“Among the extensive conclusions (of that studio) is the fact that 20,000 households and 50,000 people will be inundated, most in Chatham County. Job losses will exceed 6,950, one-half of Tybee Island will be submerged, 13 miles of I-95 and US 80 will be underwater as will rail lines, sections of the port and $3 Billion in structures – primarily residential,” he said.
The studio report recommended coastal communities take action on multiple fronts, stressing that action now can preserve options and minimize costly damage later, Keating said.
Another award-winning Blueprints studio focused on how the location of a school can influence community well-being, said Master of City & Regional Planning Program Director Michael Elliott.
“Elementary and secondary schools absorb almost 40% of all local government expenditures, yet are increasingly planned and managed independently of all other community resources,” Elliott said.
Once the heart of any community, schools still impact children and their families, as well as anyone who lives, works, plays or commutes within the surrounding area. The difference is, Elliott said, that modern schools, “often contribute significantly to traffic congestion and urban sprawl, while growing increasingly isolated from the communities that they serve.”
The “School Siting and Design” Blueprints studio examined four Georgia school districts (Decatur, DeKalb Country, Newton County and Macon/Bibb County) and explored how siting decisions influence school districts and their respective communities for years to come.
For a closer look at the Blueprints program, visit the Georgia Conservancy website, or stop by the College of Architecture.
