Last week, 10 youth from the Avondale area were able to end their summer by working alongside famous designer, Alex Gilliam. The goal was to design and construct a multi-functional structure for the Avondale Youth and Family Development Center.
Mr. Gilliam, founder and executive director of Public Workshop, has created unique engagement opportunities for youth across the country. The organization has redefined the way that youth participate as citizens and leaders in the design of their communities, and addressing the most pressing challenges in the world around them. "In the process, we are fundamentally re-imagining education by reshaping how and where learning occurs" said Mr. Gilliam.
green|spaces, a local nonprofit dedicated to advancing the sustainability of living, working, and building in the Chattanooga area, brought Mr. Gilliam and Public Workshop to Chattanooga from Philadelphia as part of a series of events called Learn by Design. The series included design-thinking workshops for three YFD summer camps, sent 15 teachers from Title I schools to Bright Spark's Summer Educator Workshop where they learned practical design-thinking skills that they can use in their classrooms, and recruited True School as the Keynote Speaker for Hamilton County's Innovate, Create, and Engage Summit.
Learn by Design will culminate with a large design-build project based on the youth's designs and will be built at the Chattanooga Public Library during the Tennessee Chapter of the American Institute of Architect's State Convention hosted in Chattanooga Aug. 24-26.
"While youth and adults from many neighborhoods in Chattanooga have been involved with various parts of Learn by Design, we wanted to focus the design-build workshop on Avondale's YFD center," said Michael Walton, executive director of green|spaces. "The city of Chattanooga has budgeted to start work the Center later this year so it was the perfect opportunity to provide youth with a place to build a confident voice and to participate in the design and construction of a new YFD center."
Gerald Perry, director for the Avondale YFD Center, said, "This was a great program for the youth of the Avondale YFD Center. They really enjoyed the aspect of using their creative mindset to build a project with wood and tools. This also allowed the youth to build positive communication skills and teamwork by trusting who they were working with. Just seeing how this program worked for these kids, it will be a great asset to bring back technical trade schools for our youth."
Learn by Design is one facet of green|spaces’ Empower program, which is focused on outreach and educational in low-income neighborhoods. “We see Learn by Design as an opportunity to bridge our programming of advancing the sustainability of buildings with the sustainability our of neighborhoods," said Mr. Walton. "Our goal is to inspire a new generation of thoughtful designers and builders.”
The series was made possible by the financial support from the Footprint Foundation, and tools and supplies from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga, Green's Eco Build and Design, New Blue Construction and Elder's Ace Hardware.