Office for Socially Engaged Practice Awards Three Faculty Course Grants
2023-09-27 • Sam Fox School
Lecturer AnnaMarie Bliss has developed a new seminar course, Strange Behavior. This course will explore how humans interact with space through research, owner tours, user group evaluations, and post-occupancy evaluations. Through this, students will examine how human use should affect how spaces are designed. The course will meet with a number of community partners around St. Louis including City Foundry STL, Sk8 Liborious, New Roots Urban Farm, City Museum, and The Magic House.
Associate Professor Catalina Freixas’s longstanding course, Segregation by Design, will examine the causes and consequences of American Apartheid and racial residential segregation in metropolitan St. Louis through the lens of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. The course will culminate in a findings report that suggests potential mitigation strategies. Students will learn to evaluate and analyze policy and planning throughout the neighborhood’s history to understand the physical manifestation of segregation during growth and decline. This semester, the course’s primary collaborator is the St. Louis Association of Community Organization.
Associate Professor Mary Ruppert-Stroescu’s course grant will go towards her seminar, Fiber Manipulation, which will explore fiber techniques and their application in design and art. The course will collaborate with fashion designer Brandin Vaughn and executives at the Stars Design Group, a St. Louis based fashion corporation. The methods and resources of RECLEM, a patented process to help clothing manufacturers create new apparel from recycled fabric, will play a significant role in the course. Students will create a collection of clothing and accessories to be presented at Fashion in the Gallery as part of WashU’s Parent & Family Weekend, October 27-29.