Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
The launch of a unique architecture design studio this semester in South Texas could mark the beginning of a permanent academic effort by the Texas A&M College of Architecture focusing on U.S.– Mexico border issues.
Though plans are still taking shape, the first border studio will likely focus on “designing new residences for a group of colonias residents living in flood zones," said Peter Lang, an associate professor of architecture who is leading the fourth-year course. "We would like to work with those communities and help them start a process of transferring into new housing."
This first effort, said Jorge Vanegas, dean of the college, is the beginning of what he envisions as a permanent design studio focused on the border.
"I want our students to be aware that many people in the world never have access to good architecture and urban planning," said Vanegas. With a studio in this region, he continued, “we can roll up our sleeves, ask colonia residents about their communities, then listen and respond, working with them to create something of transformational societal value. That's the reality I want to see."
The college's Center for Housing and Urban Development can assist in the effort, said Vanegas, who is also the center director.
"We have an advance beachhead called CHUD," he said, referring to the center’s established presence across the Texas borderland. "The center has three regional offices, 40 community centers and 4,000 local partners."
CHUD works closely with colonia residents to provide them access to educational services, job referrals, health and human services, and economic and community development assistance.
As part of the inaugural border studio, Lang will direct student research and design projects related to colonias, which are impoverished, unincorporated and relatively undeveloped villages near population centers on the U.S. side of the border. Many homes in colonias lack basic necessities such as potable water, electricity and sewer systems.
Lang said his students will tour the borderland with faculty from London Metropolitan University.
"They have pioneered a new masters program in rapid growth and scarce resources," he said. "They're coming with us to do site surveying and gather information about possibly starting a program with our college on border issues."
As a prelude to their involvement in the border area later this semester, Lang said his students are pursuing team research projects focused on other border areas in the world.
The new border studio will also provide a unique venue for teaching students about social entrepreneurship; a practice that Vanegas says could benefit the region.
"When you have a community that is lacking resources, the power of social entrepreneurship can be used to generate new businesses and create wealth to help communities solve their own problems," he said. "Whereas economic entrepreneurship benefits a company, social entrepreneurship utilizes the same principles of finding resources, setting up processes and developing mechanisms that affect social change."
A social entrepreneur, he said, is some one that creates an enterprise that transforms people's lives and their communities. Wealth generated by such projects, he said, is reinvested in the community, creating economic development that improves people's lives through their own means, inventiveness and innovation."
The border studio, he said can be a catalyst for such positive change.
- Posted: Jan. 28, 2010-
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