Designs preserve the history of Black community in Tennessee

So the Appalachian Futures Lab is an outreach and engagement program in the School of Architecture. The idea is to get students out of the building and into communities and working with real people on real projects. This semester, we're working down in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a historic African American community to work on a memorial classroom project that's sort of looking back to the history of the neighborhood, which has been marginalized and sort of erased in the community, historically Black community, as well as looking ahead to educational and other kinds of outreach activities. Been here a couple of days ago. So thank you for leading things off. So today, the Virginia Tech students are sharing the initial design work that they've done since they visited our campus and met with people in person. So this is the first moment of reveal where the different teams of students will show us the ideas that they have developed from those initial conversations. We have four people here from our community. And this is for them to give feedback, for them to share their impressions to say what they like and what is capturing their wishes and what is less effective in doing so. What I like was the design that was sort of a circle. And I like the circle because It's open. And with it be open, it would be able for people to come in and sit down where the professors could have a class if they like. I was looking at the design you have in there, and the colors are so pretty. And I really like the fact that the color really stands out. The really unique thing about the Study Abroad at Home is that we've been able to actually show our designs and our work to people that it'll actually affect once it gets filled. So we've been able to get real feedback from real people and clients. And going forward, when I graduate, now I know what to do in that situation. The idea behind this particular project and the collaboration with The University of the South. It's a university reckoning with these things down there. At every step of the way, it's both for the community, but also the students are getting sort of robust educational opportunities. So it's really meant to be mutually beneficial. The community gets access to energetic, young, creative minds. And those minds get sort of real experience and get a chance to do work that matters to them.