Preserving a historic Tennessee community

We're displaying all the work we did last semester for the Appalachian Futures Lab in collaboration with VCU, and Sewanee University, and with the Roberson Project. This is just really displaying all of our collective effort here at Virginia Tech. Collaborating with another university I was really nice because you're getting to know people outside of your own field. We worked with interior design students at VCU, so they had a different approach to the way we kind of took on the project. It was like the first time I've gotten, like, real world practice about collaborating. Because, you might be partnered with other architecture firms that are not near you. So, communication is really key in how you do that. I think you could definitely see how close we've become with the community for our studio and the VCU studio. It was just a really rewarding experience, and there's just a lot of joy at the end. We were really focused on making sure that the St. Mark community and Sewanee felt like they were heard. One of the most important things was, obviously, having a place where they could tell their stories and their histories. But, they also wanted it to be a place where learning can happen. So, we sort of started it with the memorial classroom in mind. We call it the St. Mark's Grove. It's kind of divided up into what could be used as a classroom for people to lecture at, or is a reflecting space for one of the community members to come and see their names because we've got those down on pieces of glass and on a memorial wall on the site. So, it's really about being able to use that space in the community's way, also inviting the university to bring people over to the site and get to know a little bit better about what's in their area. I think this has made me a better architect because now I know how to design for our community and really listen to what they need and what they want. I just wanted to, like, put a smile on their face because they were such great people and they welcomed us with open arms. I feel really proud about this project, and I think that everybody else involved can say the same. This was a very communal project. Like, we had distances, great distances between everyone. but we really came together and we pushed through and figured it out together.