Office for Socially Engaged Practice Awards Three Faculty Course Grants
2023-09-27 • Sam Fox School
Designs created using Mary Ruppert-Stroescu’s patented RECLEM process, which will play a significant role in her Fiber Manipulation course that was awarded a CityStudioSTL course grant. Photo: Patrick Lanaham. Model: Anna Bray of Mother Model Management.
The Sam Fox School’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice will continue its CityStudioSTL Faculty Course Grants this year. The grants provide faculty and students an opportunity to engage with the St. Louis community through a WashU course. This semester’s course grants have been awarded to AnnaMarie Bliss, Catalina Freixas, and Mary Ruppert-Stroescu.
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.
Students from the course Strange Behavior taught by Lecturer AnnaMarie Bliss on-site at the City Foundry.
Students in Segregation by Design, a course taught by Associate Professor Catalina Freixas, on a site visit with SLACO representatives.
About the Office for Socially Engaged Practice
The Sam Fox School’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice is a hub and a resource for collaborative, engaged practices in art, architecture, and design. The office brings WashU faculty and students together to work with communities in St. Louis and around the world.