Teaching

TEACHING
		GCCDS is beginning a formal intern training program consisting of a one-year Certificate in Public Design, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2010. Interested applicants should be graduates of an accredited professional degree program in architecture, planning or landscape architecture. The interns will work side-by-side with the studio’s experienced full-time design staff. In addition to working on projects, they will complete six courses for a total of 18 credits. The interns will be paid a modest salary and full benefits to meet their living expenses. At the end of their year, the interns will earn a Certificate in Public Design from Mississippi State University.
		During the second half of the spring semester in 2010, five graduate architecture students from the University of Minnesota’s College of Design joined the GCCDS for an 8-week comprehensive studio focused on community design practice at the neighborhood scale. The students worked on streetscape improvement design proposals for the close-knit community of Soria City, in Gulfport. During the course of the studio, the students worked in collaboration with local neighborhood leaders, church leaders, the Gulfport police, the City administration, and visiting law students at the Mississippi Center for Justice, in addition to working one-on-one with Soria City residents. Through a partnership with a Soria City business owner, the students were able to use a vacant storefront in the neighborhood for studio workspace for the duration of the semester, which proved to be beneficial for both the students and residents of the community.
		For the 2009 resident spring studio, the GCCDS led a design/build project in East Biloxi. In collaboration with GCCDS staff, students designed and constructed a house for Mary Pat and Tony, a local couple rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Six students enrolled in the course, from three schools: Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee, and the Boston Architectural College. The students also came together for a weekly evening seminar addressing various issues involving ethics in design and architecture.
		For an intense eight-week period during the second half of the 2009 spring semester, GCCDS welcomed five graduate students in the University of Minnesota's College of Design. These students joined the 2009 Biloxi Studio students for weekly seminars and on-site construction days, but their focus was on a mixed use multi-unit project in collaboration with the Biloxi Housing Authority. The project challenged students to take into account the shifting commercial and residential needs of East Biloxi as well as FEMA flood elevation requirements. The Design Studio and the Housing Authority are currently looking into taking the resulting proposal to construction.
		Six students from Mississippi State University and the University of Minnesota spent spring semester 2008 involved in three distinct courses: a planning studio, led by Christine Gaspar and joined by a graduate-level long-distance class at MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning; a residential design studio, including on-site construction days, led by David Perkes; and a seminar on ethics in design, which integrated the students with Design Studio staff.
		The Bayou Planning Studio was a collaboration between the resident 2008 Biloxi Studio and a visiting graduate-level class at MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Over the course of the spring semester, the Planning Studio, led by GCCDS' Christine Gaspar, created a carefully considered mosaic of three well-defined land uses: preserved wetlands connected to the Gulf which would be large enough and have enough continuity to be ecologically complete; programmed public space such as walking trails, playgrounds, and meeting places that would create a connected landscape that would be well-used and well-loved by the community; and complete neighborhoods of elevated buildings taking full advantage of the nearby open space. The project culminated in a joint community presentation.
		For spring semester 2007, GCCDS' first resident studio, eleven students from five schools developed two main studio projects, an accessory rental unit and a mixed use project. The students took both projects into the construction document phase in preparation for building. In addition to the two housing projects, the studio worked on three design/build projects of varying scale over the course of the semester, learning typical construction practices firsthand.
		A summer course through Design Corps brought together twelve architecture students from different universities to work in Biloxi, designing and building a house for Patty. The GCCDS worked with Patty ahead of time to produce and permit drawings that left design opportunities for the students. Brad Guy from the Hamer Center at Penn State University, Bryan Bell from Design Corps, and Sergio Palleroni from the University of Texas at Austin co-taught the class. The group of students and faculty worked for six weeks in the heat of the Mississippi summer, building and designing the house in collaboration with Patty. Upon the summer program's completion, Design Studio and Coordination Center staff took over the project. Patty's house was LEED certified in April 2009, the first single-family residence in Mississippi to earn the rating.
		During the Fall 2006 semester an upper level studio of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and geography students from Penn State University worked on a comprehensive study of East Biloxi. They began the semester with a comparative analysis of three recently created plans for the future of the city, then paid a weeklong visit to Biloxi to gather additional information. During a second trip to Biloxi they presented their ideas to the community and gathered feedback. The final reviews were held at Penn State with David Perkes visiting from Biloxi, and were followed by the production of a comprehensive report entitled The Citizen's Guide to Biloxi, through a collaborative effort with Penn State’s Hamer Center for Community Design, which you can view here as a pdf.