Fall 2017 CityStudioSTL Faculty Course Grants

The Sam Fox School awarded lecturer Micah Stanek a CityStudioSTL Faculty Course Grant to encourage community-engaged teaching in his spring 2018 course, Research in the Landscape: Methods and Practices.

Stanek’s proposal represents a mutually beneficial collaboration with the Enright Neighborhood Association and the Public Programs team at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, and builds on an existing set of relationships and projects. A jury of faculty and community engagement staff selected this proposal to receive up to $2,000 in support.

In this course, landscape architecture students will cultivate research methods that are essential to the field. Students will engage with a variety of research activities including archival research, textual and visual interpretation, on-site environmental analysis, and social survey.

The course grant funding will allow for collaboration with the Enright Neighbors, a group of residents on the 4500 block of Enright Avenue who have worked with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation to carefully stage the demolition of a vacant building, and are now seeking to create a butterfly garden on the 3,750-square-foot lot. Stanek has served as a design consultant for the project, connecting with residents to develop and implement a proposal—one that is part butterfly garden, part demolished house, and part oak savanna. Students will engage with the residents, as well as the neighborhood “land stewards” tasked with managing the site, to develop a final planting plan for native restoration efficacy and butterfly-human encounter, with the stewardship model at its center. Students may design test plots, engage with residents, and explore methods of marking.

CityStudioSTL supports a series of community engagement and outreach projects that bring together students in architecture, art, and design with partners in the city of St. Louis. It is generously supported by Gina and Bill Wischmeyer, BA69/MArch71.