The Office for Socially Engaged Practice is a hub and a resource for collaborative, engaged practices in art, architecture, and design.
Construction of Peace Park Pavilion by Wyly Brown's Materials for Memory course.
Carol Green / Washington University
The office brings students, faculty, and staff to work together with communities in St. Louis and around the world. They support the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ dedication to building relationships with community groups, organizations, and citizens to make the St. Louis region a more vibrant and equitable place.
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Spectroplexus, 2017. Lambert Airport, St. Louis, Terminal 2. Led by Lavender Tessmer and Jason Foster Butz.
From long-standing programs like the University City Public Art Series and the Alberti Program, to newer initiatives like CityStudioSTL, the office facilitates collaborative partnerships to support knowledgebuilding, learning experiences, education, outreach, and innovation in communitybased art and design.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CITYSTUDIOSTL
page 4
STUDIOS & SEMINARS
page 6
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
page 8
ONGOING PROGRAMS
page 10
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CITYSTUDIOSTL
Launched in 2011, CityStudioSTL is a Sam Fox School initiative led by the Office for Socially Engaged Practice, which brings students, faculty, community partners, and industry leaders together to conceive, plan, design, and construct publicminded projects in the St. Louis region.
Student Fellowships
The CityStudioSTL Fellowship provides funded opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design to work with a St. Louis-based firm to address socially engaged design challenges in the St. Louis region. Participating students work fulltime over a 12-week period on civic or pro bono projects in the St. Louis region with their host firm, gaining valuable experience, mentorship, and skills.
20 student fellowships funded since 2014
CityStudioSTL is generously supported by Gina and Bill Wischmeyer, AB ’69/ MArch ’71.
CITYSTUDIOSTL SUPPORTS:
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Faculty Course & Studio Grants
These community-engaged teaching grants provide funding and support services for collaborative curricular initiatives with the St. Louis community. Learn more about how we support socially engaged courses on page 6.
Student Experiences
Student Awards
Student Awards provide support and funding for full-time undergraduate or graduate students to continue a project idea from a curricular experience with a community partner. The awards enable partnerships cultivated in the classroom to come to fruition beyond the limits of the semester.
15 student awards funded since 2014
← Selected as a CityStudioSTL fellow, Monica Mulica, MArch ’23, spent 12 weeks working with PGAV Planners and Laclede’s Landing Riverfront District to reimagine an alley in St. Louis’ oldest neighborhood. The project culminated in a community-informed proposal to transform the alley into a vibrant, culturally significant area that expresses its history, enriches the pedestrian experience, and elevates the urban fabric.
Experiencing the city and region of St. Louis is essential. CityStudioSTL develops experiences for students to discover, engage, and explore. Throughout the year, the Office for Socially Engaged Practice coordinates and encourages active participation in studentled discussions, design competitions, and local tours and events with organizations and citizens in the region.
Community Guest Small Grants
Community Guests Small Grants provide an honorarium to community members to bring their knowledge and experience to courses and studios at the Sam Fox School. These funds encourage more equitable engagement with the St. Louis community and bring perspectives from community leaders, those with lived experience, and local organizations into the classroom and studio.
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STUDIOS & SEMINARS
The Sam Fox School provides funding for curricular initiatives involving collaboration with organizations and individuals in the St. Louis community. The Office for Socially Engaged Practice assists with structuring these collaborations to be mutually beneficial.
BY THE NUMBERS
Over 170 socially engaged courses have run in connection with the Sam Fox School.
Over 70 unique faculty across WashU have taught or co-taught a socially engaged course or studio.
Over 2,000 students have enrolled in these courses since their initial offering.
Interdisciplinary Courses
The Sam Fox School has a number of interdisciplinary courses that enable collaboration in the classroom with disciplines including environmental studies, humanities, law, public health, and social work. Past collaborations include the Mellon Foundation Divided City Initiative, which spans courses in the humanities, architecture, and urban design. The Environmental Studies program and the Brown School of Social Work have been long partners of the Sustainability Exchange, coordinating practicum placements throughout WashU and St. Louis to work with community partners by putting concrete solutions in our region.
COURSE SPOTLIGHT
Community Design Sprints
The Community Design Sprints course provides an opportunity for students to work on a tangible design problem for a small-scale yet pressing St. Louis community need. Students advance their own knowledge of community engagement, facilitation, and design communication skills, while working in collaboration with a local partner.
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Minor in Creative Practice for Social Change
The minor in Creative Practice for Social Change provides undergraduate students with a deeper understanding of how to use creative practices in art, design, and architecture to address systemic economic, environmental, and social challenges. Students are challenged to think creatively across a broad spectrum to understand and create new systems and solutions, learn about the fundamental constraints of a challenge, and lead the process of change.
I think I’m a much more observant, considerate, and cautious designer having had conversations about socially engaged practice. The minor is about really understanding what your role is as a designer in community partnerships, understanding the work you take on, and your position in it. I think those kinds of conversations don’t happen enough
recognition of the ways we can do better.
—Eve Wallack
'20 in Communication Design Intern, Office for Socially Engaged Practice
in general. This minor has sparked for me the
Carol Green / Washington University 7
BFA
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships between the Sam Fox School and St. Louis community have supported and amplified existing initiatives and expanded on new forms of knowledge through working together.
These partnerships offer a collaborative opportunity to play important roles in addressing complex, intersectional issues and advance communitydriven ideas. Faculty and students engage, listen, and take part in dialogues with community partners beyond campus boundaries, which in turn informs and inspires the design process and new ways of thinking and doing.
Peace Park →
Assistant Professor Wyly Brown led a course to design a pavilion for Peace Park, an ongoing community-led and informed initiative in the College Hill neighborhood. Students experienced working with a real client—the College Hill community—and participated in building the woven structure, itself a nod to grassroots movements. The park’s creation is a long-term partnership across community organizations, municipal agencies, and WashU faculty and students from art, architecture, design, social work, environmental studies, and engineering.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Sam Fox School has partnered with over 160 community organizations.
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← Sumner StudioLab
The Sumner StudioLab brings together students from Sumner High School and WashU, along with residents from the Ville neighborhood, to discuss and design Sumner’s historic legacies and promising futures through curriculum, public workshops, graduate fellowships, and internships. This place-based program enables a robust partnership with local leaders. The StudioLab is co-led by the Center for Humanities and supported by the Divided City, a Mellon Foundation-funded urban humanities initiative.
Carol Green / Washington University
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ONGOING PROGRAMS
The school maintains several ongoing publicfacing programs, including the Pulitzer Endowment, the Alberti Program: Architecture for Young People, and the University City Public Art Series.
↓ Andres L. Hernandez and Amanda Williams worked with Sam Fox School students on a site-specific project to activate a vacant building in St. Louis’ Grand Center neighborhood through a series of community-based interventions and engagements.
Pulitzer Endowment
Established by Emily Rauh Pulitzer, the endowment supports joint collaborative projects between the Sam Fox School and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation that enhance the creative life of St. Louis. Through this partnership, a variety of collaborative endeavors have emerged to bring socially engaged art practices, nationally acclaimed artists- and designers-in-residence, and public art programs to St. Louis.
The program launched in 2013 as PXSTL—which stands for Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Sam Fox School, and St. Louis—with the creation of a site-specific structure that functions as a venue for communitybased programming, while activating a vacant lot in the Grand
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Center neighborhood. In recent years, the program has hosted artists- and designers-in-residence for yearlong residencies working with St. Louis-based groups and organizations to focus their practice on current civic issues.
↑ Jordan Weber speaks at the opening of All Our Liberations, 2022, a public art project created during his artist residency, located in the recently renovated Spring Church in Grand Center.
↓ Internationally celebrated landscape architect and 2022-23 designer-inresidence Kotchakorn Voraakhom gathers students and faculty for a selfie following a panel discussion on climate change and design at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.
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Photos by Virginia Harold © Pulitzer Arts Foundation
The Alberti Program: Architecture for Young People
The Alberti Program offers young local scholars in elementary and middle school an inside look at the field of architecture and design through hands-on learning. Since its inception in 2008, the Alberti program has reached thousands of students throughout the region. The curriculum focuses on teaching architecture and design with an emphasis on sustainable environments while also supporting the growth of personal skills and confidence in young scholars. The program is led by Sam Fox School faculty, graduate students, and industry professionals from around the region.
The program is supported by PGAV Destinations and The Divided City.
University City Public Art Series
Initiated in 1986, the collaboration between the Sam Fox School and the Municipal Commission on Arts & Letters of University City— WashU’s neighbor to the north—is the longest-running partnership of its type in the U.S. This collaboration is a high honor for participating students, providing an opportunity to collaborate, propose, and install public art in University City while engaging with the social and civic responsibilities of being an artist.
More than 200 students, 18 professors, 4 deans, 2 chancellors, 60 commission members, and 2 mayors have collaborated on the series, producing almost 200 temporary public works.
Support for the University City Public Art Series is provided by the Marvin Levy Fund, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and the Municipal Commission on Arts & Letters of University City.
James Byard / Washington University
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→ Sarah Theis. A Play of Perception, 2013. Installed in Mooney Park, it was one of five works included in the 2013 University City Sculpture Series. Photo by James Byard / Washington University.
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