Small Center selects 2021-22 Design/Build and Visioning Community Partners

Over the coming school year, Tulane architecture students and faculty will partner to design and build an outdoor kitchen classroom for community cooking and plant medicine classes, as well as a welcome space visioning plan for young people who have after having suffered homelessness and trafficking are moving toward a new positive chapter in their lives.

The two projects are part of an annual program focused on providing design services to Orleans Parish-based nonprofits and is led by the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design (Small Center) at the Tulane School of Architecture.

“After the challenges of the last year, I and the Small Center team are thankful we will be able to work in person with our partners to realize their project aspirations” said Ann Yoachim, professor of practice at Tulane School of Architecture and Director of the Small Center.

Community partners selected for the 2021-2022 academic year are Sugar Roots Farm and Covenant House. Along with a jury of design professionals, past partners, and funders, Small Center facilitated an intensive review of 16 applications this past spring from nonprofits that work in a variety of sectors, such as environmental conservation, agriculture, cultural preservation, and youth empowerment.

Sugar Roots Farm is a non-profit organization located in Lower Coast, Algiers.  Their mission is to provide community with the skills and resources needed to grow nourishing, fresh food. Using an ecological model, Sugar Roots adapts farming practices to the gulf south climate to build food sovereignty and community resilience. A variety of hands-on programs including field trips, Farmer for The Day, Outdoor Classroom Series, as well as gardening and composting classes are offered by sugar Roots on a sliding scale to the Southern Louisiana community.  Their programs strive to instill participants with the values of ecological stewardship, the compassionate treatment of farm animals, waste reduction, and environmentally sound growing practices. Sugar Roots Farm provides visitors with an example of an alternative to industrial farming in the lower south and hopes to inspire a new generation of food system activists, organizers, farmers, and chefs. Small Center will partner with Sugar Roots Farm to create the Community Kitchen and Learning Center for the Fall 2021 Design-Build project. This community learning and healing hub will be an outdoor classroom as well as a community gathering place for people of all ages to learn and prepare meals and plant medicines together. By employing the strategy of rainwater harvesting, a rainwater collection system will assist in watering gardens and washing of produce. This community kitchen space will assist sugar Roots Farm to provide sliding scale cooking classes and skill shares, and increase their capacity to wash, package, and preserve produce and plant medicine for mutual aid donations. In the space, the Sugar Roots team will also demonstrate cooking, canning, pickling, and medicine making practices. Sugar Roots’ kitchen pavilion parallels the Small Center values of operating as a common:  a place to exchange cultural and natural resources, knowledge, skills, stories, and connections.

“We are thrilled to partner with Tulane’s architecture students and staff as we commence our Community Kitchen design and build project. This kitchen will bring our farm’s educational programming “full circle” from soil, to seed, to fork. We look forward to hosting and learning from herbalists, cooks, and community members that harbor and share the rich plant medicine and culinary traditions of Southern Louisiana. We believe students under the leadership of TuSA’s staff will help us carry out our mission to build thriving communities with food and plant medicine production as the building block.”, said Brooke Bullock, Executive Director of Sugar Roots Farm.

For the 2021-2022 Visioning project, Small Center will work Covenant House on a reimagining of their Care Center Welcome Lobby. The Care Center lobby is central to the work and mission of Covenant House because of its role in welcoming young people taking their first steps into Covenant House.  For youth facing homelessness and trafficking, the decision to walk through our front door represents a new chapter in their lives.  Adaption of the Care Center lobby is crucial to changing needs and growing programs of Covenant House, and the goals for this space include a new front desk that prioritizes a trauma-informed experience for youth, a staff wellness lounge, repurpose of the education & vocation computer lab to house transitional outreach support, and provision of a welcoming, supportive environment according to the highest standards of trauma-informed care.

For 33 years, Covenant House New Orleans (CHNOLA) has served and advocated for youth and young families experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and exploitation. Emergency crisis intervention and safe shelter is provided to all youth ages 22 and under. CHNOLA offers extensive residential care and comprehensive services.  The overarching goal of CHNOLA’s professional services is to help youth achieve housing stability, heal from past trauma, tap into their innate resilience, and hone their skills to forge new pathways to independence and successful living.

“We are thrilled (to be selected) — and very much looking forward to working with the entire Small Center team on this exciting project. We know there are great things in store!” said Rachel Warne, Development and Communications Associate, Covenant House New Orleans.

Thanks to generous donors who contributed to the 15K for 15 Years Wave Starter Campaign, Small Center, Tulane School of Architecture faculty, and students can provide pro-bono design and planning services to these two New Orleans nonprofit and community-based organizations during the 2021–22 school year.