Description & Mission of the Center
The Center builds on and expands an organizational structure that served as the formal outreach arm of the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA) since 1998. This organization, the Community Planning and Design Workshop (CPDW), transformed into the Community Outreach Partnership Planning and Design Center (the Center) with the award of the Community Futures Demonstration Project in 2003. The capacity of the Center is demonstrated by two main bodies of experience: 1) the remarkable outreach record achieved by the CPDW during its five-year history, and, 2) the experience and production of the principal staff members from CAPLA that will lead the COPPDC.
In 1991, Corky Poster, the Director of the Community Futures Demonstration Project, was appointed as a community outreach Associate Professor at the University of Arizona with joint appointments in the then-College of Architecture and the College of Agriculture (Cooperative Extension). Starting in 1991, working in cooperation with the Drachman Institute, Poster coordinated a range of community outreach efforts in planning and design that substantially impacted the communities throughout the State. Utilizing the organizational network of Cooperative Extension combined with the creative energy of many skilled and energetic architecture students, Poster executed a wide range of housing and community development projects.
In 1998, after the appointment of Richard Eribes as the new Dean of CAPLA, the previous single-faculty/student outreach effort transformed into the Community Planning and Design Workshop (CPDW), with Professor Poster as the Director. This new structure significantly broadened the involvement of the College faculty and students and took advantage of the additions of the Schools of Landscape Architecture and Planning to the College of Architecture, creating a new interdisciplinary College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA). A community and professional advisory committee was developed for the CPDW and a formal annual project intake process was put into place.
Since 1998, an average of 11 faculty and 40 students per year have participated in the community outreach work of the CPDW, now “the Center”, with a modest annual cash budget of $38,000 plus the in-kind contribution of many times that amount by CAPLA faculty and students. Projects are accomplished through a variety of mechanisms:
- Single-discipline or interdisciplinary design teams in studios or other academic classes for academic credit;
- Students paid on an hourly basis with an in-kind faculty advisor, during the year or the summer;
- Students paid on one-time project stipend basis with an in-kind faculty advisor;
- Students undertaking community projects as part of a 5th year undergraduate Architecture capstone project or a Masters Report in Architecture, Planning or Landscape Architecture;
- Contract agreements with agencies to provide community outreach design and planning technical assistance.
Between 1998 and 2003, the CPDW completed 93 architecture, planning and landscape architecture projects of substantial impact, involving 25 different faculty members and more than 200 different students. A complete list of CPDW projects, 1998 – 2003 are included in the Drachman Institute web site with sample covers and tables of content of a range of projects from 1991-2003.
The mission of the Community Outreach Partnership Planning & Design Center, as a component of the Drachman Institute, is to provide planning and design services in partnership with neighborhoods and communities. These services focus on the proposition that housing is the building block of neighborhoods and neighborhoods are the building blocks of communities. The Center therefore targets the development of demographically diverse neighborhoods, rich in environmental amenities and built from good-quality, well-designed, regionally-appropriate housing and landscape that conserves land, energy, and water. The Center engages our students, our staff, our faculty, and our citizens in a collaborative, research-based outreach enterprise to make our communities healthier, safer, more equitable and more beautiful places to live.
The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under the Grant Number COPAZ-03-011 with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of University Partnerships. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government.