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St. Louis, which housed close to one million people in 1950, now is home to only 300,000. A big question that planners and designers have been struggling with -- not just in St. Louis, but in other major cities around the country -- is what is the best way to use that vacant land?
More than a dozen School of Architecture students are getting a chance to help answer that question while gaining hands-on design and planning experience in a central area of the city of St. Louis. The 15 master's level students are participating in a studio being team taught by Gyo Obata, chair of the architectural firm Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum Inc. and the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor, and Eric Mumford, assistant professor in the architecture school.
The studio focuses on the part of St. Louis known as JeffVander-Lou, which is bounded by St. Louis Avenue on the north, Delmar Avenue on the south, Jefferson Avenue on the east and Grand Boulevard on the west.
"It's immediately northeast of Grand Center, where there are many empty buildings and lots," Mumford said. "Some areas are almost all vacant buildings and lots; elsewhere there are some occupied residences or commercial establishments, but it's an area with many problems."
Coincidentally, the neighborhood also is the focus of a Danforth Foundation community reinvigoration initiative. That initiative was sparked by the new Vashon vocational high school campus at Cass and Garrison avenues. The JeffVanderLou area also has many churches, which have formed the backbone of the neighborhood program. Most of the meetings have been held at the True Light Baptist Church, on Glasgow and Cool Papa Bell streets.
Although the studio is separate from the Danforth initiative, the students have been welcome at that group's regular meetings and have been able to collect information about the residents' priorities and needs. Students worked to take into account the various social and even political views and needs of the residents before they even began thinking about design, Mumford said. Design classes more typically focus on design in a sort of vacuum, he noted, without considering any sociological issues.
"The students definitely benefited from the feedback from the neighborhood," Mumford said. "They are learning not only to design ways to use now-vacant buildings to attract people back to the city center; they learn to deal with the human side of design. This class has illustrated to the students that design matters in addressing complex urban problems."
Said Obata: "The students have spent a lot of time observing and understanding the present conditions. They started out with the macro view, designing a whole community; then they broke the total area into five units, and each student group studied one area, such as what makes urban housing attractive, which community centers and other institutions are important, as well as what kind of businesses would thrive in these areas and how to design them to the best advantage."
This is the first time Obata, who received the school's Dis-tinguished Alumni Award, has taught here since he graduated in 1945. "We are very honored that Gyo accepted our invitation to come teach our students," said Dean Cynthia Weese. "This studio reinforces the School of Archi-tecture's interest in the American city -- particularly in the city of St. Louis -- on both a theoretical and practical level. Many of our faculty are doing research into cities, and I believe it is important, as the only school of architecture in St. Louis, that we contribute suggestions for solutions to urban problems."
Weese noted that a second alumnus and recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, Michael Willis (BA '73, MA '76), is a consultant to the urban design firm hired by the Danforth Foundation initiative.
The studio is part of the joint Washington University/University of Illinois-Chicago Urban Design program, which has been funded by the Graham Foundation. The collaborative program works to enrich understanding of complex and diverse urban issues through intellectual and design interchanges between faculty and students at both schools. The Graham Foundation is interested in linking Midwest schools to help develop a culture of Midwestern architecture.
