LISD students take aim and target the Crescent City: Career Center East provides university-style courses

Career Center East, and the Dale Jackson Career Center, were established to give students exposure to real-world professional opportunities. Thanks to this semester's project, that's exactly what students are getting.

The architecture program at CCE is set up to mirror a university architecture design studio, with a primary goal to prepare students for university programs and a career in the architecture profession. Christopher Carson, architecture instructor for the program, said students from these classes can go a multitude of routes into related trades and industry, construction, or other design fields. 

Who can forget the fall of 2005 when Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of New Orleans? This semester, students in the second and third year classes are working on projects focused around the Crescent City.

As an introductory project, the Advanced Architecture Studio - second-year students - developed housing solutions for the Lower Ninth Ward, which saw more devastation than anywhere else in the city. The effects of Katrina are still seen today as residents struggle to rebuild the neighborhood. The class has been tasked to develop design ideas for a barge house on the Mississippi River, Carson said.

The Practicum Studio - third-year students - designed public buildings located along the edges of water that surround New Orleans to provide community resources for the neighborhood. 

"Both of these projects will tie into needs identified by the Make it Right Foundation in their efforts to re-establish and improve the Lower Ninth Ward," Carson said.

Formal presentations of research, drawings and models were made to a jury of local architects. This presentation format provided students with opportunities to explain their solutions and get feedback directly from industry professionals.

"We are geared to provide students with experiences and resources that prepare them for either a post-high school trade/industry job or higher education in university programs," Carson said. "I tell my students, even if they don't go into architecture, they will leave my class as a creative problem solver, which is something every profession needs. I currently have 14 students working on the NOLA project across two classes."

Students learn a variety of knowledge and skills applicable to the architecture profession, Carson said. History, building construction, design abilities and thinking, creative problem solving, hand and digital drafting skills, model building, research, and public presentation are all covered in the classes.

"All projects are based on real-world problems and ideas so it's all practical application," he said. "One of my strategies though is to intentionally frame the problems up in unusual ways to get the students thinking creatively and unconventionally about architecture.  Great architecture comes from creative thinking and unconventional approaches."

This project will be completed at the end of the fall semester, Jan. 11.  Many of the students in Carson's classes learn by doing - hands-on, physical learning, manipulation of objects - so they respond well to the work in the architecture studios, he said.

So far, the students in the class have responded well to the New Orleans project.

"I plan to revisit this project again with different students and possibly under a different framework, perhaps using local neighborhoods," he said. "Unfortunately, the challenges faced by the Lower Ninth Ward are not going away any time soon."

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