The University Record, February 20, 1996
CAUP students blend education with practice in Detroit
By Joanne Nesbit
News and Information Services
Dozens of students from the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) are blending education and practical experience while helping Detroit neighborhoods build bridges to the future.
“This is part of an effort to forge closer links between the talent-rich university and the economically distressed city,” says Robert Beckley, dean of the College.
Much of the College’s efforts in working with communities on economic redevelopment efforts on the city’s east side are aided by a $580,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—a grant U-M shares with Michigan State and Wayne State universities which established the Detroit Comm unity Outreach Partnership Center.
“The whole endeavor is building relationships between community groups and the University that likely will not fade in this century,” says Donald Softley, chairman of the coalition. “We’d be lost without the help of the students. Many of the neighborhood groups are so underfunded and understaffed that even two or three students make an enormous difference.”
The students, too, find the work very rewarding. “It’s great,” says Josh Sirefman, a graduate student in urban planning. “As a student I could not be getting more valuable experience anywhere in the country. It’s an extraordinary opportunity for me.” Sirefman is one of 10 CAUP students who have participated in the U-M’s Michigan Neighborhood AmeriCorps Program.
In another Detroit project, architecture students are helping with renovation of the historic Norris House, an 1873 residence built by noted Detroit businessman and Civil War veteran Philetus Walter Norris. Located near Mt. Elliott and the Davison freeway, the vacant property is on the National Register of Historic Places. Students are developing measured, scaled drawings of the existing house and how it can be renovated for use in the community. To that end, they also are developing plans for building an addition to the existing structure.
In addition, CAUP students are working with the coalition in the spring term to develop designs for new single-family houses utilizing computer models. The computer models will be used to test the energy efficiency of the proposed designs and new structures. This project is funded in part by a grant from the Michigan Campus Compact, which works to encourage educational institutions to incorporate community service learning activities into their course offerings.
“The students spend a lot of time in Detroit,” says Brian Carter, chair of CAUP’s architecture program. “This is more than going to Detroit once and then coming back to design something in splendid isolation.”
Urban planning and landscape architecture students have been working on a project to survey and redevelop Detroit’s Chandler Park. The students have interviewed youngsters from a nearby middle school about what they want and expect from the park and are working on design solutions that will better link the park with an adjacent public housing project.
“All in all,” says Ernest Burkeen, Detroit’s director of Parks and Recreation, “both the University and the city have been enriched by this growing relationship. The key to the relationship is the ingenuity and youthful vigor of the U-M students. They don’t think about why they can’t. They think about why they can.”
More than one bridge to the future is under construction. Bridges are being developed to connect the College and the city of Detroit, to connect community groups within the city and U-M students to areas and opportunities they might never have known.
“It’s a wonderful educational experience for the students,” says Robert Marans, chairman of the CAUP’s Urban and Regional Planning Program, “not to mention that we get to do som e good.”
