Sam Fox School announces spring 2025 course grants

Three Sam Fox School faculty have been awarded CityStudioSTL Faculty Community Engagement Grants for spring 2025 courses through the school’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice. The grants support faculty teaching courses engaged with the St. Louis region through the study of community issues and contemporary topics, as well as courses that partner directly with community members and organizations.  

Associate Professor Catalina Freixas will once again teach Architecture for Non-Architects. The seminar introduces students with majors outside of the Sam Fox School to the design process through a community-engaged project. This foundational introductory architecture course uses a combination of readings, class discussions, and research to teach the design process. Students are introduced to the city and their project areas through site visits. The course challenges students to observe, interpret, and critically engage with the built environment and those that are affected by it in specific scalar and temporal contexts. The course is partnering with the City of Kirkwood and the Kirkwood Arts Commission to offer design concepts for Bisso Park.

Assistant Professor Kelley Van Dyck Murphy will teach the seminar Pathways: A Collaboration with Sumner High School, hosted at and funded through the Sumner StudioLab. WashU Students will collaborate and co-design an installation project with Sumner High School students. Students will hone their architectural expertise to develop strategies to connect design pedagogy to a high school learning environment through peer-to-peer learning. The class will consider how to integrate the design discipline with community engagement, creating pathways for architectural education. Together the students from Sumner and WashU will develop an architectural project focused on digital fabrication, pattern, and color that engages historic and contemporary compositions of the Ville neighborhood. The specific co-designed project will engage themes of temporality and permanence, cultural memory, and projected futures while looking to the Sumner and Ville community history to envision a new architectural imaginary. 

Senior Lecturer Lindsey Stouffer will utilize the CityStudioSTL Faculty Grant for her spring course, Up-Cycles: Form, Function, and Design. The course is a partnership with St. Louis BWorks to explore the art and craft of bicycles. WashU students will learn metal fabrication techniques through the process of designing and building their own bike, trike, unicycle, or other human-powered vehicle. The course will work with youth at St. Louis BWorks to develop their dream vehicle.