Faculty awarded course grants for 2026-27 academic year

Four Sam Fox School faculty have been awarded course grants through the school’s Office for Socially Engaged Practice for the 2026-27 academic year. 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 Petra Kempf is again leading Grounds for Play, the course that invites architecture students to design games for elementary school students. This semester, the course is returning to Chesterfield Montessori, where students in a previous semester built a playground.

Associate Professor Catalina Freixas will teach Segregation by Design, a long-term, community-engaged project that analyzes racial segregation in American cities, using St. Louis as a starting point to study causes, effects, and mitigation strategies for residential segregation. The transdisciplinary seminar bridges the humanities and architecture, introducing students to research, theories, and debates related to segregation, city planning, urban policy, and sustainability. Students will engage in an active, community-based project focused on the Delmar Boulevard corridor.

Assistant Professor Rayshad Dorsey is leading the architecture studio course Between Rest and Resistance: Architecture for Living Institutions. Twelve students traveled to South Carolina to experience the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, including four days at the Penn Center, the site of the first school in the South established specifically for the education of formerly enslaved people. The trip invited students to listen and ask questions rather than arriving with predetermined solutions, offering a chance to consider how architecture might support cultural continuity. The Office for Socially Engaged Practice led a pre-trip workshop on cultural competency when entering and exiting communities

Senior Lecturer Sage Dawson’s Intro to Printmaking course is partnering with Betty Wheeler Elementary to refresh a mural that has become weathered. The school administration is coordinating community feedback to help shape the refreshed mural. WashU students will work on the painting over three consecutive weekends, with one dedicated to community participation from students and parents.