Steven Mankouche
Project Reach – the Farm: Greening Strategies for Empowering Marginalized Urban Youth
The Project Reach team is collaborating on the design of a master plan to improve ‘The Farm’, a small space located in the Catskills that will be transformed into a retreat facility. By engaging and involving the Project Reach youth in the creation and development of the spatial vision for the facility, the team will forge an intergenerational partnership of young people and adults for the cross-community building of a safe, healthy, sustainable environment that the young people can experience. Through a series of workshops, project outcomes will include a proposal for the redesigning of the Catskill historic farm into a sustainable retreat facility, and the publishing of a small pamphlet for dissemination to city youth organizations and the broader architectural community.
| Name | Title | Award |
|---|---|---|
| Stephen Mankouche | Assistant Professor of Architecture | Faculty and Graduate Student Collaboration in Public Scholarship |
| Benjamin Smith | Ph.D. student in Architecture | |
| Charles Veneklase | MArch/MSc. student | |
| Don Kao | Director, Project Reach |
2011 Arts of Citizenship Fellow receives Architect Magazine’s 2013 Progressive Architecture Award
Assistant professor of architecture Steven Mankouche and lecturer Matthew Schulte received Architect Magazine’s 2013 Progressive Architecture Award for their project titled Farm, Gaming Strategies of Empowering Marginalized Youth. Initiated as a series of architectural design workshops with Project Reach, a New York City-based anti-discrimination training organization, the project involved redesigning an historic Catskill farm into a sustainable retreat facility for at-risk urban youth.
With graduate research assistants Charles Veneklase and Melinda Rouse, Mankouche and Schulte used open conversation and spatial games to engage youth in envisioning alternative scenarios for the farm’s future. Their work investigates whether design can facilitate the reduction of intergroup tension and foster community building among individuals from diverse backgrounds. More images here.
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