Current Opportunity

Gulf Coast Community Design Studio

“They are doing the down-and-dirty and good things that we architects sign up for early — in this case a kind of storefront architecture that goes one step further, actually helping people to figure the messy realities of housing and what they need to get on with their lives... They should get a medal.”

— Robert Ivy, Editor of Architectural Record, August 2007

Hurricane Katrina may have washed away homes across Mississippi’s coast, but it could not wash away hope. Since that devastating storm in 2005, the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS) has partnered with the East Biloxi community to plan, design, and build or rehabilitate more than 80 homes for low-income households. Now GCCDS is expanding its service area to all three coastal counties, multiplying its community partners and growing in scale to encompass much larger projects. The Gulf Coast Rose Fellow will be a key part of this evolution, providing leadership in the transition and carrying the commitment to participatory design and community values into a large, multi-branch, community design studio. Building on a drive to sustainable design, the opportunity exists to go beyond weathering the storm and rise stronger than before.

Mission

The Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS) is a professional outreach program of Mississippi State University College of Architecture, Art + Design. The GCCDS was established following Hurricane Katrina to provide architectural design services, planning assistance and leadership to communities and organizations that are working to rebuild and revitalize low income neighborhoods along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The mission of the GCCDS is threefold: 1) to work with non-profit and municipal partners to increase the community’s ability to address housing and neighborhood development needs by providing design and planning expertise; 2) to provide leadership both locally and nationally on sustainable, well-designed, community-based redevelopment projects; 3) to educate students and train interns to work in community design.

Enterprise Community Partners