Service-Learning in Design and Planning

This collection of case studies by design educators critically explores the current practice of service-learning in architecture, landscape design, and urban planning, radically revising the standard protocol for university-initiated design and planning projects in the community. The authors' lively examination of real-life community collaborations forms a pedagogical framework for educators, professionals, and students alike, offering guidelines for a generative and inclusive collaborative design process.

Includes contributions by the leading practitioners of service-learning in the design professions, including Daniel Winterbottom and Michael Rios.

Editors: Tom Angotti is professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College, City University of New York, and director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development. Cheryl Doble is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and director of the Center for Community Design Research at SUNY ESF. Paula Horrigan is a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University and for the past five years has acted as faculty chair of Cornell's Faculty Fellow-in-Service Governance Board.

Advance Praise:

"An impressive collection on an important topic. Crossing design and planning, this engaging volume brings together a number of different approaches to service-learning—theoretically, by field, and in the scale of the activities in space and time. This makes it useful and important reading for both those starting off in the field of community-based education and old hands interested in critically reflecting on their past practice."
— Ann Forsyth, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University

"This collection has its roots in the ideas of education theorists such as Dewey, Bruner, and Freire, all of whom advocate for the importance of experiential learning. The authors individually and collectively advance the idea of service-learning to community participation and social action. Consequently, this book not only challenges conventional thinking about education and practice but also illustrates a variety of successful off-the-shelf approaches. Design and planning educators and practitioners will find it to be a valuable companion in support of identifying directions for the future."
— Henry Sanoff, Professor Emeritus of Architecture, ACSA/Alumni Distinguished Professor, North Carolina State University

"An invaluable new resource for faculty engaged in interdisciplinary action research aimed at building more vibrant, sustainable, and just neighborhoods, communities, and regions through inspired physical design."
— Kenneth M. Reardon, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in City and Regional Planning, University of Memphis

"The time is ripe for advancing a solid service-learning pedagogy in architecture, landscape architecture, and planning. Over several decades of innovation, experimentation, and trial and error, each of these design disciplines has spawned new and critical theory, linking professional work and social change. The wisdom of the twenty-nine leaders in service-learning within this volume provides a collective leap forward that benefits us all—students, teachers, designers, and the general public."
— Bryan Bell, Founder, Design Corps; author, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism and Good Deeds Good Design: Community Service through Architecture