Alan Graham, founder and CEO of
Mobile Loaves & Fishes, is fond of calling the social outreach ministry s supportive housing development,
Community First! Village, Austin s most talked-about neighborhood. That slogan will someday evolve to the plural neighborhoods to reflect the organization s most significant expansion yet to house Austin s formerly chronically homeless neighbors.
Earlier this month, MLF announced the next two phases of Community First! that will add an additional 1,400 homes at two sites. Phase 3 will be located on 51 acres near the current village (also 51 acres) on Hog Eye Road in far Northeast Austin; phase 4 will be 10 miles to the south at a 76-acre site on Burleson Road between McKinney Falls Parkway and U.S. 183. Construction on both sites is expected to begin in the summer of 2022, said Graham, and it s MLF s hope that both phases will be built concurrently.
Metropolis
The Rudy Bruner Award Continues Its Speaker Series: Engaging Communities via Food and Education
A partnership with Northeastern University, Inspiring Design: Creating Beautiful, Just, and Resilient Places in America draws on the award organization s national network.
Courtesy Steve Hall / Hedrich Blessing
Inspiring Design: Creating Beautiful, Just and Resilient Places in America series highlighted the ability of collaborative design to empower people, build communities, and advance change. Speakers associated with RBA winners in Chicago, Memphis, and New Orleans shared stories of innovative projects and initiatives that are reshaping approaches to food production, education, and engaging America’s next generation.
In
City Park calls its collection of 30,000 trees its most treasured asset, with some of the park’s storied oak trees dating back 750 to 900 years.
But none may be as beloved as the Singing Oak, which with its wind chimes including one that is 14 feet long rings a pentatonic (five notes per octave) scale upon every breeze.
Located adjacent to Big Lake near the intersection of Wisner Boulevard and Lelong Drive, the oak is one of the most popular and relaxing gathering spots in the park, but the frequency of usage has caused damaged to its exposed roots. Park officials think a sitting deck surrounding the tree could help protect the roots and enhance the tree’s aesthetics.
Some of the finished blocks were donated to Tulane s CASA for Children Toy Drive (Photo by Marianne Desmarais)
Marianne Desmarais, director of undergraduate architecture and design programs at the Tulane University School of Architecture, couldn’t help but notice a few years ago how much solid wood was being discarded after student projects were completed in the school’s studios and in its Woodshop.
The Woodshop is one of several Fabrications Labs at Richardson Memorial Hall, home of the School of Architecture, and it is where students create models, design furniture and work on other projects involving wood. Not only are we keeping things out of the waste stream but we’re highlighting the fact that it doesn’t take much to provide young children with direct benefits to math, linguistic and spatial skill development through playing with simple wooden blocks.”