Communities Benefit from Julie Sherk Programs

Pitayitas Neighborhood

Wolf Plaza and Expression Tunnel

Teaching students through working with disadvantaged communities is at the core of professor Sherk’s work. She chooses design projects for her courses that advance civic engagement between the University and partners locally, statewide and internationally. She and her students have completed a variety of engagement–based projects and executed numerous small–scale service learning projects. Community engagement is part of the design process that allows all participants to identify critical environmental and design issues. It requires an attitude of openness, and enables students to learn skills and develop critical thinking and compassion. The goal is to use service learning to train students in engagement methodologies, which also provides valuable services to needy communities, and results in the student production of authentic design proposals.

  1. City of Kinston, Envisioning Queen Street Community Workshop, Kinston, NC, Spring 2014
  2. A Children’s Garden and a Kitchen Garden at the Elizabethan Gardens, in Manteo. NC, Spring 2013
  3. Wilder Arboretum Master Plan in Knightdale, NC, Fall 2011
  4. Pitayitas Neighborhood, Tratados de Córdoba Boulevard in Córdoba, Mexico, Summer, 2011
  5. City of Oxford Downtown Streetscape and Open Space Master Plan, Oxford, NC Spring 2011
  6. US Green Building Council, Builders of Hope Volunteer Day, Permaculture Design Workshop and Charette in Raleigh, NC, Summer 2010 (co–facilitator)
  7. H2O Flow environmental art sculpture Town of Chapel Hill, NC, Fall 2010
  8. Fairmont United Methodist Church Labyrinth Garden, Raleigh, NC, 2010
  9. Wiley Elementary Piedmont Savannah Raingardens, Raleigh, NC, Fall 2009

The studio convenes workshops to collaboratively identify appropriate design interventions. Then, with input from stakeholders, students produced responsive designs with construction documents, and cost predictions for the proposed interventions that the community can use for planning and fundraising