Visiting Bamberg

Last week, three of us drove to Bamberg and back (385 miles!!) to begin our work in Bamberg, Barak, Allison, and I met Harry for lunch at a local pizza parlor, and he discussed our assignment. Each of us split up and took a neighborhood of our own to investigate through survey. The survey was 5 pages long and asked questions from the basic (age, sex, ethnicity), to jobs, to opinions on local housing and schooling, etc. It even provided a map and asked for circles to be made around “good areas” of town and Xs to be made around “bad areas” of town. The neighborhoods we were provided us with the opportunity to visit at least fifty houses (its hard to remember exactly how many…I definitely lost count quickly!) Our only task was to get seven surveys filled out by members within our assigned neighborhoods. It surely sounds easier than it was…

It was a little after noon or right around 1:00pm at the time we began walking into our neighborhoods from the City Hall where our car was parked. Harry had told us that as soon as we completed the surveys, our work would be done for the day. The assignment may seem easier than it really was… I must have knocked on over fifty doors—covered a whole neighborhood—and it took me nearly four hours to just get those seven surveys filled out!

Harry seemed a little surprised when we told him about our survey results. I would say that we might have had a turn down rate of at least three out of four. I can’t blame the people who didn’t even come to the door. I am sure if I look back in my life, I can think of times when I have done the same. However, it made me feel as though the people in Bamberg just don’t care, especially because the issues of development in their town are so prevalent and clear to me. The first person to actually come to the door for me was a friendly, older man. When I asked him if he was interested in expressing his opinion through a survey on the growth and development of his town, he replied, “You know what I think? I think you all should tear this whole damn town down and rebuild it from the bottom up.” He seemed to think that would be the only worthwhile thing to do. At times throughout the day, I felt as if others might share this opinion.

It will be interesting to meet tonight with our group to discuss everyone else’s experiences with the surveys. I am also wondering what the main issues will be concerning the growth and development in Bamberg and what we will be able to accomplish there. Despite the results of our work last Wednesday, I do not feel as if we were unsuccessful. I enjoyed talking to the few people that I did survey, and I am also excited about meeting with the community for our upcoming workshop.

Rules of Engagement

This blog will be devoted to writing about my experiences from Rules of Engagement, a course I am taking this semester at Clemson. A typical semester for students in grad architecture is 15 credits, but this class was so appealing to me that I am overloading to fit it in!
My Methods & Materials professor, Jori Erdman, is team teaching the course with Mary Beth McCubbin from Landscape & Planning, and Harry Crissy, who is an extension agent for Clemson. Jori told us about the course during our first Methods & Materials class. She explained it as a hands-on, design-build type course. Jori is a huge fan of Rural Studio at Auburn University. If you don’t know what that is, you should definitely check into it. Basically, a similar goal of both the Rural Studio and our Rules of Engagement course is to go into a community, find a need, and develop a project around that need. The students in both scenarios are able not only to serve a small community with economic needs, but to also learn about architecture and gain hands-on experience at the same time.
I became interested in this course immediately for two reasons. One: I love to serve others. With the demands of school, it is hard to be able to give back to