23 with median home values increasing 176% from 2000 to 2013, half of the respondents in a 2019 Rice University survey stated that they earn less than $10,000 a year — due, in part, by redlining and disinvestment in the community by the city for decades. “People are just now talking about food deserts, which are often Black neighborhoods that don’t even have a grocery store,” says Antoine Bryant, Assoc. AIA, project manager and business development at the Houston office of Moody Nolan. “But this is a term that we’ve been talking about for 30 years. Environmental racism — how you only have chemical plants and smelting and those kinds of things in communities of color — has been happening for decades. Additionally, Robert Moses and many other urban planners throughout the ’30s and ’40s built highways through communities of color, subdividing them and leading to many sustainability concerns that we’re only now starting to address.” To inspire and instill confidence in the next generation of Third Ward residents, Jonathan Moody, CEO of Moody Nolan, designed a cutting-edge library at Texas Southern University, one of the largest historically black public universities in the United States, and Bryant worked with him to reach out to the community. Bryant was born in public housing in Brooklyn, and the unhealthy environment inspired him to become an architect. When he was 10 years old, a family friend who was a Black architect exposed him to architecture as a career opportunity — spurring a lifelong commitment to mentoring others. “Growing up, I remember not having a college or library nearby,” Bryant says. “I was so excited to help the young kids in this neighborhood — where I also live — and facilitate the creation of a new library they can see and access on a daily basis.” Working with the design team at Moody Nolan – the country’s largest Black-owned architecture firm – Wardell Ross, AIA, senior associate and director of Houston operations, and Bryant engaged with the university staff, faculty, and students, as well as the local community, holding workshops and learning what residents wanted for their future. The university’s existing library was built in the 1950s and was essentially a windowless bunker with books. For the new library, both the students and broader neighborhood wanted a space where they could read, access digital tools, and feel a sense of community. Incorporating that feedback, Moody Nolan designed a new 137,000-square-foot Library Learning Center with public computers, a gallery of African art, community meeting spaces of various sizes, and leading sustainable and resilient features accessible to the entire Third Ward. Including green features like electrochromic glazing on the windows to reduce energy use, high-albedo white and cool-roofing membranes to reflect heat, and proximity to mass transit, the library is an accessible beacon for both sustainable practices and education, meant to inspire the local community to be healthy and successful. “Students and residents can enjoy a community space with natural light,” Ross says. “It’s sustainable, a healthier space, and, more important, it brings a state-of-the-art facility to a community that historically didn’t have access to that. It makes them feel like they’re in the game, which is a big thing.” Bryant agrees. “As architects, we need to be active in the communities where we work,” he says. “We go to local schools and explain what architects do, and 90% of the students don’t know what one is, let alone seen one who is Black. So projects like this library give us an opportunity to help. b The Blueprint for Better campaign is a call to action. AIA is asking architects, design professionals, civic leaders, and the public in every community to join our efforts. Help us transform the day-to-day practice of architecture to achieve a zero-carbon, resilient, healthy, just, and equitable built environment. “Environmental and social sustainability and gentrification are all entwined. This is particularly true in communities of color, which have been forced to accept the brunt of negative health impacts from the built environment, like bad air quality, bad soil, and contamination. One solution is to facilitate a collaborative design process, in which you have developers, designers, and communities working on common solutions with common benefits.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTIyNDg2OA==