A Touch of Rural in the City: Green Education for DC Youth

Abstract

This thesis project will design a small environmental education facility that provides alternative educational opportunities for students of D.C Public Schools through a program that teaches the history of agricultural life in this country, and the farm as a model of sustainability and environmental stewardship, this unique experience will offer these children rewarding hands-on lessons in personal and societal responsibility. I have chosen a site in Near Southeast Washington. This 3-acre site (now a parking lot) allows ample space for the program, which will include a series of vernacular buildings situated around a courtyard, that are clothed in an urban industrial/commercial hybrid façade.