Your Austin – Beauty for Everyone: A Framework Plan
The Austin Project
This MCD Fall 2024 studio worked in the Austin community in collaboration with Territory, a youth-led local place-based urban design studio centered in Austin. MCD students worked with Territory teens (TADS) to better understand their perspectives of Austin, as well as working with them to create and refine three focus areas, including Territory’s new design studio location, and inform an overall framework plan. The goal of this collaboration was to build on Territory’s vacant lot activations and short-term approaches to urban design by co-designing short-term urban design solutions that can support longer-term community transformation. MCD students developed a macro-level framework plan for Austin, and identified three focus areas that support a grassroots community co-ownership models to build a resilient and sustainable future. Proposed focus areas utilize vacant lots and abandoned buildings to create a Green Corridor along Kinzie and Lake Streets to promote sustainability, a Town Center near Central Avenue and Lake Street aimed to support walkability and cultural heritage, and an Arts Collective Hub with incubator spaces, makers markets, and artist studios to support Territory’s economic development proposals.
