Thursday, April 21, 2022

CiV - the Center for Architecture + Design

251 Riverside Drive, Memphis

11:30am Doors & Catering Open

12:00pm Program

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

by Tuesday, April 19

$25 Members & Partners

$40 Guests

1 LU (pending)

Civic Design Center | Nashville 

Growing a Community-Oriented Design Center

featuring

Gary Gaston, CEO, and

Melody Gibson, Education Director

The Civic Design Center, formerly the Nashville Civic Design Center, has been operating as a non-profit for over 20 years. The organization has had a great history of bringing together professionals across built environment industries to engage in debate and advocate for issues in their communities, like public space, health, and transportation. The Design Center is rooted in civic design visioning that may be beyond what the community ever imagined was possible, giving people an opportunity to “dream big.” It is critical to know how to educate and engage all people. At this event, Design Center leaders will share the history of the organization and elaborate on programs that could be adapted in Memphis, specifically focused on socially conscious design and youth education.

Learning Objectives

• Learn about the Civic Design Center’s history engaging diverse community members all over Nashville, and how that may be adapted to Memphis
• Understand the outcomes that a Design Center may have on the quality of life following design studio visioning projects and university partnerships
• Learn the importance of socially conscious design practices, especially as a nonprofit design organization advocating for the people’s ideas
• Understand the Design Center’s youth education programs, Design Your Neighborhood and Nashville Youth Design Team, and the impact they have made on youth wellness
  
  

Gary Gaston, CEO

Gary Gaston is the CEO of the Civic Design Center, and serves as Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Architecture + Design. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from UTK, and a M.Ed. in Community Development and Action from Vanderbilt University.

Gaston helped lead numerous planning and design efforts for the Design Center, including its visionary The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City, published in 2005. Gaston served as executive producer of the National Endowment for the Arts funded documentary film Design Your Neighborhood, and co-authored two books, Moving Tennessee Forward: Models for Connecting Communities (2012), and Shaping the Healthy Community: The Nashville Plan, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2016.

Gaston is a TEDx Nashville Fellow, his talk on “Improving Public Health Through Community Design” can be viewed here. He received the Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society Silver Medal “for extraordinary efforts to advance the field of design in the region” in 2016, and was recognized as a “Next American Vanguard” by Next City Magazine in 2010. Gaston serves on the board of directors of The District and Nashville Health steering committee. He lives in Germantown with his dog Lotti.

Melody Gibson, Education Director

Melody Gibson is the Education Director at the Civic Design Center where she leads the youth education programs Design Your Neighborhood (DYN) and the Nashville Youth Design Team (NYDT). After studying architecture in college and then teaching high school math, Melody discovered her passion for engaging youth in shaping the spaces they inhabit. Melody holds a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction. Melody was a 2020 Nashville Emerging Leaders Award Finalist for her work with DYN and NYDT. She serves on the AIA Tennessee Chapter’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.