To commemorate a collaboration that spans nearly 20 years and has included more than 300 Georgia Tech students and professors, the Georgia Conservancy will award the College of Architecture with the 2015 Distinguished Conservationist award.

Dean French will accept the award on behalf of the college at the ecoBenefete on September 25.

Sustainability is a signature aspect of the college's community planning and urban design programs. As part of the Georgia Conservancy's "Blueprints for Successful Communities" program, students from the School of Architecture and School of City and Regional Planning developed successful, sustainable growth plans for communities across Georgia.

Under the guidance of professors Richard Dagenhart, Michael Dobbins and others, graduate students take semester-long "Blueprints" studio classes in order to help Georgia communities develop action plans for sustainable growth and environmental protection.

"The Conservancy has enthusiastically supported and in some ways pioneered citizen engagement and guidance into Blueprints projects," said Dobbins.  

"A key aspect of many of Georgia Tech’s Blueprints studios has been the intense involvement of the citizens where the studio are focused. Indeed, local neighborhoods and Neighborhood Planning Units have initiated studios and joined with the Conservancy to provide modest funding to carry them out," he said.

"Thus local citizen knowledge joins with students’ knowledge and the involvement of the relevant agencies to guide outcomes that both respond to local needs and that are implementable"

An example of this unique relationship between Georgia Tech students and local communities is the Lindbergh-Lavista corridor studio spanning Atlanta and DeKalb neighborhoods, he said.

Among the many issues facing the corridor, perhaps most vexing was an active proposal from the Georgia DOT to destroy part of a neighborhood in order to complete the I-85/SR 400 interchange. In the face of strong neighborhood opposition, planning students pursuing dual degrees with Civil Engineering were able to devise a routing that could save the neighborhoods, reduce the cost of the project, and gain both neighborhood and GDOT endorsement.

"As an important urban ecological bonus to that project, urban design students and the neighborhoods were able to persuade GDOT to create a park along the north fork of Peachtree Creek and overall the project joined with and gave impetus to the emergence of the South Fork Conservancy," Dobbins said, "and both creek initiatives are improving conditions and providing amenities for citizens."

"These are great learning experiences for students – they test what they are learning with real people in real contexts, where they learn to listen, interact, and see their work carry forward into policy change and project implementation."

The "Blueprints" projects these studios are associated with usually take a year to complete, ending in a report that details students' research and suggestions. Some projects, like the award-winning "Sea Level Rise on Georgia's Coast" program, reveal the need for greater study.

This "Blueprints" project actually laid the foundation for a series of subsequent courses contending with the imminent increase of sea levels in Savannah and along the Atlantic Coast through Chatham, Liberty and McIntosh Counties.  The foundation course, co-taught by Emeritus Professor Larry Keating, FAICP and PhD Candidate Dana Habeeb, tracked the substantial effects of increasing sea levels on the Georgia coastline and barrier islands. 

"More than 30 percent of the three county area is projected to be inundated with the Island of Tybee projected to lose almost 50 percent of its development land," Keating said. "The research and policy suggestions included an emphasis on the damaging impacts of sea level rise on vulnerable populations -- people with disabilities, different minority groups, Gullah Geeche populations, low income individuals and elderly populations."

The project was recognized by the American Institute of Certified Planners and awarded the "Outstanding Student Project--Contribution of Planning to Contemporary Issues" at the American Planning Association Annual Conference in May 2014.

The "Blueprints" program emphasizes natural resource protection by advocating the conservation of environmentally sensitive land and promoting development practices that conserve resources, are healthy for people and the environment and anticipate future challenges.

Through this community-oriented program and the college's strong, collaborative nature, Georgia Tech and the Georgia Conservancy have helped tens of thousands of people.

Recently concluded "Blueprints" studies have captivated Atlanta communities and established models for communities all over the world.

The "Mission Zero Corridor" project paired Dagenhart and School of Architecture students with The Ray C. Anderson Foundation and Anderson's carpet tile company, Interface. BeltLine designer Ryan Gravel and four other Georgia Tech alums (all with dual Master of Architecture and Master of City and Regional Planning degrees) joined the team as urban designers from Perkins + Will in Atlanta.

Their goal was to create a vision of a sustainable highway based on a 16-mile segment of I-85 in West Georgia named in honor of Anderson -- who was also a Georgia Tech alum (ISYE'56) and a dedicated environmentalist. Based on Anderson's plan to reduce his company's environmental impact to a "net zero" by 2020, the Georgia Tech studio group fashioned a "net zero" plan for highways by 2040. The implications of their plan are global.

The "Chattahoochee River Park" project aimed to catalyze economic development and quality of life potential along 53 miles of the Chattahoochee River, just south of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Vinings.

 While presenting the "Blueprint" studio class report last month for project collaborators Chattahoochee NOW and the public, Dagenhart put forth the idea that "every kid who has access to a bus stop has access to the river."

The studio report emphasizes rural character preservation and stormwater management while planning for the kind of waterfront recreation and development enjoyed by other major cities in the country. Through a land development plan that includes various towers connecting the currently hidden section of the Chattahoochee, streets and bridges -- even a MARTA line -- could be extended to the envisioned river park.

Georgia Tech's College of Architecture joins an elite and influential group of past Distinguished Conservationist Award-winners, including: The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Ray Weeks, Governor Zell Miller, Senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner.