The Winchester Design Studio is a pilot project that embeds the design and economic development resources of the University into a smaller Kentucky community. With a mission to support the sense of place and quality of life for the residents and businesses in Winchester, the Studio has taken a very community-based approach to address the specific needs of the community. This has been accomplished by utilizing the resources brought by the two primary partners in this effort: CEDIK in the College of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, and the College of Design at the University of Kentucky. The work plan for the Studio accelerated in January when Cameron Correll, the Project Coordinator for the Winchester Design Studio, joined the team. A graduate of the School of Architecture in the College of Design at UK and Winchester native, Cameron began her position by meeting with our local partners to determine their needs and how the Studio can best help them be successful in their positions. Building upon these conversations, the Studio adapted following the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing the topics from the wrap-around services call organized by the Greater Clark Foundation to inform our programming. These adaptations include a focus on wellness for the remainder of our time in Winchester.
The first wellness-themed project was a virtual community book club reading
Happy City
by Charles Montgomery. Each week throughout the month of June, participants from across the region engaged in important conversations, such as what it would mean to design our city for children and how we can design for shared experiences in the community. These questions will be fundamental to the community wellness work which will be undertaken at a neighborhood scale in Winchester going forward. The Studio has also developed a weekly podcast, 6 Questions with CEDIK. This series interviews a variety of leaders in Clark County, from public health to youth services, to share stories about how local organizations have adapted to the pandemic and how the greater community can best support them.
One of the more outward aspects of the Studio has been the presence of design students inventorying and analyzing downtown. This spring we had two student projects focusing on downtown, including graduate students in the new urban design program in the College of Design. The urban design students proposed new futures for some of downtown’s buildings, including a reimagined tourism office as a glassy addition to the Clark County Courthouse. This summer the Studio hosted CEDIK’s annual community design summer internship program. Featuring two undergraduate students, a Visual Communication major at NKU and a Landscape Architecture student from UK, they have been working from the Studio’s storefront all summer.
Projects from this program include the PEZ Program, which stands for Pedestrian Expansion Zones, intended to support local businesses with social distancing measures in the public realm. The second major product of the summer is a master plan for the Depot St. area on North Main St. This partnership with the Farmers Market imagines this important public space as the northern bookend of downtown, in addition to a much-needed downtown green space. The variety of these projects highlight the potential of having students look at communities with their fresh eyes, and helps truly embed the resources of the University into Winchester.
