Seeking refuge in Savannah, Georgia, Caelyn Summers sat anxiously in her childhood home last September while Hurricane Helene rumbled across the state before turning north toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.

One of the deadliest storms in two decades, the Category 4 hurricane killed more than 200 people and left Summers without power for nearly four days. It wasn’t until power was restored and her phone flooded with pictures that she understood the severity of the damage. Among the images that stood out the most were those of Asheville, North Carolina, where she spent many family vacations over the years.

“I was feeling everything all at once,” said Summers, a Kennesaw State University civil engineering student. “It was devastating, and it was humbling. All that was running through my head was the thought that I would do anything and everything I could to help.”

Helping those in need is anything but new to Summers. In fact, it was a mission trip delivering drinking water to rural areas in The Philippines that cemented her decision to pursue a civil engineering degree.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she leapt at the opportunity to be one of about two dozen KSU students to make the four-hour drive to Asheville in January to survey Helene damage and meet with community members to discuss recovery efforts.

Over the two-day period, students in the College of Architecture and Construction Management (CACM) and the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (SPCEET) absorbed information that proved valuable to two student projects involving the reimagining of one of Asheville’s most-impacted areas – the River Arts District, a hub of art studios, shops, and breweries situated along the French Broad River west of downtown Asheville. The district, which housed 26 warehouses and more than 300 artists, was nearly 80 percent destroyed due to flooding following Helene, according to ArtsAVL.

THE POWER OF WATER

Upon arriving at the storm-battered River Arts District in late January, Summers was immediately struck by the deafening silence shrouding the area. She joined her KSU classmates in touring the remnants of a park that once lined the French Broad River and inspected the remaining structures. One such building housed nearly 200 local artists and their galleries. Today, watermarks reach the doorknobs on the second floor roughly 16 feet above ground level.

For architecture student Azizi Ivey, the site served as a steadfast reminder of the power of water. As she walked the site, she was humbled by storefronts filled with the mud brought in by flooding during the hurricane.

“We always think of water being so strong that it can erode rocks, but we forget that having it in such a large volume can have a decimating effect,” Ivey said. “This is beyond a simple reconstruction.”

While the devastation was immense – from a portable toilet hanging precariously in a tree to a waterlogged car still trapped in the river – there were also signs of normalcy. Ivey recalled passing a nearby skate park where a few skateboarders were plying their craft. The visual served as inspiration for Ivey, who pondered how her skills could contribute to the revitalization of the area.

“The people are still there and claiming Asheville, doing what they can to continue amidst the recovery,” she said. “It’s clear there is a really strong community there, and it helps us to understand how to develop an architectural solution that meets their needs.”

A FOCUS ON RESILIENT ARCHITECTURE

 The first of the two Asheville projects was conceived by Jonathan Gould, a practicing architect and CACM lecturer who has an interest in resiliency planning. The concept, he explained, is the process of designing and building structures capable of withstanding environmental threats like hurricanes and erosion. However, the practice often focuses more on developing sustainable coastal cities instead of settlements further inland.

As Helene ripped across the Southeast, it served as a reminder for those in the architecture community that mountain towns are also at risk. Two months after landfall, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported that Helene caused an estimated $53 billion worth of damage in North Carolina with more than 40 deaths in Buncombe County, where Asheville serves as county seat.

The devastation was particularly sobering for Gould, who has an affinity for the Blue Ridge Mountains. His husband hails from western North Carolina, and the two celebrated their honeymoon in Asheville.

“The common thought has been that mountain communities were not immune but less susceptible,” said Gould, who has practiced at Atlanta-based firms Niles Bolton Associates and Cooper Carry. “After seeing these hurricanes come through with massive flooding and endless rain, it just woke me up and shook me. Climate disasters are going to start to affect every facet of American life, and we need to come up with solutions and strategies.”

REIMAGINING THE RIVER ARTS DISTRICT

In a bit of serendipity, Gould was scheduled to teach an urban planning design studio this spring with fourth-year architecture students. He selected a topic months before Helene arrived, but ultimately scrapped his plans and pivoted to sustainability and resiliency in Asheville. As a bonus, longtime studio sponsor Sizemore Group maintains an Asheville office, generating unique opportunities for students to interact with professionals who are engaged in rebuilding the city.

Throughout the spring, 16 students in Gould’s studio course will draft proposals for the reimagined River Arts District.

“We put such an emphasis on resiliency because the most affected communities are often going to be lower income and minority-focused, and they are the first to see the ramifications of our inaction on sustainability,” Gould said. “The River Arts District was designed for the working artist. These people had their offices and studios there because the rent was cheap, but it also means they are on the front lines of climate disasters. What we are doing is developing solutions that mitigate the effect of what we have already seen happen.”

The studio takes a competitive approach by splitting students into small teams, each tasked with developing proposals for a sustainable reimagining of the River Arts District. The projects will be informed by conversations with Asheville city leaders and architecture professionals in North Carolina. Ultimately, the students will share their designs in a meeting with community members and aim to present their findings at the American Institute of Architects regional conference held in Asheville in September. Additionally, Sizemore Group will award $500 to the best studio project as determined by the firm.

BUILDING THROUGH STRATEGIC COLLABORATION

While architecture students participate in resiliency planning in the River Arts District, civil engineering students like Summers are leveraging senior design projects to address the rebuild from a slightly different vantage point.

 As part of the senior design capstone, students are being challenged to implement sustainable options for a park revitalization effort along the riverfront. Additionally, they will provide high-level solutions to be implemented across the city. Students have selected their mentors for the project, and the intent is for Asheville city officials to share their lived experiences with the students to help shape the final proposal.

“Our primary goal at Kennesaw State is to educate students, and the best way to educate them is through these hands-on experiences,” said Ro Worthy, an associate professor and assistant chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “For us in civil engineering, one of our high impact practices is service learning. It fosters a sense of reciprocity in that our students engage with the community and learn from it, but they also give something in return.”

Like Gould, Worthy has an interest in sustainability in the built environment. It was through Maria del Mar Ceballos, KSU’s director of sustainability, that she was introduced to Gould as a potential collaborator. Worthy is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Lemelson Foundation, the latter of which is designed to integrate the sustainability-focused Engineering for One Planet into KSU curriculums.

The grants have allowed Worthy to commit funds toward the architecture design studio. Looking to expose her students to a real-world challenge, however, she asked to involve a group of civil engineering students in the collaborative effort.

“We are helping students understand how their actions are interconnected and how working together is the best way to make an impact,” said Worthy, adding the collaboration supports institutional priorities in fostering community and building sustainable practices. “Once our engineering students enter the workforce, they will be working with architects and vice versa. What better way to simulate that environment than to have a project where they can build off each other’s strengths?”

Collaboration across disciplines also exposed students to completely different lines of thinking, Ivey said. As the group toured the River Arts District, she recalled exchanging ideas and negotiating solutions with her engineering counterparts.

“It was interesting listening to their feedback and looking at the things they discovered for themselves,” Ivey said. “Architecture students are great at generating outside-the-box ideas, but the engineering students have real knowledge about infrastructure. You don’t often get to experience it from both sides, but this is what helps bring our ideas into fruition.”

For as different as their approaches may be, Summers said the students shared a common bond in leveraging their talents to help an area in need.

“We really could see the devastation through the eyes of the locals, and it was really inspiring to hear their stories,” Summers said. “They continually mentioned needing something that served as a beacon of hope, something that was there for them and not just tourists. Those conversations have kicked us into gear.”

This article also appears in the current issue of Summit Magazine.