Dr. Jessica April Ward Prairie View A&M University School of Architecture
Architectural research through the lens of environmental justice.
T&P HIGHLIGHTS PORTFOLIO 2024
KEYWORDS:
• Housing typologies + infrastructure
• Climate responsive tectonics
• Design for nature + natural disasters
• High performance design/ carbon neutrality
• Environmental justice + Integrated design
Designed to serve and nurture the needs of a growing architecture student body and prepare them to meet the demands of our technologically dependent profession, students conduct and experience applied research in energy efficient building envelope design and resilient disaster recovery housing typologies.
Cover photo: Graduate Research Assistants, Joe Livings, Jaylin Lee, Russell Lewis, Construction Meeting at the Houston Habitat Site. (IDEA CJR) 2023
Photo right: Undergraduate fourth-year students volunteering with graduate research assistants, Russell Lewis and Joe Livings in the Fabrication Center (IDEA CJR) 2023
Integrated Design for Environmental + Climate
Justice Research (IDEA-CJR)
Prairie Dwelling 360: ADU | HOU Design Guide Published by the City of Houston, Planning & Development Department
National Trust for Historic Preservation HOPE Crew Digital Documentation Fellowship + Fabrication Workshops
U.S. Department of Education Title III Grant $600,000 2020 - 2024
This research seeks to offer students a comprehensive learning experience that contributes to the quality of our undergraduate pre-professional academic architecture degree program through research + the infusion of sustainable technology applied engagement, STEM-based experiences, and National Architectural Accrediting Board curriculum.
Prairie Dwelling 360 is a climate responsive, hurricane-ready, recovery housing prototype, addressing climate justice issues in the Gulf Coast Region, that nurtures the needs of a growing global environmental awareness. This research develops hands on curriculum that demonstrates how to meet the demands of energy efficient, sustainable building design, climate change mitigation and environmental impacts in our society.
Undergraduate and graduate research assistants met with industry professionals and community members, collaborating to develop cost estimates, specifications, predictive energy models, construction drawings & mock-ups for design/ build. National companies who sponsored the research through inkind material donations & trainings are: Rockwool, HUBER, Fortified Home, and Simpson StrongTie.
LOCATION:
Prairie View A&M University
YEAR COMPLETED: 2024
LOCATION: Prairie View A&M University
PROJECT TYPE: Research Facility/ Prototype
The prototype on campus provides a high-performance building + renewable energy research space for students in the School of Architecture, associated interdisciplinary and inter-University researchers. It has already weathered one tornado and one hurricane event (2024).
Diagrams & renderings: Jaylin Lee and Anderson Yauripoma.
Photo right: Undergraduate volunteers with graduate research assistants, Russell Lewis and Joe Livings in the Fabrication Center (IDEA CJR) 2023
PRAIRIE DWELLING 360
ADU | HOU Competition Design published by the City of Houston 2021
Research assistants entered the IDEA-CJR project into the City of Houston Planning & Development Department ADU design competition, sponsored by AARP’s Livable Communities and the City of Houston’s Livable Places Action Committee, to impact public policy and increase education and awareness of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs).
Prairie View was honored with the student category award and their work was published in the Design Guide. This 400 (was 360) square foot modular design was developed through the IDEA-CJR grant from a studio design, in collaboration with a senior homeowner in Fifth Ward, Houston. Students met with the homeowner who had survived multiple mega-storm events, including Hurricane Harvey.
The ADU is a single-family hurricane recovery model for Houstonians in historic neighborhoods. Resilient strategies include: structural hurricane-ties & raised pier/ beam foundation; eco-friendly water resistant materials; high performance windows, insulation + rain-screen envelop assembly; efficient appliances; and off-grid solar energy production.
National Trust for Historic Preservation HOPE Crew Digital Documentation Fellowship
Faculty Advisor 2022
Prairie View A&M University is a historic milieu, a quilt of ever evolving University programs, people, buildings and infrastructure. Working with campus planning, local preservationist records, historic maps, the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice, and experts at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Fellow LaTavia Latham, conducted palimpsest mapping of our land grant University, as the farm transformed into a University for higher learning, and transcontinental movement of hope.
Through these historic lines of flight that connect to the sacred space of the cemetery and unmarked slave burial grounds on campus- LaTavia designed a series of hands-on workshops and a design competition for her undergraduate and graduate architecture colleagues, to propose way-finding, parklike signage, and/ or demarcation of space through place-making strategies. As an interdisciplinary activity, digital media arts PantherRISE Fellow, Aliya Beechum, researched the historic significance of our campus during the antebellum period and created a Research Booklet for Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.
We construct the world and in return the world constructs us.
- Michael Rotondi
Architecture design studio is 80% direct one-to-one mentorship (8 weekly contact lab hours) and 20% technical + philosophical lectures (2 weekly contact lecture hours). My teaching methodology is inspired by the apprentice model of Frank Loyd Wright, and the community as the classroom model of Samuel Mockbee’s Rural Studio- directly refined by my mentors: Micheal Rotondi’s wisdom of teaching as architectural practice; Carl Abbott’s Sarasota School of Architecture design with nature manifesto; and Dr. Bullard & Dr. Johnson’s framework of environmental justice. I seek to meet each student where they are and encourage them to find their own unique and creative voice as a designer.
T&P TEACHING HIGHLIGHTS
KEYWORDS:
• Service-learning
• Climate responsive design
• Urban Planning + Environmental Justice
• Gifted + Talented Leadership
• Vertical Studio
• IDEA-CJR Community-based Collaborative
• Practice based mentorship + Apprenticeship
• Tectonics
Cover photo: Undergraduate architecture design students attending the Houston-Galveston Area Council/ City of Prairie View, Livable Centers community meeting (2024)
Architecture design studio projects emerge from a participatory, collaborative process. Informally a vertical studio, typically a mix of juniors, seniors, and graduate students between 12-18 per studio- students work in groups of various sizes, allowing for the gifted & talented to emerge as leaders and research assistants. The Integrated Design for Environmental and Climate Justice Research architecture design studio began with an idea about regenerative regionalism and was formalized through the lens of environmental justice in the Gulf Coast Region, and several research grants & National endowments. Beginning with the U.S. Department of Energy student competitions, studio conceptual designs were selected for further design development by teams during extracurricular time. Students met with residents and community leaders in Independence Heights to design affordable, urban infill, single-family housing and resilience centers/ community centers within the vernacular context of the South. Students worked with industry partners for feedback on high-performance building methodologies appropriate for the Houston climate. The winning student designs were also acknowledged by the City of Houston, the Houston American Institute of Architects, the Texas Society of Architects, the National American Institute of Architects, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
The Double Barrel, designed for Beauty’s Community Garden, in Independence Heights, Houston, won the Grand Prize and Design Excellence for urban infill, single-family design (2016)
TEACHING HIGHLIGHT
Student Design Competition Faculty Advisor + Studio Design Project Examples 2016 + Various Semesters 05
TEXAS CENTRAL BULLET TRAIN STATION
In 2016 two student teams won awards in the Texas Central student design challenge after presenting in Dallas. For several more years, as an alternative to the resilient housing and community center programs, third and fourth year architecture design students were given the Bullet Train Station challenge to address the scale of statewide infrastructure and mobility in Texas. Students generated many memorable case study models, 3D printed models, programming + multi-level circulation diagrams, double-skin facades, renderings, sustainability design features, biomimetic design, and sectional drawings + models.
The physical model that won the Sustainable Design Award was featured on the PVAMU highway billboard (2023).
The architect sees that any building, any act of reconstruction, confirms, supports, and enables the politics of one group or another. If there’s going to be another movement, another direction in architecture, it has to engage people differently. Other than saying, here, look at this, isn’t this amazing? It has to interactively involve them other than as spectators...it has to engage them as creators.
-Lebbeus Woods, Architect/ Philosopher/ Professor
Sustainable Design Award Team: Ledell Thomas & Kaylah Wesley (2016)
Honorable Mention Team: Isaac Watson, Roderick Henderson and Nadia Gooding (2016)
Model, architectural drawings, renderings, and diagrams by
Alan Jauregui (Fall 2021)
Waller Terminals Passenger Station
Waller is a city in Texas, United States, partly in Waller County and partly in Harris County within the Houston–Cypress metropolitan area. However, the proposed site is located in the Harris Couty side.
Waller, with a 2020 population of 3,584, has the neighboring cities of Hempstead (pop. 9,037) and Prairie View (pop. 7,065).
The project’s ridership is anticipated to ramp up to over 6 million passengers by 2029 and 13 million by 2050. That’s 35% of the anticipated number of long-distance trips between North Texas and The Greater Houston.
Climate Zone 2A - Hot & Humid
Waller soil consists of very deep, poorly drained soils. These nearly level soils formed in loamy fluviomarine deposits of the Lissie Formation of Pleistocene age.
Alignment Waller, TX
However, the proposed site is located in the Harris Couty side.
Waller, with a 2020 population of 3,584, has the neighboring cities of Hempstead (pop. 9,037) and Prairie View (pop. 7,065).
The project’s ridership is anticipated to ramp up to over 6 million passengers by 2029 and 13 million by 2050. That’s 35% of the anticipated number of long-distance trips between North Texas and The Greater Houston.
Site Analysis
Climate Zone 2A - Hot & Humid
Waller soil consists of very deep, poorly drained soils. These nearly level soils formed in loamy fluviomarine deposits of the Lissie Formation of Pleistocene age.
Slope ranges from 0%-1%, but are mainly less than 0.5%
Summer High: the July high is around 94F Winter Low: the January low is 39F Rain: averages 46 inches of rain a year
Site Plan
Alignment Waller, TX
Harris County
Bullet Train Station for Houston. Study model, renderings, and diagrams by Reuben Cheeks (2017, Junior)
TEACHING HIGHLIGHT
RESILIENCE HUB/ COMMUNITY CENTER
Various Semesters 06
Resiliency Centers and Hubs (Houston Lily Pads) are emerging as a conceptual, potentially powerful and holistic regional approach to address the aftershocks of natural disasters in economically deprived urban environments. These centers and hubs are designed to be assets that are integrated into a community to support, prepare, and respond to extreme weather events, power grid failures, and environmental justice issues. These assets can also contribute to the quality of life during non emergencies, operating during periods of time between mega-storm events and in the support of local longterm recovery.
In May 2021, the City of Houston put out a Request for Proposals, The City of Houston Request for Proposals (RFP) The Resilience Hubs – Houston Lily Pad Plan.
In this service-learning studio design course, students designed a local Resilience Hub for Trinity + Kashmere Gardens, Houston. Working with a local community group as their client to develop the existing (closed) Terrell Middle School site into a Resilience Hub Lily Pad students developed a community center to serve as an anchor institution and blueprint for future scalable and flexible Lily Pads.
Trinity Gardens Resilience Hub/ Community Center project. Diagrams, renderings, architectural drawings, and models by Jorge Cardoza (Spring 2023)
Architecture is a technology through which we relate to nature, our neighbors, and ourselves.
T&P SERVICE HIGHLIGHTS
06
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE LECTURE SERIES
Co-chair 2015 - 2023
KEYWORDS:
• Faculty Senate
• Special University Committee Appointments
• School of Architecture Lecture Series
• American Institute of Architecture Students
• Habitat for Humanity
Throughout the nine academic years that I have been at Prairie View, I have coordinated annual lectures for the School of Architecture as both the official co-chair and as a design studio professor -engaging knowledgeable industry professionals to speak to our future architects. Lecturers and industry professionals were also invited each semester to join the design studio jury midterm and final reviews. Among the many memorable guests & lecturers, Dan Stine, Director of Design Technology at Lake Flato Architects and his colleague, Sophia Razzaque AIA, IIDA, NOMA, LEED AP, have lectured several times post COVID and returned to Prairie View to give an energy modeling tutorial/ workshop to students in the fourth year and graduate level studios. Several architects from the HDR LA and Dallas offices lectured and mentored our students.
Most recently, in Spring 2024, I coordinated an interdisciplinary panel discussion sponsored by Stanford University. The lecture, Bridging the Racial Equity Gap through Sustainable Design and subsequent panel discussion Investing in the Future, the Role of HBCUs on Climate Action and Environmental Justice included architecture and engineering alumni. The panel was facilitated by the American Institute of Architecture Student leaders who lobbied to expand the lecture format into a panel format including alumni.
Cover photo: Guest Jurors from the Northeast Houston Redevelopment Council, Kenneth Williams, Dr. Jessica April Ward, and Keith Downey, PV alum (2023)
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS
Faculty Advisor 2015 - 2023
As faculty advisor for the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) I had the opportunity and pleasure of coordinating and accompanying student leaders to the annual National AIAS Conferences, where student leaders were exposed to various Cities around the country, including Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. AIAS conferences provided fellowship, professional development, and keynote speakers to facilitate discussion on relevant issues related to architecture and design education.
Additionally, the AIAS Prairie View chapter, hosted local social and professional networking events throughout the academic years, contributing in a major way to the culture of design studio at Prairie View. AIAS student leaders launched pilot programs to encourage design/ build activities including; Habitat for Humanity (2020) which became formalized as its own student organization in 2024, and the Community-based Design Center/ Collaborative Freedom by Design program (2022) to support AXP credit for students who will be pursuing their architecture license.
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
Faculty Advisor 2020 - current
In 2020, the AIAS student leaders developed a shadow board to pilot the inaugural Habitat for Humanity campus chapter, leading to the launch of an independent University wide chapter in 2024. Habitat for Humanity Houston partnered with Prairie View to build the House 360 prototype for a multi-generational family in need. It was the first accessory dwelling unit (ADU) Houston Habitat ever delivered. Students volunteered alongside the future homeowner, as well as at various Houston Habitat build sites throughout the years. Build days are now a staple in the School of Architecture. As my Professor Michael Rotondi used to say, gravity doesn’t exist in the computer. Hands on construction not only enables students to participate in a fun team building experience but it is also educational.
