Filling in the Blanks:
A Generational School for Appalachia
Spring 2025
Prof. Iman Fayyad and Andrew Witt
Graduate Thesis
Portsmouth, Ohio
This thesis developed a Community Benefit Organization situated in my hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio connecting to community organizers and leaders, working with them to develop classes and plan jobs training. Architecturally, the building evolves out of a series of 15’ long double stud walls. The construction technique and adaptation is taught at the school in building trade classes so students can expand and grow their own campus.
ARC Appalachia Delineation (2024)
Central Appalachian Region
Historic Boundaries of Appalachia
Ecoregion of Appalachian Mountains
The thesis looks specifically at children’s education in the Ohio River Valley where I grew up, noting the abundance of trade schools against a lack of children’s museums in the area pointing to a regional disinvestment in youth. This is furthered substantiated by the parallel shortcomings in elementary test scores in the region, general educational noncompliance and the overwhelming abundance of students living in economic disparity.
Central Appalachia with Ohio River Valley and Portsmouth Highlighted
Central Appalachia with Trade Schools (Dark Purple) and Children’s Museums (Light Purple) Highlighted
To combat the deficiencies found in the area, the thesis begins by setting up a Community Benefit Organization in Portsmouth, Ohio, my hometown and a former industrial city on the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers.
Once a bustling city of 50,000 people boasting a large variety of industries, Portsmouth now has closer to 12,000 people and like many Appalachian cities has fallen prey to the opioid epidemic, recessions, and education cutbacks with only 14% of the population having education further than a High School diploma.
Once a bustling city of 50,000 people boasting a large variety of industries, Portsmouth now has closer to 12,000 people and like many Appalachian cities has fallen prey to the opioid epidemic, recessions, and education cutbacks with only 14% of the population having education further than a High School diploma.
CBO relationship to the thesis’s Generational School
Zoom in to Portsmouth, Ohio with my Grandmother’s House Highlighted
Portsmouth, Ohio stakeholder map
Potential Job Trainings Tie-Ins and Stakeholders
The thesis sets up an expanded notion of education through a generational school, learning from both Trade Schools and Children’s Museums. The new curriculum exists as parallel education paths having similar early childhood curriculum in conversation and friction with secondary education. Instructors would be pulled from local knowledge bases to teach secondary students which then would in turn assist in the afterschool education programs.
Groupings of Typical Trade School curriculum
New Generational School expanded curriculum
Spatialized new curriculum
The chosen site for the thesis sits at the intersection between the recently established Boneyfiddle Redevelopment District and Portsmouth’s Commercial District. A full city block, between Second and Third streets, is utilized to allow for the school to grow over time and collect a generationally increasing number of subjects.
Highlighted chosen site at overlap of Portsmouth Commercial District and Boneyfiddle Redevelopment District
The structure has a phased construction, starting with initial found buildings then grafting on a new modular construction, and finally using the construction technique to craft full buildings apart from the found structures. A new 15’x15’ grid was established to accommodate a series of prototype double stud walls, which could be configured and (re)configured over time to best contain specialized programs.
In Phase 02 original buildings are altered and new structures are grafted on, displayed by the side by side original buildings and the new fashion studio area, computer labs, and black box theatre.