Rebekah Radtke
Rebekah is a teacher, researcher, and designer who believes design can positively impact communities. Utilizing her degrees both interior design and architecture, Rebekah researches how we can use community-engagement to be more inclusive in human-centered design processes. As a proud native Kentuckian, Rebekah’s teaching focuses on creating collaborative learning experiences for her students in Lexington. These experiences seek to create better environments by building strong communities through collaborations in the university, state, and global environment.
Urban Design 859
In our community workshop course, design students from architecture and interior design have been tasked to use community engagement methods to address a community need. We have focused our efforts on an underutilized lot between campus and downtown. As the gateway to our campus, it has unlimited potential to serve students and faculty, nearby hospital visitors, and the downtown population.
Utilizing diverse research methods and collaborative design processes, students have identified how design can positively impact our community using campus as a living laboratory to explore new ideas to activate public spaces. This project has the capability to turn what is currently an eyesore into a prime opportunity to create a sense of community at the nexus of downtown and campus.