The four most southern states along the Atlantic coast, and four of the five states along the Gulf of Mexico (Alabama excepted), are among the 10 states with the highest climate change risk in the United States, according to a Pew Research Center study and data from Climate Central.
Florida borders the Atlantic and Gulf, and has the dubious distinction of being the nation’s riskiest state. Texas the seventh. Both are susceptible to extreme heat, drought, wildfires, inland flooding and coastal flooding. They are also highly susceptible to wind damage from hurricanes, but that isn’t (yet) a climate change risk category. Sarah Gamble — a public interest design architect, educator and Chautauquan — grew up in Florida and lived for years in Texas. A licensed architect in both high-risk states, she describes public interest design as “a field incorporating elements of urban planning, architectural design, the arts, social work, community engagement, and education.”
At 3 p.m. Saturday at the Hall of Philosophy, Gamble will speak for the Contemporary Issues Forum, programmed by the Chautauqua Women’s Club. Her talk is titled “Environmental Activism: Opportunities for Architects and the Public to Engage in the Climate Crisis.”
“I’ll be talking about how we can shape what we do,” said Gamble, who is assistant professor at the University of Florida’s School of Architecture, and director of its new graduate-level Certificate in Public Interest Design. She herself has earned a Certificate in Public Participation from the International Association of Public Participation.
In part because of her professional and teaching experience in Texas and Florida, as well as her publications, the multidisciplinary field of public interest design is being increasingly recognized as a practical and responsible means of mitigating deleterious effects of climate change, and furthering ecological and social justice.
“I’ll give examples of how architects are using their medium to educate themselves and further environmental activism,” she said. “Different professions can engage in the climate crisis in different ways. We can’t leave it all to the technicians.”
By “technicians” she means, in part, architects who “tend to slap things on, like solar panels and green flooring.”
Because the architecture curriculum provides “minimum training in the environment, if it’s touched on at all,” Gamble said that architects need to spend more time learning — “in an informed and site-specific way” — about the places where they work.
Cognizant that the open-air Hall of Philosophy is not conducive to visual presentations, she said she’ll provide a QR code so that Chautauquans who bring their internet-connected devices will be able to view, as she speaks, complementary images of some of the places where she’s worked and the projects she’s been involved with.
For those who do not use QR codes, she will share a website address that can be accessed via Chautauqua Institution’s free WiFi service (wifi.chq.org), and via the personal hotspot on one’s smartphone.
Project images are also included in her book, Environmental Activism by Design, published in 2022. Along with Professor of the Practice Coleman Coker, Gamble presents the 29 projects that Gulf Coast DesignLab students designed and built during the program’s first decade.
Coker, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture, established and began serving as the director of the university’s GCDL in 2012, in response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effects on New Orleans, especially to its least affluent communities. Climate-related challenges are the focus of this ecologically-based community outreach program for the Texas Gulf Coast.
When Texas Architect magazine invited Gamble to write an article about GCDL’s project Float, it jumpstarted her collaboration with Coker. Her role became that of an active onlooker and researcher with a former faculty affiliation with University of Texas at Austin.
Float — a unique camping platform situated within 4,000 acres of coastal wetlands at Sea Rim State Park in Sabine Pass, Texas — won the 2017 Texas Society of Architects Design Award.
“I’ve always been interested in the arts and math,” Gamble said. “Math has been my strong suit. I went to the University of Florida as an undergrad and realized that architecture is broad and you can do many things with it. I trained in the technical aspects of buildings, but always used architecture as a service focused on community.”
As an undergrad she “saw examples of how other people were using architecture for and in service.” They sparked her interest and she “knew from that point on, that’s what (she) wanted to do.”
After graduating with a Bachelor of Design in Architecture, Gamble earned her Master of Architecture and a Certificate in Non-Profit and Philanthropic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Thereafter, she began practicing design within the nonprofit and public sectors in the southeastern United States, focusing on institutional design, disaster recovery, affordable housing, community engagement, historic preservation and “placemaking.”
As a co-founder in 2006 and coordinator of the CITYbuild Consortium of Schools, which was based in New Orleans at Tulane University’s School of Architecture, Gamble enabled students and faculty at more than 17 universities to assist in the city’s massive post-Katrina rebuilding effort.
For her efforts, she received the ACSA Collaborative Practice award from the international Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in 2008.
At Specht Architects in Austin, Texas, where she worked as a designer from 2007 to 2009, Gamble focused on the renovation of and an addition to a dormitory at St. Edwards University. This project earned a design award from the Austin Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and was featured in Metropolis and Architect magazines.
For the next two years, Gamble served as the architect of the Austin Community Design and Development Center, a non-profit focused on creating “more affordable living opportunities through community-engaged design” and “inclusive, sustainable neighborhoods.”
In this capacity she designed “homeless transitional housing,” and led an “infill affordable housing program” — the Alley Flat Initiative — for small units situated in backyards that open up to alleys.
Tribeza Magazine named Gamble as one of Austin’s “10 to Watch” in 2011 for her positive impact on the city.
Gamble and colleague Lynn Osgood established a design and planning firm in Austin in 2012 known as GO collaborative. According to Gamble, they connected “people with place with clients and grantors including the National Endowment for the Arts, City of Calgary, and ArtPlace America.”
Referred to in The Austinite magazine as “The Duo,” they created and led the project Drawing Lines to embed artists who would co-create a place-specific project within each of Austin’s 10 city council districts artists.
Texas Magazine chose Gamble as one of the state’s “4 Under 40” architects in 2013.
After undertaking an 18-month research and design process, GO collaborative developed “Exploring Our Town.”
According to Gamble, this “interactive, online resource serves policymakers and the public at many steps along the creative placemaking path, and presents information for communities planning or implementing their own projects by providing succinct case studies, topic overviews and applicable lessons learned from both individual projects and from overall project efforts.”
Over 70 projects from around the United States are featured. They received funding through the NEA’s Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative and its annual Our Town grant program. Austinite Magazine featured Gamble as one of 21 Austinites making a difference, and University of Florida’s School of Architecture honored her with its Young Alumni Award in 2015.
In 2018, Gamble became the state architect for the Texas Historical Commission’s Main Street Program, which regards historic buildings as assets. She provided “design and revitalization consulting services” to the program’s 80-odd member communities, and developed resources for the public.
While she was co-managing GO collaborative and then working in state government, Gamble also taught design courses to graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin in an adjunct capacity — and she initiated what would become a five-year project co-authoring Environmental Activism by Design.
After Gamble moved back to Gainesville, she began teaching “studios and lecture courses on urban and community-based issues” at the University of Florida in 2019.
Her current research “focuses on context and how design is catalyzed by the surrounding environment and our understanding of it, including physical, cultural, social and ephemeral facets.” She said she wants to “improve our built environment for all,” including libraries, parks and other spaces that impact everyone.
Currently, Gamble’s recent publication, House Relocation: A Practical Guide for Austin, Texas, provides data and information spearheading policy change in Austin in order to reduce waste and create affordable housing.
This coming year, she will be one of 12 architecture faculty members comprising the 2024 cohort for the Academy for Public Scholarship on the Built Environment: Climate Action. As such, she will participate in The OpEd Project’s virtual “Write to Change the World” workshops, which link participants with “diverse identities, voices, and ideas.”
The Academy will also provide a series of climate training modules focusing in part on storytelling, media and terminology. They will be led by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
As an architect, Gamble said she wants to remind people that “design matters.” Fortunately, “during the past 20 years there’s been a growth in architects choosing community design,” though it’s not sufficient.
As co-author of Environmental Activism by Design, she wants other architects to understand that “it’s important to be informed.” Because, Gamble said, without education, they do not possess the necessary background to (engage in) the climate crisis.
And without the engagement of knowledgeable public interest design architects along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, as well as throughout the country, climate change risk will continue to escalate.
