C.L. Bohannon
Adapted from an article in the Virginia Tech Daily written by Colie Touzel.
What makes design successful? Conversation, collaboration, and community engagement. That belief and practice highlights C.L. Bohannon's research and teaching as an associate professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies'A landscape architecture programA and also as director of the Community Engagement Lab.
Bohannon encourages students to inspire innovation for the good of everyone and to embrace the unknown to manufacture change in society. Now, in the midst of COVID-19, students need this motivation more than ever.
While the onset of COVID-19 might present new opportunities for aspiring designers to consider equitable design within new contexts, the pandemic has certainly presented challenges for faculty and students. Due to Virginia Tech's pivot to online learning in the middle of the spring 2020 semester, Bohannon had to make alterations to his fourth-year landscape architecture studio.
At the beginning of the semester, the Hokies in his class had partnered withA Virginia Beach Parks and RecreationA to develop a splash pad park forA Mount Trashmore, a play on the name Mount Rushmore due to the park's conversion from a landfill. Rather than cancel the scheduled presentation to civic leaders, students instead displayed their work through the Zoom video conferencing platform.