Flourishing Communities

The Flourishing Communities project aims to develop affordable and sustainable housing for English Avenue as part of the Smart Community Corps Intern Program for Summer 2022!

English Avenue is a neighborhood in Atlanta’s Westside that lies only a half mile from Georgia Tech’s campus. Many of the neighborhood’s residents are unable to afford adequate housing due to high poverty rates and poor housing options. A team of Georgia Tech professors— Julie Ju-Youn Kim, Danielle Willkens, and Tarek Rakha—are motivated to leverage the community’s existing resources to develop affordable housing that is also environmentally sustainable in English Avenue. With the help of Smart Community Corps interns, the project will create prototypes for affordable, sustainable homes as well as explore opportunities for salvaged materials to be used as construction materials. They will evaluate current construction processes regarding energy performance, resiliency, and sustainability to ensure that the most energy is saved from start to finish during the construction of homes. Most importantly, they will involve community stakeholders in the project’s design and construction processes.