In keeping with the season, several PennDesign students recently volunteered to take “spring cleaning” to a whole new level. Working with the nonprofit Rebuilding Together Philadelphia (founded in 1988 by a Wharton student) and joining over 500 volunteers, 90 students participated in a three-day "Block Build" in the Belmont neighborhood of Philadelphia the last weekend in March. Supported in part by a PennPraxis Social Impact Project grant, the students completed home repair, improvement, and construction projects for 16 homes to make the buildings healthier, safer, and more energy-efficient for their occupants.
The volunteers and homeowners rely on teams of house captains and skilled leaders to direct projects and supervise the work on each home. This year, the PennDesign chapter of Rebuilding Together Philadelphia (RTP) is headed by Carolyn Zemanian and Evan Oxland, both second year students in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. House captains from PennDesign represented nearly all of the school’s academic departments and included Elizabeth Reynolds, Liz Trumbull, Joanna Joye, Calvin Vannoy, Jessica Arias, and Anya Sinha.
Rebuilding Together Philadelphia focuses on repairs and construction projects that improve existing low-income housing, emphasizing rehabilitation over new construction and helping homeowners to stay in their neighborhoods. It’s an approach that appealed to chapter co-chair Zemanian, who said: “Both in terms of historic fabric and at a community level, this is preservation in action. Volunteers make repairs before they snowball into major problems, and RTP keeps communities intact and residents in their homes.” Oxland added, “Some of the homes I worked on last year were scheduled to be condemned. Over time you don’t really notice the decay happening, but suddenly you have a house you can’t keep up anymore.”
The weekend's projects varied by home and included such tasks as removing hazardous lead paint, replacing carpet, and hanging new drywall. These kinds of repairs have been shown to have a measurable effect on residents’ health. In Zemanian’s assigned house, which has been in the same family for three generations, the air quality noticeably improved within hours after the old carpets were removed and replaced with new flooring. For both the homeowner and her daughter, who have asthma, these repairs are life changing. It’s not lost on the volunteers. Elizabeth Reynolds, first year student in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, said, “Seeing the family stay in the house that they have owned for 15 years and in the neighborhood they grew up in is so important.”
Meanwhile, students take away new practical skills they can use in their work. They also gain perspective on materials and construction techniques. “RTP gives you some context for what you’re doing in a professional role, even if you’re not designing,” said Liz Trumbull, first year student in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation.
The Rebuilding Together Philadelphia graduate-student club at Penn has maintained a close relationship with the organization for over 20 years. “It’s always amazing to me that so many Penn students volunteer during such a busy time of year,” Zemanian observes. “[But] volunteering on a block rebuild is a fantastic way to make a meaningful impact in a homeowner’s life and in Philadelphia’s communities.”
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