With the help of a $40,000 Ball Brothers Foundation grant, Ball State’s College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) and School of Art plan to expand their reach into the community.
The grant was awarded to Ball State to fund the establishment of a Community Makers Hub in the Madjax building, which will allow CAP and the School of Art to take the lead in a collaborative effort between other local organizations, a July press release stated.
“The main intent is to use it as a hub of operation that can more easily reach out to the community,” said Dave Ferguson, dean of CAP. “Our [modus operandi] is to do hands-on design build projects that connect with community members.”
Within the new Community Makers Hub, there are plans for the development of metalworking and woodworking spaces, as well as the construction of a room called the innovative space, which will have sound-proofed walls and be used for brainstorming, Ferguson said.
“This grant and one of the major thrusts of Madjax is around workforce development as well as community involvement,” he said. “So when you think about workforce, some of it is around, getting comfortable with and having access to sets of tools and shops where you can increase your skills.”
Janice Shimizu, assistant professor of practice at CAP and one of the leaders working on the development of the Community Makers Hub, said there is not a step-by-step plan in place for the development of the hub, but the grant money will go toward the equipment, people and materials needed.
“We know the type of catalyst we want this to be,” she said. “We know the sort of foundation, where we’re at, and we have some initial partners, and we know where we want to get to. I think the discussion on the table right now is ‘How best to get that?’ As people step forward, we want to have the flexibility to refine that.”
School of Art instructor Maura Jasper said the Ball Brothers Foundation invited the School of Art to submit a proposal for a grant to offer programs at Madjax. She said the project is exciting because it allows the School of Art to take a formal step forward to get space at Madjax after being unable to in the past.
Shimizu said the development of the hub will allow CAP and the School of Art to collaborate with different Muncie community arts groups.
“A lot of it is building up this network of community partners and industry partners as well,” she said.
Currently, CAP already has a small space in the Madjax building where they offer classes and projects with groups such as Motivate Our Minds and Midwest Metals. Once a month, CAP students also run an after-school club titled “We think it, we make it,” which focuses on teaching kids the design process, Shimizy said.
“We go through sketching, and we go through making models. We're teaching them to use hand tools and woodworking,” Shimizu said. “They learn how to prototype and then they're making projects that support the garden [here] and we've been helping them work through with a community garden.”
Ferguson said, a date has not yet been set for the School of Art to start programs as Madjax, but they hope it will work with CAP by the end of the year.
He also added that Purdue Polytechnic and Ivy Tech Community College are also present in the Madjax building and discussion about collaborating with them is underway.
“We’re literally becoming the bridge to these industries and to these new applications,” Ferguson said.
Charles Melton contributed to this story.
Contact Hannah Gunnell with comments hrgunnell@bsu.edu or on Twitter @hagunnellNEWS.
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