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On Friday, 14 second-year students from the Texas Southmost College associate’s architecture program presented their designs for a new Buena Vida housing development to replace the original one at Ringgold and East 14th streets in Brownsville.
The event took place at Poinsettia Gardens at Boca Chica, also owned by the Housing Authority of the City of Brownsville.
Buena Vida, HACB’s oldest public housing development, has been vacant since 2016 and eventually will be demolished and rebuilt.
HACB in 2016 was one of 10 recipients nationally of a HUD Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant, which is going toward planning for Buena Vida’s rebirth. The process includes soliciting input from former (and possibly future) Buena Vida residents, many of whom now live at Poinsettia Gardens.
The TSC students’ presentations — floor plans and architectural renderings displayed on a number of easels crowding the Poinsettia Gardens clubhouse Friday — gave an idea of what a reimagined Buena Vida might look like.
Jesse Miller, adjunct instructor with the architecture program and the housing authority’s vice chairman, said the students’ year-two “design studio” assignment was to come up with ideas for that, but also find ways to fit in more housing units than the initial site plan, completed in 2018, called for. Buena Vida encompasses six city blocks.
“Is there a way to do that responsibly without overcrowding the site?” Miller said. “They were asked to look at one block. The original plan shows 30 homes on that block. All of the students are proposing at least 30. Some of them are going up to the 40s or 50s. They’re looking at different ways of how this could work.”
Each design is unique and some will be incorporated into the final architectural design for the project, he said, adding that the students’ assignment involved meeting with former Buena Vida residents early in the process to find out what they envisioned for the new Buena Vida. Miller called the students the “future designers of Brownsville.”
I’m very proud of you guys for what you have accomplished. I know maybe some of you haven’t slept for the last 24 hours.
Dr. Murad Abusalim, founder of TSC’s architecture program, said the program years ago adopted service-learning — the Buena Vida project is an example — as one of its primary teaching methodologies. He said the program is always seeking opportunities for its students to engage in hands-on learning while engaging and collaborating with community partners, and thanked HACB for the opportunity
Abusalim likewise praised the students, who were on hand to answer questions about their presentations, for their hard work.
“I’m very proud of you guys for what you have accomplished,” he said. “I know maybe some of you haven’t slept for the last 24 hours.”
HACB Chairman Luis Garduno called the students’ presentations “very impressive work.”
Carla Mancha, the housing authority’s CEO, said the spirit of the Choice Neighborhoods is “all about creating connections” and thanked TSC for getting HACB a step closer to its goal of a new Buena Vida, its next major project.
The collaboration between the two entities is an example of “coming together to transform and bring about a dynamic neighborhood,” she said.
