Happy 2020, Friends of SDCA!

Our 2020 project has officially kicked-off! This past Saturday, the SDCA board met with members of the Barrow Community Foundation, Barrow County School System, and ArtsNow to discuss re-imagining the Center for Innovative Teaching and the surrounding field as a community hub and family-friendly flexible green space for Barrow County.

Community members emphasized the goal of creating a community center that will spur economic development for Barrow County. The vision is to re-mold the CFIT building to allow programming needs of the community, Barrow County schools, and ArtsNow. There is also a strong push to redesign the existing green space into a family-friendly destination park (with an accessible playground) that will connect with Downtown Winder, celebrate its history, and express the innovation occurring within the building. 

​This is a great project with many opportunities for our volunteers to help design a community-oriented master plan for the residents of Barrow County. We have amazing momentum and local support!

We'd love for you to join us as we work on the master plan with members of the community.
Meetings will take place at the Center for Innovative Teaching (84 W. Midland Ave., Winder, GA 30680).

• The pre-charrette is scheduled for January 25, 2020 (9 AM - 4 PM). We will review the site, programming, and clarify project scope.
• The charrette will take place February 8, 2020 (9 AM - 4 PM). We will divide into groups and get into the meat of the design.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, reach out to Delaram Tafreshian, our volunteer coordinator at [email protected]

We're excited to have you on board for this year's project!  As you may or may not know, SDCA is an all-volunteer-organization so we could not do what we do without each and every one of you!

At the beginning of our Pre-Charrette/Client Meeting we'll have a welcome and new volunteer introduction so everyone is ready to hit the ground running with our project. Speaking of project, we're happy to announce we'll be working with ArtsNow-Teaching and Learning Across the Curriculum in partnership with Barrow County School System on a Center for Innovative Learning! 

What to do before March 25? Stay-tuned SDCA's website for updating of the projects and additional process reference. Also, feel free to reach out with any questions.   

Again, welcome to our team!  We have a great group of passionate folks who are making this world a bit better each day. We look forward to seeing you soon.  
If you're interested or want to learn more, reach out to our volunteer coordinator, Delaram Tafreshian, at [email protected].

Flip through our 2017 project book on our website: Center for Innovative Learning.

We at Sustainable Design Collaborative- Atlanta (SDCA) are pleased to announce our 2020 community outreach project. For this project, we will partner with Barrow Community Foundation (BCF).

Sustainable Design Collaborative Atlanta (SDCA), a team of representatives from the diverse building professions, collaborates on one specific community outreach project each year. 
In 2017, we completed an outreach project for the Center For Innovative Teaching. That project had several goals, one of which was to engage the community and create excitement for the CFIT program. That goal has been met. Now the BCF has asked SDCA to revisit the original project to track progress and create a new vision for their next phase of growth and development. In partnership with Barrow County Schools and ArtsNow, SDCA will put our team on the ground in January 2020 to create a strategy to do more, do better and do the most good for the Barrow Community Foundation.

SDCA has volunteers from diverse professional backgrounds inclusive of: design research, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, engineering and construction. All hold a passion for advancing sustainability efforts with the built environment and enriching our community at large.  They are a volunteer driven organization with members representing eight diverse building community organizations. They are connected by their desire to provide professional design services to the 99% of the human race that does not normally have the opportunity to fund these types of services. In 2010, they began awarding and completing one pro-bono project each year.

This year, SDCA was fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with Greenbuild Atlanta and USGBC Georgia on the 2019 Legacy Project.
The 2019 Legacy Project committee worked with the Hagar Civilization Training Missionary and Cherry Street Energy  to install solar panels on a multi-unit, low-income, senior citizen, affordable housing property located in Atlanta’s Historic Westside English Avenue Community. The goal is to alleviate utility cost burdens for its residents as well as provide a training site. The completed project was available for touring during Greenbuild and was well-received.

Watch a video on the project on YouTube: USGBC English Avenue Legacy Project 2019