Stories

Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, is ground zero for showcasing the power of arts-led economic and community development in rural communities. The 2024 CIRD local design workshop, hosted in this small town where the distinct cultures and landscapes of eastern and central Kentucky come together, is already informing the national rural design conversation. Gateway Regional Arts Center and their partnerships in Mt. Sterling offer insights for any community that wants to anchor the future of public space in arts, culture, and design.

The CIRD workshop with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, hosted in Fort Washakie, WY on the Wind River Indian Reservation, explored design approaches for a new museum, cultural center, and storage and archives facilities. The concepts were deeply informed by the rich tapestry of stories, traditions, and symbols shared by community members, representing the tribe’s unique identity and their past, present, and future aspirations.

CIRD recently engaged Rory Doyle, a nationally renowned photographer based in Cleveland, Mississippi in the rural Mississippi Delta, to document their time working with community members in Grenada, Mississippi, through CIRD’s local design workshop focused on Grenada, Mississippi’s Chakchiuma Swamp. In this interview, CIRD caught up with Rory to talk about rural development, his approach to photojournalism, and amplifying rural storytelling.

Grenada, Mississippi’s CIRD design challenge could better be described as multiple design challenges, reflecting several ambitious plans to engage the community toward the design of a permanent open-air facility in Chakchiuma Swamp along with preserving a WWII-era airplane hangar at Grenada’s airport. Drawing a connection between these two disparate places reflects the creativity, passion, and civic interest of community leaders in Grenada.

Driving into Sunnyside, you pass by farms, vineyards, orchards, and fields of hops. Just from first glance, it is clear that agriculture is the base of Sunnyside’s economy. Like much of the rest of Washington state, farmworkers are essential to Sunnyside’s economy, and their numbers are growing. Sunnyside’s population is expanding faster than housing can be built, especially the affordable units needed to house the often low-wage farmworkers that are the heart of this community.

In 2018, Valentine, Nebraska (population 2,630) partnered with CIRD for a Local Design Workshop, bringing together hundreds of citizens, local elected leaders, the Nebraska Department of Transportation, and rural design experts to reimagine Valentine’s Main Street corridor, which doubles as a state highway. A recent Norfolk Daily News article highlights ongoing progress in Valentine, mentioning CIRD’s catalytic role.

When the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) team speaks to thought leaders in rural design across the country, there is unanimous and emphatic praise for Emily Roush-Elliot’s work over the last decade in the Mississippi Delta.

The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) helps rural communities enhance their quality of life and economic vitality through design. CIRD’s Design Learning Cohort brings together rural community leaders from across the country to connect with each other to share and learn how design can address their particular community’s needs.

CIRD’s August, 2022 local design workshop in Spring Grove, Minnesota coalesced efforts toward a community and cultural space facility reflective of the town’s robust support for the arts and education. The proposed facility will go up across the street from the Spring Grove School and it would literally and figuratively bridge the school and community—a physical manifestation of Spring Grove’s top priority: creating a one-room schoolhouse for the 21st century.

Every local design workshop hosted by the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) starts the same way: with community members rallying around a vision for a brighter future. CIRD’s design workshops offer rural communities the chance to work with a national team of designers, architects, and planners to develop design concepts that can help turn that vision into a reality. With support from the CIRD resource team, local design workshops bring together local residents and leaders from local non-profits, community organizations, and government to develop actionable solutions to a specific design challenge.

CIRD's May 2022 local design workshop in Frederiksted, St. Croix, focused on reviving a historic fish market. Led by local nonprofit Clean Sweep Frederiksted, the workshop is a notable stop along the way to broader community revitalization in this beautiful and historic small town. To celebrate the completion of workshop’s design book, here are some of our favorite photos from Frederiksted’s local design workshop.

CIRD’s May 2022 local design workshop in Frederiksted, St. Croix, focused on reviving and reimagining a historic fish market. But far from being a culminating event or end point, the CIRD workshop is one notable stop along the way to broader community revitalization in this beautiful and historic small town.

The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design recently partnered with the community of Keene, NH, to reinvigorate an arts corridor initiative that drives broader downtown economic development. And while the arts have long bolstered rural economies, CIRD’s work in Keene comes with a twist. Arts Alive!, a non-profit organization working to sustain the arts community across the Monadnock region, developed a close-knit and diverse project steering committee to partner with CIRD’s local design workshop team. Together they marshaled local resources around the Arts Core concept, aiming to generate an economic development plan that goes way beyond a typical rural arts strategy.

CIRD has been working with the community of Midway, Alabama to transform a shuttered school into a multifaceted community services hub and entrepreneurship center. After engaging remotely, the CIRD team traveled to Midway in early December 2021 for an in-person design workshop with over 70 residents to solidify plans for the Merritt Community Complex.

Learn about CIRD's August 2021 local design workshop hosted by the Pueblo of Laguna after a year-long delay due to COVID-19. The Main Street revitalization project centered on a new community hub and marketplace for artists and food vendors that responds to ongoing community needs and deep historic ties to sacred indigenous land.

After more than 15 years of experience working as an architect in public interest design and community development, Omar Hakeem is celebrating the one-year anniversary of his firm, To Be Done Studio (TBD). Evelyn Immonen, {CIRD Program Manager} spoke to Omar and his colleague, Zain Islam-Hashmi, about the progress of rural design efforts across the country and what TBD Studio has been up to.

The Request for Applications does more than determine which communities CIRD works with: it also lets us learn about what the design needs of rural America are and what is happening on the ground. Read about those needs and more reflections from CIRD Project Manager, Evelyn Immonen.

Partners of Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) across rural America wanted an opportunity to hear from their peers at the intersection of rural planning, design, and ultimately, resilience. The “CIRD in the Time of COVID” webinar sought to provide that very opportunity.

As the Executive Director of the AIR institute, I’m here to tell you a bit about our mission to raise the value of arts and culture in every community, in spite of the global pandemic affecting every aspect of our lives.

Mara Mintzer spoke with the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design about her award-winning work at the intersection of design, education, and community engagement with one overriding theme: youth voices matter, and they matter right now. 1.6 million people have viewed Mintzer’s How Kids Can Help Design Cities TED Talk. We suggest a listen, too, as it buttresses CIRD’s recent conversation with Mara. And don’t let “cities” get in the way; Mara notes the utter rural applicability of her approach.