Ann Yoachim is a Professor of Practice at the Tulane School of Architecture and the Director of the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design. Her research and practice focusses on the intersections of built, natural, and socially constructed environments that impact health in rural and urban settings. All of these efforts integrate deep understanding of the environment with human experience and a commitment to capacity building and community. An engaged design process can serve as a coalition and capacity builder, creating networks that cross racial and socio-economic divides. Using the Small Center’s fifteen years of work, a current research effort to test this hypothesis through evaluation is underway. Her scholarly retreat was used to draft a scholarly publication, create accessible visualization and identify additional funding opportunities for this project.

“My residency provided the time and space, both figurative and literal, to just breathe and sit with the past eighteen months—and the exhaustion that is a result . This time was invaluable.” – Ann Yoachim