Second Life: From Waste to Oasis

Second Life: From Waste to Oasis is an avant-garde, transdisciplinary initiative that immerses students from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture in the exigent intersections of climate change, material culture, and systemic social inequities. Conceived as a transformative urban intervention, this design-build classroom will be embedded within Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood, engendering a collective ethos around sustainable food production and ecological stewardship.

As a distinctive contribution to the Afterschool framework, Second Life exemplifies a novel pedagogical model that transcends the conventional studio. Co-created with Sankofa Village Community Farm, this full-scale bamboo greenhouse functions dually as an educational space and a production site—advocating for low-carbon methodologies while countering the legacies of food apartheid. Within the context of the Anthropocene, architectural education must valorize experimentation, adaptive reuse, and socially responsive design.

This project functions as both a literal and figurative greenhouse, cultivating local empowerment while nurturing emerging designers in participatory, community-based practice. Through the reclamation of waste materials and the employment of regenerative design strategies, students confront the ethical and ecological responsibilities of their discipline. The site, currently underserved, demands infrastructure that facilitates sapling cultivation, informal learning, and communal engagement.

Ultimately, Second Life aspires to catalyze a paradigmatic shift in architectural praxis: from abstraction to application, from isolation to collaboration. It foregrounds design as an agent of change, leveraging material innovation and civic engagement to reimagine the built environment not as static artifact, but as dynamic, responsive infrastructure that uplifts both people and place.

This project was made possible with support from Frank-Ratchye Further Fund Grant #2025-021. See additional images here.