BEAM Design Build
Fall 2022, Pacific College of Northwest Arts
MFA Team: Yara Bertrand (AC+D), Molly McClain (CD), and Austin Roch (CD)
The Applied Craft + Design program (AC+D) at PNCA facilitates a design-build project prior to the start of each fall semester, focusing on the realization of work for a specific community. The MFA student group from AC+D and Collaborative Design (CD) teamed up with BEAM (Black Educational Achievement Movement) and the Albina neighborhood community members, led by Albina resident and artist Cleo Davis, architect Robert Clarke, and PNCA graduate and ceramicist Marty Trammell.
The focus of the design-build was building a more inclusive understanding of Portland’s history—one of disinvestment, discrimination, and displacement in the Black community. Through our collaboration with BEAM as a community partner, we had an opportunity to actively engage in meaningful dialogue with the neighborhood’s history and create work with Albina youth that expresses the black experience and aesthetic. This work revolved around conversation and collaboration, using design-build as the vehicle to support interactions and relationships that may not otherwise happen.
Our project brief was to design a ground-level ceramic installation to border the entry sidewalk at BEAM. The design was collaboratively developed with the BEAM representatives and BEAM students, aged 6-18. Our group worked directly with the students, teaching ceramic slab rolling, cutting, glazing, stamping, and carving techniques. Together, we created 350 custom and personalized ceramic tiles for use at BEAM.
The project’s theme and iconography, grounded in African Adinkra symbolism, were directly related to a community street mural that was designed and installed just weeks before our project began. The hut symbolizes BEAM’s “One Village, Many Huts” core value of creating culturally responsive community-led education and support systems for Black youth.
