A new vision in District

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CityVision is the far-seeing name of a 12-year-old program at the National Building Museum that teaches middle school students how good design can be used to promote good communities.

That's a big concept for some of the participants -- volatile 12- and 13-year-olds, most of whom, before joining the program, had never visited the museum or been asked to think about the built environment around them and how they might improve it.

While utopian in concept, the program's actual workings are very down-to-earth.

Every Tuesday since early March, about 30 students from two city public schools -- R.H. Terrell Junior High School and MacFarland Middle School -- and one public charter school -- Paul Public Charter School -- have made the museum their classroom for more than four hours when they were not out on related field trips. In addition to museum staff, volunteer mentors include a city planner, two architects, an engineer and several retired teachers.

In just about 12 sessions, students are exposed to all aspects of urban planning -- studying a particular site and then coming up with concrete drawings and schemes, following course outlines developed during the program's 12-year history at the museum. A Word Wall lists key architectural and building terms near a board filled with photographs titled "Great Buildings of the World." "Texts" are the materials produced by students following their exposure to all the elements involved.

"It gives children a way to solve problems -- how to think things through clearly and organize," says Elizabeth Teferra, a 30-year veteran of D.C. public schools and a 10-year volunteer with CityVision. "We try to get them to see that as they get older, they have some power and need to think about how they can make changes in their environment."

The special challenge this semester -- different schools and a different project are involved each semester -- has been to create a plan for restoring and reusing the abandoned Alexander Crummell School, located on 2 acres in Ivy City, a small, triangular-shaped section bounded by West Virginia, Florida and New York avenues in Northeast.

The school, which is considered a historic site, was erected in 1912 from a design by the city's first official architect and named for a 19th-century black abolitionist, educator and clergyman. It was abandoned in 1981 in the wake of desegregation and the dispersal of students and families to more promising sections of the city.

"When the school shut down, the community really shut down. It's blighted now," says Julian Looney, the museum's assistant coordinator of outreach programs. He credits the grass-roots nonprofit organization Empower DC with the concept of focusing attention on one particular building and neighborhood.

As part of their research, students met with Ivy City residents to get their views. Working in three teams, they drew up interim proposals that were reviewed by a jury of residents and professionals in April, leading up to a final presentation that took place last week in the museum's Great Hall before parents and jury members.