Getting ready for an end-of-semester exhibition late last year, architecture students in professor Antonio Petrov’s Urban Future Lab busied themselves with last-minute details. There was a projector to set up, pieces needed to be attached to models of two south side San Antonio neighborhoods, and the wealth of information on panels hanging from the ceiling required a review.

One of the students, senior Azelya Alvarez, was born and raised on San Antonio’s south side, but she says she didn’t expect to see her community in a whole new light before she became involved in the project that researched the Mission San Jose and Quintana neighborhoods. “For me, this project was quite personal,” Alvarez says. “The Quintana Road neighborhood is where I grew up. I’m familiar with all of this. But then, at the end, I realized maybe I don’t know as much as I thought about where I came from. I really learned a lot.”

The Urban Future Lab collaborated with the Southside First Economic Development Council, local tech startup Cityflag, and Local Initiatives Support Corp. to research the economic past and present of the communities to help bring revitalization in the future. The Mission San Jose and Quintana neighborhoods are two of the lowest income communities in the city, existing in proximity to major economic entities.

“I believe that experiential learning opportunities can greatly enhance classroom instruction and have a profound impact on student learning outcomes,” Eighmy says. “These signature learning experiences—including internships, service learning, undergraduate research, and study abroad—directly contribute to a student’s success in college and in his or her chosen career.”

Senior architecture major Ana Vasquez joined the Urban Future Lab because she wanted something outside the traditional architecture classroom framework. “I got frustrated with architecture that seemed self-serving,” she says, “and wanted a method more grounded in the real world with real people.” The experience of going out into the community, not once or twice but over and over again, she says, helped her understand how architecture and the role of architects can be rooted within a community.

Challenges facing the future are significant, Petrov explains. “Globalization and rapid urbanization have widened the territory, and inquiries have become more complex and broader in scope. The proliferation of misinformation, climate change, environmental damage, demographic shifts, and global inequality have further increased the stakes for architecture, institutions, and the knowledge economy. In question are the ways we respond to the inflections the world is undergoing. At stake is the imbalance between global currents and local particularities––it seems as if one system is functioning on top of the other–and the policies that shape these conditions.”

Petrov argues for a recasting of teaching methodologies. More than ever, he says, it is about identifying institutional blind spots in learning, research, policy, and execution to safeguard the environmental trust. “Rather than continuing to float between new definitions of the problem, it is urgent to determine the scope of finding solutions,” he says. “At the Urban Future Lab we believe in active engagement, inside and outside of the classroom. As a result we care about how visions translate into values, responsibilities, and collective aspirations to catalyze new inquiries and the mechanisms necessary to deliver them. We are passionate about these opportunities and how they thrive at the intersection of the university and its local and global communities.”