Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: California State University, Chico

Title of entry: Reimagining What Home Looks Like

About this entry: When the planned cover story for the fall 2022 issue of our University magazine fell through less than two weeks before the press date, we scrambled to find a suitable alternative. Days earlier, we had heard about an update on an invaluable community service project our interior architecture students undertook in the wake of the Camp Fire. The deadliest and most destructive fire in California history, the Camp Fire destroyed more than 11,000 homes just a dozen miles east of our main campus in November 2018 and the communities remain in the early stages of rebuilding. This fall, Chico State students completed a series of home designs that had been approved by the City of Paradise and Butte County as free, ready-to-build plans, and several were under construction—the culmination of a years-long project. Editor Ashley Gebb scrambled to interview the professor leading the project, several student participants, the former board member of Rebuild Paradise (also an alumnus), a staff member and fire survivor who had been part of the students’ creative process, and an engineer (and alumnus) who partnered with the students to provide professional oversight. The resulting story was rich with detail, multifaceted, and demonstrated a multitude of the University’s strategic priorities and values. By being a testament to the exceptional hands-on education and the University’s dedication to serving our greater community, it proved to be an even more exceptional story than the one it replaced—building affinity among our alumni readers and prestige for Chico State.