This 2 week crash course teaches students critical skills in both facilitating consensus based design and fundamental carpentry skills. Students engage in a collaborative and interactive process of designing and building a full scale community project. Students will meet with the non-profit or community client, establish the program, work within a budget, propose and develop the design all in just 3 days. Following design approval, we’ll head to the job site to execute the design. 

Throughout the program students will experience the design/build feedback loop as they gain fundamental carpentry skills while also learning how to adapt existing plans to current conditions. Your creative thinking and problem solving skills will be put to the test!

This class is a great fit for people interested in community development, change making, architecture, small scale building and collaborative design. 

This course is open to architects and builders seeking to earn continuing education credit, as well as to students, non-professionals, and anyone with enthusiasm about design/build and giving back to the public realm.  Previous construction experience is not required. However, a willingness to try is expected!

Yestermorrow’s work is rooted in an integrated design/build philosophy. We believe that combining design and building offers numerous advantages and promotes the creation of intentional and inspired buildings and communities that enhance our world. Led by founding members of the legendary Jersey Devil Design/Build group and renowned architect Bill Bialosky, this course is the embodiment of the design/build process. 

At the end of the course students will know how to:

• complete a small design/build project from start to finish
• confidently use a variety of power tools
• build structures using basic carpentry techniques
• facilitate and participate in a consensus based design process
• present projects ideas to a client 
• sketch and model projects
• interpret and modify designs and documents for construction
• adapt a project to existing and changing conditions

This course is eligible for 3 college credits from UMass Amherst. If you'd like to earn credits, please make a note on your registration and we'll follow up with next steps. 

Check out previous projects and what can be accomplished in just two weeks!

Reviews:

"I think [this] class is one of the most valuable classes I have taken during my architectural education process.  All the books and class lectures I have read and attended do not come close to the knowledge one can obtain from actually building a structure."

"This course has really opened up my eyes to a new career pathway I hadn't thought about and I'm so glad I got to be a part of such an incredible design/build community. I definitely caught the building bug"

"The strongest part of this course was experiencing both sides of construction, both design and build, meanwhile building a tight community with people from all walks of life"

Want to read more about how this course has impacted the lives of our students and instructors? Head over to the Yester Blog!