Jennifer Lewis

Job Title: Director, Center for Community Design and Preservation

Contact

Email: jmlewis@uga.edu
Phone: (706) 542-6760
Street address: 285 S. Jackson St.
Athens GA 30602

Personal Interests

Academic service-learning, community engagement, design charrettes, downtown revitalization, historic preservation, historic preservation commissions, historic schools as schools, neighborhood revitalization, urban design

ORGANIZATIONS

Historic Athens
Citizens for Healthy Neighborhoods
CAPPA – Community Approach to Planning Prince Avenue Steering Committee

Honors and Awards

GA ASLA Honor Award-Communications, for "Snapshots" Exhibit (2022)
PSO Facilitation Academy (2019-20)
Experience UGA OUtstanding Staff Award (2019)
Vivian H. Fisher PSO Leadership Academy (2017-18)
Service-Learning Fellow, Office of Service Learning, The University of Georgia (2011-12)
President of the Board of Trustees, Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation (2010-11)
Trustee of the Year, Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation (2009)
“40 Under 40”, Athens Banner-Herald (2009)
Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation Preservation Award for Outstanding Achievement, to Community Approach to Planning Prince Avenue Steering Committee (2004)
Sigma Pi Kappa Preservation Honor Society, The University of Georgia (1997)

Jennifer Lewis

Job Title: Director, Center for Community Design and Preservation

Biographical Information

Jennifer Lewis is the Director of the Center for Community Design and Preservation – the Public Service and Outreach arm of the College of Environment and Design. She develops and promotes community engagement, service-learning, and collaborative partnerships for the benefit of students, faculty, staff, UGA public service and outreach units, and Georgians. She also manages the college's design charrette program – a service-learning opportunity for students that provides a collaborative visioning workshop for Georgia communities. Her expertise lies in service-learning and community engagement, as well as historic preservation commission activities and design review programs in historic districts, downtown revitalization programs, and community design charrettes – all tools that assist communities in protecting what is significant from their past and managing future growth.

Jennifer was a member of the 2019 Public Service and Outreach (PSO) Facilitation Academy, the 2018 Vivian H. Fisher PSO Leadership Academy, and a 2011 PSO Service-Learning Fellow. She has served on the Board of Trustees for Historic Athens for a total of ten years, including terms as its President and as Chair of the Preservation Awards and 50th Anniversary committees. Previously, Jennifer has served the state as Georgia’s Certified Local Government Coordinator and as Design Manager for the statewide Better Hometown Program.

Portfolio

Education

1995 Bachelor of Arts, Art History and Studio Art, College of Charleston
2002 Master of Historic Preservation, The University of Georgia, Thesis: “We Become Like That Which We Constantly Admire: Justifying the Use of Historic School Buildings as Schools”
2012 Charrette System Certificate, National Charrette Institute

NOTABLE PROJECTS

Thomaston Facades charrette
This two-day mini charrette helped fill a gap in Thomaston's revitalization efforts by providing the drawings that owners must submit to be eligible for matching grants. Historic Preservation students were able to learn about a small town’s revitalization successes and challenges, share their preservation knowledge with interested property owners, and learn illustration techniques that improve their professional communication skills. In turn, property owners were provided with a series of hand-rendered illustrations showcasing façade improvements for their buildings.

Downtown Douglas charrette
This charrette focused on revitalizing the downtown area, enhancing corridors that lead into the city, and showcasing revitalization potential for appropriate new construction to attract investors. With a specific intention to identify a handful of big ideas that could be broken down into "small wins" through strategies like tactical urbanism, the charrette team focused on Greenspace & Greenways, Entertainment & Placemaking, Streetscape & Circulation, Preservation & Housing, and the historically African American Carver District.

Hartwell Trails charrette
This charrette will explore current recreational trends and local assets in order to suggest improvements around multi-modal connectivity, neighborhood revitalization, and increased public health. The scope includes developing concepts for a connected trail system at the former Hart State Park on Lake Hartwell (now City of Hartwell Lakeside Park and a KOA campground) and for walking and biking access to the park and to Downtown for the predominately African-American neighborhood of Rome, which lies between the two and lacks safe access to both.

Hoschton charrette
As a small town in Jackson County, GA, on the I-85 corridor, Hoschton's population of 3,000 is projected to balloon to 10,000 in just five years. Using a hybrid approach that blended in-person site visits and stakeholder engagement with broader virtual public feedback, this charrette explored potential solutions to address growth while capitalizing on historic character. The final design concepts encourage land conservation, park enhancements, building rehabilitation, and multi-modal circulation. Final Deliverables

Little River Trails charrette, McDuffie Co.
Conducted a design charrette for the McDuffie County Archway Program to develop a multi-user trail system and recreational enhancements along the Little River and within the Clarks Hill Wildlife Management Area. Deliverables include concepts and an illustrative master plan for a land-based trail system to support an application for a Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program grant. This charrette included virtual public engagement methods for community feedback. Final Deliverables

Interdisciplinary Research Team - Coastal Housing Resiliency
Member of an interdisciplinary UGA team of engineers, ecologists, planners, social scientists and others to explore how lessons learned from initiatives such as the Katrina Cottage, in combination with innovations such as 3D printed construction techniques, could produce affordable homes that are better suited to withstand storm events yet fit in among traditional residences. The UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island will serve as a proving ground for this project. Article

West Broad School redevelopment
Mitigation discussion with Historic Athens and Clarke County School District on the redevelopment of a historic school campus that showcases the evolution of Black education in Athens. Providing guidance for MUPD student Practicum on reuse explorations for the site.

Brewpub Charrette, Hawkinsville GA
This charrette focused on brewpub tourism as economic development and downtown revitalization. Concepts for four potential brewpub locations were explored – a former gas station, a historic cotton mill warehouse, a vacant site Downtown, and a former laundromat – as well as a master plan for a neglected riverfront park. Collaborators included the Pulaski County Archway Partnership and the RSVP team at the UGA Carl Vinson Institute of Government, who included the charrette results in their final report. Final RSVP Report

Neighborhood Survey StoryMaps
Led the development of new digital communication tools by the Findit program in order to present survey results in a more engaging and accessible manner. This included updating the standard survey report template’s narrative content and graphic layout, as well as creating StoryMaps, which use GIS to support interactive and readily available map-based content – perfect for historic architectural surveys.
Carr's Hill and Newtown

Experience UGA field trips
Lead annual field trips for local tenth-graders to showcase landscape architecture and environmental design through the “Experience UGA” program - a partnership between the Clarke County School District (CCSD) and the UGA Office of Service Learning which aims to bring every PreK-12 student to UGAʼs campus every year for a curricular-based field trip. In partnership with CED's Georgia Students in Landscape Architecture (GSLA) and 30+ CED student volunteers for two 200-student field trips. Read more

Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning
Presented with colleagues from the UGA Office of Service Learning on the Experience UGA curricular field trip partnership on campus. Our interactive workshop demonstrated how a charrette format was used to develop the 10^th grade trip to the CED to explore landscape architecture and environmental design, and how this design-thinking approach is applicable to other engagement opportunities.