The Department of Interior Design hosted the annual fall study tour focused on historical homes and preservation in Mississippi and Louisiana. Participants, including UTC students and faculty, toured architecture in Natchez, Mississippi, the Louisiana River Road and New Orleans, Louisiana on November 4-8 of last year.
Each year, the department hosts a domestic trip to an enriching location. “The study tour is an affordable way for students to see and experience other cultures,” Dr. Moody said. “They get to see things with their eyes that they’ve only seen in books.”
The study tour allowed participants an up-close look at architecture and furnishings of plantation homes. “The more you see, touch, and interact with, the more you remember, and can apply later on,” Liz Carroll, UTC Interior Design student, said.
The group started their trip in Nachez, Mississippi where participants took a carriage ride around the city and visited area plantation homes. When the group arrived in New Orleans, they took tours of a local cemetery, the French Quarter, and Garden District.
“New Orleans is like no place you’ve ever been before,” Pruitt Holmes, a UTC Interior Design student, said. “They have such a different culture. It’s very colorful, lively, and French.”
The group also toured homes in Lower Ninth Ward built by the Make it Right Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by Brad Pitt that constructs affordable, green housing for residents who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. The foundation has built nearly 50 homes since they first broke ground in 2008.
“The students saw how design can be humanitarian, and not just pretty,” Dr. Moody said.
Previous study tours have gone to Chicago, Miami, Savannah, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina. This fall, the study tour will be in Charleston.
