VINCENNES — When the pandemic halted public indoor activities in 2020, the Knox County Public Library in Vincennes kept serving patrons by repurposing a small parking lot next to the main building.
“We started this as a reading patio, and we would wheel some free books out on carts,” Knox County Public Library Director Emily Bunyan said. “And after the shutdown concluded, we decided to leave it that way.”
After deciding to take the concept a step further and transform the area into a parklet, Friends of the Knox County Library partnered with Indiana University as one of 16 participants in the 2025 Rural Placemaking Studio.
The placemaking program, which involves IU’s ServeDesign Center, Center for Rural Engagement and Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, is in its third year and has worked with 25 organizations in 19 counties to enrich public spaces. This year, 15 organizations were selected for projects.
“As I’ve worked throughout Indiana, each of these towns is unique,” said Jon Racek, program founder and ServeDesign Center director. “They all have their special histories, like festivals and downtowns. They’re amazing places.”
Rural Placemaking Studio
Applications for the 2027 studio will open in fall 2026. Requirements include a project that enhances or creates a public space in a rural community with 50,000 people or fewer.
Over the summer, IU students work with rural communities to provide schematic designs and price estimations for their projects. The studio serves as a launching point for organizations to start capital campaigns and complete grant applications to bring these visions to life. It began as a way to move design students into an office environment.
“It was proving to be increasingly difficult to do projects within a class format … Students weren’t learning what they should have been. Clients weren’t getting what they wanted,” Racek said. “The other thing that happened was, on the state level, there was more interest in placemaking both as a means of rejuvenating some of these rural towns as well as economic development. So more cities were becoming interested in this sort of strategy.”
Moving forward, the Rural Placemaking Studio will expand its work on community projects. In July, the program received a $158,413 READI 2.0 Arts & Culture grant, which will be used for an industrial printer, project materials and additional faculty support for student fabrication.
‘We have this blank canvas’
As a 2026 Rural Placemaking Studio partner, the Clarksville Historic Preservation Commission plans to create an interpretive trailhead for Lincoln Park Trail that pays homage to the town’s historic Black neighborhood.
The University of Southern Indiana’s Historic New Harmony, the home of two early American Utopian societies, is also a studio participant this year. USI program leaders want to revitalize Church Park, the site of two Harmonist churches, and Maclure Square, the site of the original town square. Diane Sanders, HNH director, mentioned adding group tour amenities like restrooms and a pavilion, as well as raising awareness about the town’s religious history.
“We’re already a tourist destination, but spiritual and religious tourism is a growing business, and it’s something that we have not tapped into,” she said.
Bunyan and Jamie Dugan, who writes grants for the Knox County Public Library, view the future parklet project as an extension of the library as a third place for residents outside home and work or school. The pair hopes to expand the use of the area and add activities such as STEM classes, a community learning kitchen, and musical performances.
“People are using it with a picnic table and a couple of chairs right now. The shade is nice, especially in the summer, in the mornings, when the weather’s nice,” Dugan said. “It’s already an established place where people gather. We’re just going to make it that much nicer for them.”
“There’s Wi-Fi out there, too,” Bunyan added. “After the library’s closed … there’s a lot of night usage of Wi-Fi. There’s a whole community that takes over after hours.”
Nashville is another 2025 studio participant with a parklet project in the works. The vision for Lincoln Pinch Park is an accessible walking path lined with sculptures by local artists, along with picnic tables and space for food trucks.
“We have this blank canvas, this little tiny park at the south end of town,” said Sandie Jones, Nashville’s town manager and website administrator. “We wanted to look at the possibilities.”
Project challenges
After sharing their opinions with design students, rural residents receive a workable concept that can propel quality-of-life improvements into action.
“It gives communities a framework in which to start a project,” Racek said. “After the summer, there’s momentum, consensus and visuals. It’s more likely that these projects will actually get built.”
But funding these projects has still been an obstacle for some communities and can extend timelines.
HNH expects to use $500,000 from a Lilly Endowment grant for its project. Nashville applied for a grant through nonprofit Regional Opportunities Initiative, which serves the Uplands region, for its estimated $100,000 endeavor. Vincennes is also pursuing grants for its parklet, with the total cost depending on labor and material expenses.
Lynn Lewis, chair of the Clarksville Historic Preservation Commission, believes the interpretive trailhead project will cost $20,000 to $30,000. The town agreed to pay half, but that was before Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 reduced the municipality’s budget.
“I’m not asking them for, theoretically, $15,000 yet because they’re in the throes of saying, ‘Oh my God, how do we pay for things?’ Lewis said. “It’s a tough life in towns and cities right now.”
Community partners also have to handle environmental constraints and resident concerns.
“It became clear with the designs that people felt strongly about Church Park, especially the landscaped portion,” Sanders said. “There’s some planting and things that need to be updated … but, for the most part, we need to be hands off in that area because of how beloved it is in the town.”
Real-world experience
For IU design students, the Rural Placemaking Studio offers real-world experience in project management and client communication. The program also aims to break down rural stereotypes as designers learn about the communities.
“A lot of these students haven’t visited some of these towns or been in a small town in Indiana. So they get some exposure to the people who live there,” Racek said. “The danger of any community engagement work is not listening well enough.”
On Aug. 26, students will present their final designs for 2026 participants at a community showcase on the Bloomington campus.
However, HNH is holding off on any definitive renderings for now, with plans to assemble a design committee and hold stakeholder and community meetings before finalizing plans with an architect.
“(The studio helped) us imagine what (the project) could be, give us the words we need to describe the goals, and figure out what’s important to us,” Sanders said. “It was a success. It did what it needed to do.”
The Shoals Main Street Signage Project and murals in New Pekin and Spencer are among the communities’ completed studio endeavors. In 2026, construction began on Charlestown Commons in Clark County, which includes new greenspace and a performance stage. It’s the result of a 2024 studio parklet project made possible by a fundraising campaign.
Since 2024, Clark and Martin counties have each had four studio projects. In 2025, Knox County successfully applied for three initiatives.
“I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to provide a new space for people to gather,” said Charlestown Mayor Treva Hodges on the city’s website. “These are the spaces that make Charlestown feel like home.”
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Mitizi S. Morris is an FPI News freelance contributor. You can reach her at mitzismorris@gmail.com.
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