The Atlanta Center for Creative Inquiry, Inc. (ACCI) provides opportunities for inner-city youth to be exposed to, participate in and be introduced to creativity, design, arts, architecture, real estate development, construction and entrepreneurship. The Center is operated through partnerships that give students an opportunity to find out how projects are created, developed and constructed.

The ACCI is the southern initiative of the Studio for Creative Inquiry Sustainable Landscape Architecture Project (SLAP) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. The current local Atlanta project is a six-week demonstration program based on the Carnegie Mellon University plan. Classes from Benjamin E. Mays High School in the Atlanta public school system have already participated in the program and we’re looking to expand to other metro Atlanta schools.

ACCI classes occur in the spring of each school year and are held after normal school hours. The students participate in a series of weekly events that include in-class design problems, lectures and sketch problems. They will also visit college campuses, local neighborhoods and area construction sites. The exercises are designed to create a new sensitivity for the students about the environments in which they live, work and play. One side effect of this process is to spark an interest in creativity and the importance of a college education.

Currently, less than one percent of the American Institute of Architecture Fellows (FAIA) are African Americans. Fewer than half of a percent of all architectural firms are African American. The Atlanta Center for Creative Inquiry seeks to reverse that trend and to get more students in the pipeline to pursue careers in architecture, engineering, interior design, real estate development, and other creative avenues.