Semi-Structured: The Open-Access Journal for Public Ethnography 1 (2):1-6. 2026This article examines adaptive reuse as a form of public ethnography through a community-engaged design project in rural West Texas. Focusing on an abandoned cotton gin and other underused historic structures, it reflects on how sensory mapping, walking interviews, oral histories, and community review sessions reshaped a design studio’s understanding of place. The article argues that participatory design becomes pub
