WWU students’ Denmark-inspired sustainability designs coming to Bellingham waterfront
Western Washington University students’ design work soon will be featured at the Bellingham Waterfront.
The work is a result of the Denmark Sustainable Design Experience, an international opportunity for WWU students to gain exposure to new ideas and inspiration in a hands-on manner. The trip to Denmark and subsequent coursework encourages students to challenge their perspectives on sustainable designs and protect impacts, according to a project summary sent to The Bellingham Herald.
Why Denmark?
“In Copenhagen, our study tour focused on the sustainable waterfront harbor transformation at the city, site, and product scales, and on how the city has become one of the most livable in the world by implementing strategic multi-modal infrastructure and a people-centered design approach,” Katy Scherrer, project partner of the Denmark Sustainable Design Experience, told The Bellingham Herald. “In our own backyard, the classes, workshops, and tours are focused on transforming the former Georgia Pacific waterfront site and designing sustainable waterfront public space.”
This is the first time a WWU cohort participated in this experience, although previous cohorts came out of Bellingham Technical College. Accompanying and aiding the students throughout the process were John Misasi and Jill Davishahl, professors in the engineering department at WWU.
The program was funded by the Scan Design Foundation, which covered the cost of flights for participating students.
“We are dedicated to advancing Danish-American relations through the exchange of people, ideas and cultural experiences,” the Scan Design website states.
The cohort was in Denmark for two weeks in September. Once they returned, it was time to get to work implementing lessons learned.
“A lot of the students are learning new technical skills on top of this,” Misasi told The Herald. “So although they are engineering or design students, they’re doing things that they’re not familiar with, learning how to use different pieces of equipment, or understanding materials that can be used in different applications. It’s been a really holistic program that I’m really happy about and proud of.”
The cohort of 10 was divided into three groups, each one picking their own project with emphasis on what needed to be added to properly improve the area. They were required to pitch projects to Ram Construction, the Port of Bellingham and the city of Bellingham.
Davishahl said the pitch process led to a plan to build:
- A bench built from recycled wood with a built-in planter box to house native plants.
- A “tire tower”, a public seating and play installation that is made from discarded/donated tires and plywood.
- A way-finding post that displays all five Pacific Northwest salmon species to direct visitors toward nearby landmarks such as the Acid Ball and downtown Bellingham. The way-finding post also has a planter box featuring native plants.
The project reveal is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday, March 20 at the Portal Village, 298 W Laurel St.
“I feel really thankful that I’ve had this opportunity to watch these young people develop these skills throughout the whole project, whether it be the actual travel, navigating a new place, their nervousness around being somewhere new and different, bringing those ideas back [and] translating those ideas into something that works here in the United States,” Davishahl said.