Sunday morning, members of the University’s designBridge architecture program cut the ribbon wrapped around a new grow room that will be used by Northwest Youth Corps’ OutDoor High School in Eugene.
DesignBridge, a student-run organization that designs and builds projects for members in the community, designed and built the nearly 200-square foot building with help from ODS’ students, volunteers from Eugene’s Active 20-30 Club and other community members.
The new building, located at NYC’s two-acre organic farm just east of Hendricks Park, cost nearly $6,000 to build. It will give students at ODS the chance to grow food during different times of the year than the same foods that grow outside.”This is beyond what we had expected,” said NYC Development Officer Natalie Whitson. “We were thinking it would turn out to be like the brown shed we already have, but this is something that the students will greatly benefit from.”
When the outdoor high school received a $5,000 grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust in 2006, Whitson and NYC contacted designBridge about getting assistance building the new grow room. DesignBridge conducted a type of brainstorming session called a “charrette” and worked directly with students and faculty members until the end.
“We facilitated a charrette and took ideas from students and faculty at the high school to find out exactly what they wanted,” said designBridge member and University student Nora Diver. “We worked with them all the way through. It was definitely a collaborative process.”
Volunteers put in nearly 550 hours to complete the project. With the help of an additional $1,000 grant from Jerry’s Home Improvement Center, the grow room, complete with electricity, plumbing and aluminum cladding, was finished. It is a step up from the school’s old make-shift grow room, which was located in a class room.
“We are all very excited about the new building,” said ODS Principal Jeff Orlandini. “It’s hard to put into words what kind of impact that this will have on our garden and education for students. This will be extremely valuable.”
The grow room was designed with sustainability in mind. It has large windows, including reused ones from BRING Recycling, that allow for maximum lighting without electricity. DesignBridge also obtained recycled aluminum cladding made from printing plates, once used to print DVD and video game covers, from Schnitzer Steel. This cladding give the building a colorful appearance. Pictures of John Wayne and covers from the video game “Guitar Hero” can be seen on the outside of the grow room.
The designBridge team, with the help of faculty members Nico Larco and Alison Kwok, intentionally kept the design rather simple and modest in size to keep costs down and to avoid having to file for building permits.
“The design itself is really fun,” said designBridge Project Manager and University student Matt Travis. “It’s all really in tune with the best building practices and I think it will age nicely.”
The new grow room enhances the educational experience for the high school students, but also helps the farm grow produce for the community. NYC produced two tons of food last year, which was used to feed students at the school and was sold to community members at a stand that is open on the NYC Augusta Street campus every Wednesday.
“With seeded shelves and grow lights, we can get a real jump on things,” said Farm Coordinator Angela Andre. “This year we can get our tomatoes out as early as possible and continue to grow them for a longer period of time.”
Not only was the building process important for the school and the farm, but it also benefited designBridge and marks a serious growth spurt in the organization.
“This was the first designBridge project where we worked on it from the beginning until the end,” Travis said. “It shows how this student group has highly evolved.”
The volunteer-based group of undergraduates and graduates, founded almost three years ago, was based on an idea of former University professor Michael Cockram. At first, 10 to 15 people attended each meeting; now as many as 70 people are involved, said Larco, designBridge’s faculty adviser.
“It’s great education and hands on experience for students,” Larco said before the ceremony. “There are other programs like this in the country, but this is the only one that I can think of that has complete student direction and also a community focus.”
DesignBridge is currently working on several projects, but the group is always looking for proposals, especially this time of the year.
“Up until the spring, we are looking for new projects to work with,” Larco said. “For some that means free labor, but it’s the educational experience that is valuable.”
The experience of building something like the grow room is what really matters, as students at ODS and members of designBridge get to learn first-hand what it takes to create and produce a building.
“It’s been wonderful working with designBridge,” said NYC Program Director Daphne Derven. “I felt like it was a mutually beneficial process that not only gave our students an important grow room, but also the chance to see a project in every stage. It’s been very educational for everybody.”
Many people had a hand in the project, and that was never more apparent than at Sunday’s unveiling, when Travis and fellow Project Manager Eric Churchill gathered everyone into a “thank-you circle” and passed out gifts to those who helped.
“I just want to say thanks to all the volunteers who worked on this project,” Travis said before the event. “This really wouldn’t have happened without them.”