The University of Kentucky College of Design School of Architecture design team led by Martin Summers, in collaboration with Michael Wilson of the UK Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) and students from Electrical Engineering discuss the "Point of Departure" multidisciplinary research project at the University of Kentucky. The team was awarded a 2014 Sustainability Challenge Grant to pursue research into sustainable bus shelters. You can find a link to the radio interview on WRFL as part of the "Green Talks" series, where the focus is on sustainable research funded through the University of Kentucky Sustainability Council.
Project text by Martin Summers:
"This project began as a simple idea: Develop sustainable bus shelters on the University of Kentucky campus as a means to explore ideas of architecture, engineering, sustainability and interdisciplinary collaboration. While these goals are at the heart of the research, it is clear that to see it within these limited terms represents a huge missed opportunity. This is our Point of Departure.
We need to reimagine the urban scale of campus through strategic acupuncture; a series of interactive, networked, didactic, and iconic structures, each bringing a unique identity to the spaces and sites where they are located. The structure and site link to the ongoing campus and transportation master planning concepts where programmed green space, sustainable design, and enhanced user experience creating destinations and event spaces for students that are not often associated with a bus shelter. Each shelter is designed to maximize the opportunities latent at each site and to outwardly express this integrated identity to students, visitors and to the city of Lexington."