Bringing Together Engineering, Architecture, And Art Students To Creatively Solve Community Design Issues

The University of Hartford established the Center for Integrated Design (CID) to bring together faculty and students from engineering, architecture, art, and business to work on issues facing the University’s neighboring communities. Service learning projects have been an integral part of the course work in each of these disciplines, but outcomes of these discipline specific projects were not coordinated to solve the larger problems facing the communities. Also, students did not gain any experience working with other disciplines and learning how to communicate with both technical and non-technical team members. One successful project that was recently completed by the CID was for the town of Bloomfield, Connecticut. The goal of this project was to provide short and long-term recommendations for enhancing the center of town. The project consisted of three phases. In phase one, students from engineering, architecture, and art worked together during the summer as paid interns. They reviewed town records; collected data on items such as architectural styles, sidewalk conditions, lighting conditions, and signage; and performed traffic and pedestrian counts. In phase two, course projects in the three disciplines were conducted using the data collected in phase one. For example, a team of senior civil engineering students worked under the guidance of Bloomfield’s Town Engineer and Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) engineers to design the layout of ornamental street and parking lot lights. Other course projects were a water quality study, town center threshold study, town center redevelopment study, and town center wayfinding project. In addition, students involved in these projects participated in a focus group meeting where town officials and residents were interviewed to get their perception of the existing town center and their vision of an ideal town center. In the final phase of the project, the student interns and faculty developed a list of recommendations that were then presented to Bloomfield’s Town Council. Assessment of the project by faculty, students, and town officials indicated that there was excellent integration of the student interns from the three disciplines and that the students benefited by being involved in a multidiscipline project. An area of improvement that was identified was to incorporate a multidiscipline team approach into the course projects themselves. P ge 10276.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Introduction The University of Hartford’s mission statement emphasizes that taking an active role in the community is an important element of a student’s preparation for a lifetime of learning and personal and professional success. This element of a student’s education has been incorporated into the civil engineering curriculum through service learning projects that both support the course outcomes and benefit the community. Assessment of the service learning projects by community sponsors, faculty, alumni, and students has been very positive, but one short-coming is that the projects are not interdisciplinary and are focused on just the engineering component of an issue. To provide an opportunity for civil engineering students to work with other disciplines and for the projects to more completely solve community design issues, the University of Hartford established the Center for Integrated Design (CID) in 2003. The center provides a place for faculty and students of various disciplines to work together. The first project completed by the CID was for the enhancement of the town center in Bloomfield, CT. For this project, engineering, architecture, and art students worked together in collecting data, performing design studies, and developing shortand long-term recommendations for the town. This paper describes how faculty and undergraduate students from different departments and colleges worked together on the Bloomfield Center Study and discusses the challenges in sustaining the CID so it can be both a positive learning experience for students and also make a positive contribution to the greater Hartford community. Bloomfield Center Study In early 2003, the Town of Bloomfield Board of Selectman directed the Town Planner to investigate the requirements for and the opportunities available to ensure that the Town Center remained as the cultural hub of Bloomfield. Having previously worked with the University on several small projects, the Town Planner asked John Carson (Senior Advisor, Corporate and Community Relations, University of Hartford) about the possibility of having faculty and students work on the Bloomfield Center Study. Because of the diverse needs of the project, Carson brought together faculty from architecture, art, and engineering that are active in doing service learning projects to learn more about the requirements of the Bloomfield Center Study. This meeting led to the authors writing a proposal that was funded by the Town of Bloomfield in spring 2003. The project was started in June 2003 and consisted of three phases. The first phase was to gather data on existing conditions such as architectural styles, lighting, signage, parking areas, sidewalks, walkability, and traffic. In addition, a focus group meeting was conducted with Town Officials and residents to have a baseline understanding of their impression of the Center of Town and the elements that they felt were needed to increase the activity and vitality of the center. The second phase consisted of analyzing the data and performing several design studies. These studies were performed by architecture, art, and engineering students enrolled in Architectural Design II, Site Planning, Design Systems, Water Quality Engineering, and Civil Engineering Senior Design Project. The final phase consisted of developing recommendations based on analysis of the data gathered in phase 1 and the design studies conducted in phase 2. Page 10276.2 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Phase 1 – Existing Conditions and Focus Group Study One student each from engineering, architecture, and art were hired as interns to work for the summer to collect data on the existing conditions of the town center. The students worked together as a team, but each student was responsible for collecting data in their area of study. For example, the engineering student was responsible for collecting data on roadway characteristics, traffic counts, condition and location of sidewalks, drainage, and location of street lights. In addition, the group worked together in performing a walkability study to determine residential and commercial locations within a 5, 10, 15, and 20 minute walk of the Town Green and a pedestrian study to determine how many people are either walking or biking in the Town Center. The second element of the first phase was a Focus Group meeting that was attended by three town officials (mayor and two councilmen) and twelve residents. The student interns, students in the enrolled in the Department of Architecture Site Planning and Development course, and faculty worked in groups of two interviewing each resident and town official. One person from each group was responsible for asking the questions and summarizing their responses while the other person was making a sketch of their responses. This was an effective way to utilize the talents of the engineering and art/architecture students and faculty in understanding the focus groups’ perception of the existing town center and the vision for a more vibrant and active center. Phase 2 – Course Design Projects and Studies Six design projects were performed to address specific issues related to improving Bloomfield Town Center and providing elements that are necessary for transforming the Center into a Central Community District. The course design projects and studies are listed in Table 1. The projects consisted both of full semester projects (e.g., Civil Engineering Design Project) or shorter two-week to half-semester projects. Two of the six design projects were done by civil engineering students. In the Civil Engineering Design Project course (i.e., Senior Design Capstone Course), each student team works on a different project for the entire semester under the supervision of a practicing, professional engineer. Therefore, it was easy to integrate a design project that supported the Bloomfield Town Center into the Senior Design Project course. From the data gathering and focus group meeting, it was determined that replacing the existing street lights that are cobra head light fixtures with sodium lamps on 20 -25 foot concrete poles with 14-foot ornamental lights with full-cutoff metal halide lamps is a priority for the town. Under the supervision of the Town Engineer and a Connecticut Light and Power engineer, the student team measured the light intensity at different locations of a central business district that had ornamental lights to have a better feel for various light intensities, reviewed current lighting in Bloomfield Center, and then designed street and town parking lighting layouts for three ornamental light fixtures selected by the Town Planner using AGI32-EDU software. The final part of the project was for the students to develop a cost estimate for the capital and annual operating expense for the installation of the ornamental lights. Page 10276.3 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Table 1. Course Design Projects and Studies to Support Bloomfield Center Study Project Course Department Bloomfield Center Lighting Design Civil Engineering Design Project Civil Engineering Filley Park Pond Water Quality Study Water Quality