When design students at WSU Spokane say of a project, “It’s been real,” they mean it. Perhaps his has never been truer than with a fourth-year landscape architecture project that has become a $5.9 million federal funding request from the City of Spokane.
Two years ago, Bruce Butterworth (’78, interior design) came to the Interdisciplinary Design Institute, where he serves on the advisory board as a representative of the East Spokane Business Association, where he is also president. He worked with adjunct instructor Elizabeth Payne to involve students in a studio project exploring ways to make a portion of the business district more pedestrian friendly, boost economic vitality, and generate a new place identity.
Meanwhile, the university district concept, which centers on the Riverpoint campus and Gonzaga University across the Spokane River, expanded to include a square mile bounded by the residential and hospital complex at the base of the South Hill, Division Street to the west, Sharpe to the north, and Hamilton to the east, encompassing the East Sprague area that Butterworth represents. The success of that earlier studio’s work, and the work of other faculty at the design institute, resulted this year in a collaborative effort to explore options for a 30-block half-mile-square area most in need of revitalization.
Fourth-year landscape architecture students developed concepts including multigenerational housing, a pedestrian- and bike-friendly streetscape, retail, and student housing. On March 17, they presented their concepts to Spokane Mayor John Powers, his economic adviser Kim Pearman-Gillman, City Planner Tom Reese, Butterworth, business owners, and developers. The city jumped onboard, taking a CD-ROM of the student concepts along on a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate the potential of the university district concept for economic development.
U.S. Senator Patty Murray requested a fuller conceptual development by March 31 in order to request federal funding and begin implementation of the concept. (U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell and Congressman George Nethercutt also back the project.) Students volunteered to work through the weekend to cost out their concepts for three parts of the project.
The federal funding request, submitted by the city, includes enhancement of Division Street from the I-90 exit to Trent as a gateway for visitors to downtown, the central business district, and the university district; conversion of Trent Avenue from Division to Hamilton (through the heart of the Riverpoint campus) to Spokane Falls Boulevard for improved safety, pedestrian access, and aesthetics; and a pedestrian/bicycle footbridge over Burlington Northern railroad tracks, connecting the University District with the East Sprague business district and providing a flow of customers for future development of housing and retail.
What began as a student studio project now has the endorsement of dozens of community partners. Reese said of the project, “This is a fantastic example of the role of the design institute as an economic catalyst. They worked with faculty, students, and businesses to articulate a community vision that has been parlayed into a plan for the future. This is a tremendously powerful project.”
Barbara Lien, one of the students who sacrificed her weekend, said the chance to work on a project in a real neighborhood was completely different from the more conceptual material learned in some classes.
“There are very real limitations and consequences to the ‘real-world’ designs that actually make them richer and better in the long run,” Lien commented. She said of studio instructor Payne and associate professor Bob Scarfo, who led the weekend design efforts, “They encourage us to ‘think big’ and not to settle for mediocrity from ourselves or our surroundings.”
Scarfo says of the design institute, “By practicing WSU’s land-grant mission in an urban setting, we have the opportunity in design education to place our students at the forefront of urban social concerns, while providing the public with insight and understanding for those concerns.”
To learn more about the university district and the students’ design concepts, see www.spokane.wsu.edu/academic/design/Scarfo03_overview.asp.
