Students Design Bus Shelters in SURTC Contest

Most of Fargo's bus shelters are unheated plastic and steel structures. They're durable and functional, but not much else. In the fall of 2003, SURTC director Jill Hough was surveying students to determine the demand for enhanced bus service on campus. Each time she passed those spartan shelters she knew there was so much more potential.

She approached NDSU architecture instructor Shannon McDonald and proposed asking students to design bus shelters. "We thought it would be great if we could develop state-of-the-art shelters that really reflected well on NDSU," Hough says.

When SURTC unexpectedly received a grant from Congress through the FTA for bus facilities, the students already had completed their designs. The funding meant at least one of the shelters will be built. The prospect of one or more of the shelters being built was a powerful motivator for students, McDonald says.

That's a sentiment echoed by students, including Chryso Onisiforou. "For the first time we would be working with a real client." A student from the Greek island of Cyprus, Onisiforou was one of the few students in the class intimately acquainted with public transportation. "I have no car and take the bus a lot. I see all the different people on the bus and at the stops and see a different perspective than some of the other students."

Jennifer Burke grew up on a ranch near Bowman in western North Dakota. Her first exposure to mass transit was riding the school bus to the one-room school house where she attended elementary school. She and her design partner, Mark Schlanser, carefully studied bus stops, buses and passengers. "We wanted to keep the parts that worked well and focus on the parts that didn't," she recalls.

"Our goal was to create something different, a notable landmark," says Daniel McGinnis, a student from Yankton, S.D. "We were to reinvent the archetypal bus stop."

"It was clear which students came at this project purely from an architectural perspective and which students combined that with the perspective of a regular user," notes Bruce Fuchs, transit program manager for the North Dakota Department of Transportation.

"The more simplistic, practical designs came from regular transit users. They seemed to understand the functionality factor; the placement of the shelter in relation to visually seeing the bus arriving and departing was critical," says Julie Bommelman, transit administrator for the city of Fargo.

Fuchs, Bommelman and Hough served on the panel that evaluated the students' efforts and selected the top designs. Other members included Gary Smith, chair of the NDSU construction management department; Wade Kline, community planner with the Fargo-Moorhead Council of Governments; Mark Shaul, a local architect; and Tim Lee, Chief of Police at NDSU. SURTC researchers Gary Hegland and Del Peterson also served on the panel.

"The technology suggestions were outstanding," Bommelman says. "The GPS tracking and real-time bus locations were great ideas that we would love to implement someday if our budget will allow."

"The competition brought to the table some innovations that address some of the design challenges of putting up a shelter in North Dakota as opposed to Florida," Fuchs notes he was particularly impressed with Burke and Schlanser's idea of using steam to heat the benches in the shelter.

"I understand more clearly how students perceive transit and what we may want to target for improvements in our system. This generation is much more savvy and their expectations are higher," Bommelman notes.

Burke and Schlanser's first-place design retained the familiar rectangular shape, but incorporated a real-time map showing bus routes and bus locations projected on to the shelter's glass walls. Louvers in the glass roof limited sun exposure during Fargo's hot summers. Handicap accessibility was a key component.

McGinnis's second-place design took its initial cues from a huge excavator bucket converted into a bus stop in Norway. He dubbed his design the "Bison Stop," when he realized it was taking the stylized shape of a bison, the NDSU mascot. Amenities include a spacious interior with a comfortable table and chairs, computer kiosk, scrolling message center, voice automated announcements, vending area and video display.

Onisiforou's design did not place in the competition but was cited by judges for creativity and striking appearance. She notes that the supporting elements that penetrate the roof "represent the ideal of humanity in different stages of development. Everything is so flat here that you feel the sky very heavy on your shoulders. The structure gives a contrast to that and creates an uplifting feeling."

Other designs incorporated alternative energy sources and echoed design elements from teepees once used by the Native Americans in the region. One featured a spiral design while another featured a coffee shop. One design, entitled "Reaching out for Humanity," was in the shape of a giant hand.

"The challenge in an architecture office is meeting reality and the client's expectation while presenting something forward-thinking and innovative," noted McDonald.

Hough says cost estimates for several of the designs have been developed by Joanna Johnson, a student from NDSU's construction management department and architecture students. Construction is expected in the coming year. A portion of the $400,000 grant from the FTA will be used to construct the first-place design by Burke and Schlanser. The FTA has asked SURTC to conduct a survey of bus manufacturers with a part of the grant. Depending on the cost of that study, a second shelter may also be built.

"With the project actually going into production and hopefully with the students' participation, they will be able to understand the full architectural cycle," McDonald says.

Go to www.surtc.org/shelter/ for more information and photos of the designs.