Exhibiting Green Lifestyles
November 19, 2009 • By Amber Logsdon,
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — As awareness grows about environmental conservation efforts, so does community involvement in improving the environment — including efforts in classes.
Students in the Environmental Design class experience first hand what it takes to develop new, sustainable landscapes in sections of campus. In Environmental Rhetoric, advertising campaigns are developed to show environmentally damaging practices used in daily life and solutions to these issues.
Tuesday, the final outcomes of these projects were put on display in an exhibition by the Institute of Visual Studies, located in Roop Hall. Ten projects were presented: four advertising campaigns and six sustainable landscapes.
There were plenty of incentives for the groups to do their best on these projects.
“We are hoping that we could show them to people in the university that could make these ideas a reality,” graphic design professor Dawn Hachenski said
In the landscaping projects, groups chose from three areas from campus which Facilities Management specified.
Each exhibit for the Environmental Design projects included elements created during the semester-long process, like blueprints, computer renderings of the final project and rough sketches of their plots.
One group created a possible ‘Night Garden’ for Memorial Hall and included models of a vertical garden combined with a bench, along with ideas for solar panels and LED lights.
Courtney Simon, a senior interior design major, explained that she and fellow student Jackie Proffitt each designed preliminary models.
“It was a challenge to see how we would incorporate them both,” Simon said. “We put the thought processes together and it turned into the vertical garden bench.”
Other groups focused more on the plants rather than architecture. A design for Bruce Street’s vacant lot, called “Unity”, was designed by Kendall Meyer and Morgan Reitz, both junior interior design majors, and Jana Burtner, a senior graphic design major.
“We went around and asked the people that lived around Bruce Street what they would want,” Meyer said. “They all said that they would like some sort of community garden, where they could get what they needed and gather with their families.”
Their design incorporated a large garden, including four types of herbs, like thyme and oregano. In order to attract wild- life, they planned to include butterfly bushes and black-eyed Susans.
Sophomore Laura Rainville worked on one of the advertising campaigns called ‘Madison Entwined.’
“We wanted to show how all of our actions and behaviors are interconnected with the environment,” Rainville said.
She focused on how university waste is not conducive with wildlife.
“The wax paper cups from Dukes, for example, don’t really break down because of all the wax,” Rainville said. “It kind of just sits there.”
With all of these ideas being made by the students, perhaps it will be them who will lead the way in improving the environment in the future.
Contact Amber Logsdon logsdoan@jmu.edu
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