WWU students reveal their Denmark-inspired projects at Bellingham’s waterfront

The container village in Bellingham’s waterfront recently received three new additions.

On March 20 the first Western Washington University cohort from the Denmark Sustainable Design Experience showed off their hard work and lessons learned after nine months of travel, pitching, design, trial and error.

The trip to Denmark and subsequent coursework encourages students to challenge their perspectives on sustainable designs and protect impacts, according to a project summary sent to The Bellingham Herald. Bench with plants

Upon entering Portal Village, the first project made by the students is a wooden bench, with painted waves on the side in various blues. On top of the bench is rich soil with native plants sprouting on top.

This was created by Ellen Nichols, Paige Yount and Jack Bengston.

“We were really inspired by the Danish, like seating we saw, because they really encourage people to sit, stay and play. They encourage people to linger in public spaces and to find connection in literally any public space,” Nichols told The Bellingham Herald. “We would see, a lot of courtyards in between buildings had really great places for people to sit on their lunch break that had greenery.”

Intially, their plan was to build a large planter box, but the longer they pursued the idea, it became unrealistic.

“We’re so excited about it, but it would have been about] 9 feet tall, so it was impossible to build in 10 weeks,” Nichols said.

Once they had built the initial bench, they had planned to create a bike rack on the sides of the bench, but that also became unrealistic. In place of it, the group decided to make a planter box so native plants could bloom as the weather warms, according to Nichols.

To design the waves on the side of the bench, the group hosted a paint night that allowed students and community members to participate in the process — even if they hadn’t participated in the program. Tire Structure

Down the path, past the containers that typically house various food vendors and next to the bike pump track, the second project, made of tires and wood, is strategically placed.

The project was created by Kylea Assayag-Nodine, Ian Vega and Afina Comstock.

“In Copenhagen, we visited a lot of places that reuse a lot of different materials, similar to, what [The Port of Bellingham is] trying to do by taking over some of the, old industrial site buildings, we wanted to do the same thing here,” Assayag-Nodine said.

Together, the group landed on a tire structure with smooth wooden tops, where people can stand or sit. They were inspired to make the project after observing children playing on multi-leveled surfaces.

Comstock described the building process as “one step forward, two steps back.”

The group’s biggest challenge was building. Although Assayag-Nodine had some woodworking experience, Vega and Comstock did not.

The wood that was secured to the bottom and tops of each tire had to be cut with a Computer Numerical Control machine and, according to Comstock, only one person had experience with the machine, and they had to be present while the group cut their wood.

While this was their only and largest setback, the lessons learned from the experience were invaluable.

“That was a pretty, impactful part of this experience. [It] mimics, industry, working with multiple different disciplines. I think that was a super impactful part for me,” Vega said. Wayfinding planter

Last, past the pump track, near the designated parking lot, a wide wooden box full of soil and plants holds a large metal pole with different breeds of salmon point in different directions, guiding walkers toward various spots in Bellingham.

The project was created by Ariadnna Santos, Ella Erickson, Kieran Halsinger and Sean Ryker, who were inspired by a large red arrow sign in one of the container villages in Copenhagen, according to Erickson.

“I feel like connection to place and making sure that you’re serving the community first is what we wanted to take away from it,” Santos said. “Our main problem that we wanted to solve was, way finding. But we were talking about connection to the waterfront [and how important that was.”

No matter the major or the trouble they may have had along the way, all students took away the same experience.

“We all came from different majors, it was very interdisciplinary team,” Nichols said. “So everyone had something different to bring to the table. And learning how to relay to your strengths and work with other people, I think was really valuable.”