INNOVATIVE EDUCATION DESIGN

Winston-Salem Waterways Class

Combining ART|HISTORY|SCIENCE|DESIGN, Student teams created design interventions to would enhance access to and awareness of the waterways of our town.

In Spring, 2017, UNCSA Faculty Members Betsy Towns and Mike Wakeford invited Environmental Designer Kristen Haaf to collaborate with their classes in Urban and Art History for five weeks of design thinking around questions of water and waterways in the Winston Salem. Learning was nearly post-disciplinary, weaving together history of modernism, environmental science, urban & experience design, and public art, and immersed students in solving relevant problems in our city.  Students working individually and as teams created design interventions that would enhance access to and awareness of the waterways that caused humans to settle here at various points through history. Projects included a solar roadway design to make underwater streams visible, a series of haunting sculptural follies for the tunnels of Bath’s Creek, a sound map of Winston-Salem water and a sequence of rustic pathways to make the waterways more accessible. Student presentations were so successful that we’ll host a public event in September to share those and other Water-way related design projects and Programs at our Idea Exchange in October.