1. Windowstrikes in the Migration Path of UMD Students
Collaboration between Campus and Community on Sustainable Design
Darren Houser, Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Design
Mindy Granley, Director, UMD Office of Sustainability
David Beard, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Department of Writing Studies
The Problem:
UM Duluth is Located on a Major Migration Path
Alternate Student Designs
The Selected Design for Implementation
Duluth is a bottleneck for bird migration. Birds flying south prefer not to fly over open water, and so follow the coastline until they read the head of the lake in Duluth.
City infrastructure is responsible for fatalities throughout the city; one out of every two bird strikes results in death. Many times impact will result in injuries such as broken bones, head trauma, eye damage, ruptured air sacs, contusions, internal bleeding, feather damage, dislocations and beak damage.
The Process
The selected design was affordable (in that it is a variation on the vinyl stickers approved for use by the facilities staff – very affordable to purchase, apply and maintain).
Students engaged the following process:
A public presentation on the problem from the Wildlife Rehabilitator
A student-led focus group with community members, university staff and facilities professionals
Interactive design labs directed by Prof. Houser
Writing workshops (for presenting their designs) directed by Professor Beard
Mentorship lectures by Professional Artists Catherine Meier and Kathy McTavish
Public presentation of designs in digital and material (mock-up) forms
Critique by artists and representatives from university staff
As a result, this project was not only a sustainability project; it taught many dimensions of professional design practice.
The Players
Darren Houser took the lead, coordinating students in a Sustainable Design Studio. In groups, students worked
to understand the problem,
to collaborate with focus groups to understand the constraints on their solutions, and
to work with community experts in art and in wildlife rehabilitation
…to produce the best design.
Mindy Granley secured collaboration from university staff to ensure that designs met the user needs. She also secured collaboration from the university facilities management team to make sure that the designs fit within the tolerances of the materials and the maintenance schedules of the university/
David Beard helped identify community partners and coordinate community outreach, including:
Wildwoods Rehabilitation:
Artist Kathy McTavish:
Artist Catherine Meier:
The selected design was also aesthetically appropriate, as it reflected the wave pattern printed on the floor and ceiling on the interior of the space.
Implementation of Selected Design
The implementation has been the most challenging component. Implementation takes longer than the single semester of the class. But the Design Studio is taken typically by students preparing to graduate. So their ability to complete the project is limited.
We are working with students to continue the project through the implementation phase.
Contact information
Darren Houser
Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Design, UMD, Co-Lead and Researcher
Mindy Granley
Director, UMD Office of Sustainability, UMD, Co-lead, Project Coordination and Communication/Outreach
David Beard
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Department of Writing Studies, UMD, Co-Lead and Liaison to Community Organizations
University of Minnesota Duluth
1049 University Drive Duluth, MN 55812
The Solution:
Interdisciplinary Collaboration between Campus and Community
UMD students and faculty from art and from writing studies, working with the Office of Sustainability and the UMD Student Sustainability Coalition and UMD Facilities staff, collaborated in the grant-funded project to begin to solve this problem.
To ensure access to maximum expertise and successful design, we worked with community partners (from a local Wildlife Rehabilitation organization and from the local arts community). 
Thanks to the Institute on the Environment
The IonE discovers solutions to Earth’s most pressing environmental problems by conducting transformative research, developing the next generation of global leaders and building world-changing partnerships.
325 Learning & Environmental Sciences,
1954 Buford Ave, St. Paul, MN 55108