Great River Terrace Bus Shelter
Brattleboro, VT
Great River Terrace Bus Shelter
A pro-bono opportunity on the north end of Brattleboro’s Putney Road, Great River Terrace provided a chance for us to inspire and engage the community through functional public art, making tangible the work we do as designers and exemplifying the commitment we have to our community.
Windham & Windsor Housing Trust’s (WWHT) new permanent supportive housing complex includes a transit stop for its residents and staff. They accepted our proposition to create and install a bespoke bus shelter deploying small scale architecture that connects people and communities along the main north-south corridor of the region.
The challenge was to create a bus shelter—on a shoestring budget—that was accessible, functional, durable, safe, inclusive, and that was an artistic interpretation of all of those things: connecting us all together and acknowledging an underserved portion of our community
With seed money from WWHT and a generous amount of contributed material and labor, a bold form was designed by Austin Design Cooperative’s Bryan Louisell and fabricated with many willing hands, its familiar gable the shape of a home distilled to its essence. The steel frame, created with the talented Gordon Moore of Windham Architectural Metals, houses a translucent panel with the artwork of local noted artist Laura Zindel, the nestled eggs speaking of shelter and care.
The GRT bus shelter is successful in its goal of providing a dry and sheltered place to wait for the bus, but more so than that, it is a successful deployment of an idea that our public infrastructure can be more, say more, and do more, than just satisfy function. It can connect, inspire, and serve as a sign that WE are in this together and that a higher ambition of beauty, love, and caring is possible. We hope this will be the first of several other site-specific installations in the community.
Special thanks for this labor of love to all who contributed and assisted!