UVA Wants Another Boat...er, Barge

[Globalist]

<p>As many of you know, UVa now runs Semester at Sea (<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2006/12/course_sas.html[/url]”>http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2006/12/course_sas.html&lt;/a&gt;), but by next year, it seems that UVA will also be building and operating a barge in the Chesapeake Bay.</p>

<p>

They’ve designed solar houses, affordable green modular housing, projects to help rebuild the Gulf Coast, and are redesigning Campbell Hall, but the UVA School of Architecture’s most recent design-build project may be its most unusual.</p>

<p>Recently, Assistant Professor of Architecture Phoebe Crisman and her students scored a $100,000 grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment to build and launch an experimental barge on the Elizabeth River, which, according to Crisman, is the most polluted river feeding the Chesapeake Bay.</p>

<p>Called the “Learning Barge,” the 120-foot-long, 30-foot-wide river boat will be a veritable model of sustainability, handling its own waste, recycling rain water, and powering its lights and heat with solar and wind energy. The barge would function as a floating classroom to teach school children and the general public about the river’s ecosystem, Portsmouth’s role as an international port, and the ongoing effort to clean it up.</p>

<p>It will also serve as a self-sustaining lab for UVA grad students to conduct research. With room for over 60 people, the barge would feature a floating oyster nursery on its side and an on-board artificial wetland to demonstrate how plants and soil naturally filter and clean river water.</p>

<p>In addition, much of the barge will be designed and built by UVA students with recycled materials. If all goes according to plan-- and if additional funding is secured-- the detailed designs will be complete in the fall, construction will begin at a Norfolk shipyard in January, and the barge will be launched next August, says Crisman.

</p>

<p>Click on this link for more info:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2006/07/06/ONARCH%20barge-B.doc.aspx[/url]”>http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2006/07/06/ONARCH%20barge-B.doc.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[UVa_SVT]

<p>wow that’s really really cool!</p>

[melli]

<p>That IS… UVa’s awesome. =)</p>

[Globalist]

<p>It seems like UVA’s [Learning</a> Barge](<a href=“http://www.arch.virginia.edu/learningbarge]Learning”>http://www.arch.virginia.edu/learningbarge) has earned Professor Crisman an [American</a> Institute of Architects Award](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=4437]American”>http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=4437). Congrats!</p>

[shoebox10]

<p>What they fail to mention is that another founding father is the E-school’s own undergraduate dean, Paxton Marshall. Amazing guy…</p>