Community partnership results in bike shelter

City Repair Project, the City of Portland Department of Transportation, and dozens of student and community volunteers teamed up during the spring of 2008 to provide Mt. Scott High School with a much-needed addition: a covered bike shelter. The bike shelter was the product of the 10-day Village Building Convergence (VBC) event, May 23-June 1, in which neighborhoods built shared places they envisioned, designed, funded, and will maintain for themselves.

The bike shelter project began with a commonly expressed need for a dry place for Mt. Scott students and staff to lock up their bikes. Teacher Dan Hysko made some inquiries and quickly received a response from the City of Portland Transportation Department, which offered to donate four bike racks and weld them together. A natural builder and friend of Hysko soon encouraged him to have Mt. Scott apply as a project site for the VBC. The annual VBC event brings communities together by creating community meeting spaces using natural building techniques such as permaculture design and construction.

Mt. Scott High School was eventually selected as one of VBC project sites with the goal of building a bike shelter with one cob wall, an attached cob bench, and a “green” roof with plants. An existing grant from the Hardy Plant Society allowed Mt. Scott to begin purchasing lumber, plants, and a pond liner for the eco-roof. Students gave input and began creating designs and PowerPoint presentations.

The Mt. Scott project broke ground in early May. Student volunteers worked after school and weekends to create a foundation for the cob wall, install the bike rack and secure the shelter posts. After the VBC event began on May 23, students worked Memorial Day weekend to build the wooden shelter with the help of Mark Gordy, a carpenter and parent of a Mt. Scott student. The following week students and volunteers rotated outside to work: they made cob with their bare feet, put up an eco-roof, raked gravel, planted vines for the living wall, and built a roof for the bench.

“This project has been a really positive way to involve students, parents and community members together for an onsite school project,” said Hysko. “Next year we plan to put a finishing plaster on the cob wall and install the bench. As the project coordinator, I am pleased with the results of the project and look forward to more opportunities to improve our school. It is a pleasure to be able to bring so many of our community’s members together for a worthwhile project.”