MSU architecture students design obstacles to remove barriers for local homeless youth

Sixteen Montana State University architecture students have worked to remove barriers for homeless youth in Bozeman by helping design an obstacle course that will be used in a local fundraiser this month.
 
The students from two Honors first-year design classes taught by Brian W. Brush, instructor in the MSU School of Architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture, designed obstacles that will be used in HRDC’s Blueprint Obstacle Adventure Race. The inaugural BOAR event will feature 1K and 5K obstacle races in the style of popular Spartan Races and will be held Saturday, Aug. 21, at Glen Lake Rotary Park, formerly called the East Gallatin Recreation Area. The race is a fundraiser for HRDC’s Blueprint Continuum, which provides housing resources for area homeless youth.

 
Jeremy Alcoke, HRDC Blueprint Continuum coordinator who supports Blueprint’s services, said the MSU-designed obstacles are a key part in what HRDC hopes will be a fun and popular community fundraiser.
 
“We didn’t want to do just another race,” Alcoke said. “We wanted to do something that would also raise awareness about some of the hurdles faced by members of our community.”
 
MSU students became involved after the Bozeman Sunrise Rotary Club, which has supported the local transitional home since 2015, had to step back from providing full support. Also, last summer, Blueprint moved to a larger facility and expanded its services, including rent assistance and long-term housing options, so more funding was needed.

 
HRDC knew races are effective fundraisers in the Bozeman community. The organization already operates Huffing for Stuffing, a popular Thanksgiving Day run that raises money for the Gallatin Valley Food Bank. Alcoke and others on the race committee had run in popular Spartan Race obstacle runs, and together they wondered if there might be a way to bring the energy and enthusiasm of an obstacle race to the Blueprint Continuum. The race committee emailed the School of Architecture faculty seeking assistance designing the obstacles.

 
At about the same time Brush, who earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from MSU in 2005, was appointed studio director for the school’s Community Design Center. Brush is a runner and outdoor athlete, so the committee’s email caught his attention.
 
“I thought that this was the kind of project that was in my wheelhouse,” Brush said. “I replied that I’d be interested in helping out.”
 
Brush thought the project a good fit for his Honors first-year design studio, which focuses on the design of full-scale objects and spaces that interact with the human body. He also thought the project would give the students an exercise in empathy and public service.
 
The six students in the 2020 first-year Honors spring design studio began working on the project in early 2020. Brush successfully applied for a grant from MSU’s Undergraduate Scholars program so the students could participate in a Spartan Race in California in February 2020 and learn about obstacle races firsthand. But soon after they returned from the race, the COVID-19 pandemic forced MSU classes online, including the studio.

 
“(The quarantine) definitely changed the dynamic, but we switched to digital tools and began designing remotely,” Brush said.
 
Atticus Cummings said the project was a major highlight of his first year, helping him to be aware of demographics in his hometown of Bozeman that were not on his radar before – particularly homeless youth and alternately able athletes.
 
“As a college student, this experience taught me how rewarding it is to take the learning we are doing in school and apply it in the real world to help people,” Cummings said.
 
Rebecca Hennings, now a third-year architecture major from Loveland, Colorado, said working on the project helped her find her place at MSU as a freshman and taught her unexpected skills such as grant proposal writing and project management. It also demonstrated the many options she would have in a future career.

 
“I feel proud of the work that my team did on this project,” Hennings said. “We worked very hard to make obstacles that were enjoyable and accessible, also addressing youth homelessness. This had the added challenge of being abruptly moved to an online course halfway through. We all adapted and learned new programs and continued our collaboration.”

 
The class resumed a year later with 10 new Honors freshmen. Professor Zuzanna Karczewska and instructor Stephanie Irwin also worked with the new class. In all, the students produced a packet of about 30 obstacle designs that they presented to the BOAR committee for consideration.
 
The committee opted to build 16 obstacles that would appeal to a broad range of racer abilities. The 1K is designed to be equitable for all skill levels and accessibility, while the 5K offers more athletic challenges. The obstacles range from what is called a The BOAR strong wall where participants will scale out into the water to a spin maze composed of a field of rotating gates.

 
“We worked with the thought of how we can make this fun and different,” Brush said. HRDC then made the obstacles from materials donated by community partners.
 
Ryann Spang, now a second-year architecture student from the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, was in the second class to work on the project and designed the spin maze obstacle. She said working on the project taught her how to “think beyond myself, to see through multiple, unique perspectives. I’ve come to realize that there is so much more to architecture than simply designing buildings.”

 
Spang said she found the process so interesting that she continued to volunteer on the project after class ended helping to build some of the obstacles for the BOAR race, including her design.
 
“I had invested so much emotion into the project that I couldn’t just stop after the class came to an end,” Spang said. “Everything about this project has been such a great learning experience.”
 
Brush said the exercise of designing the accessible 1K course obstacles exposed students to design considerations that come from the Americans with Disabilities Act.
 
“It was also a good lesson in how the design of these obstacles could teach awareness and engender empathy for the homeless,” Brush said.
 
Ralph Johnson, director of the School of Architecture, said the design of the BOAR obstacles is an excellent example of service learning, where students in the school gained hands on experience in accessible design through working with a real client, HRDC, to solve a difficult set of design challenges. 

 
“The project was a wonderful example for first year students of not only the role architects can plan in a community but also the role of the School of Architecture in fulfilling the University’s Land Grant mission,” Johnson said. “It is undoubtably an academic experience for which they can be very proud.”

 
Alcoke said he expects around 500 participants in the inaugural Aug. 21 race. HRDC hopes it will be an annual Bozeman event.
 
“We’re trying to be accessible to all community members, from obstacles that allow anyone to participate, from mothers pushing strollers and racers with ambulatory difficulty and racers with developmental disabilities to challenges for experienced racers,” Alcoke said. “It will be special.”
 
For more details about the race, including aged-based pricing, see runtheBOAR.com.