Collegiate BMP Design Challenge

The team of Brad Kwaterski, Emery Nelson, and Mehdi Eslami worked on plans for a green roof for the Community Center of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.  The green roof at the Islamic Community Center will be installed this summer with the students’ work incorporated into the next phase of the project. The green roof at the Islamic Community Center is funded through MMSD’s green roof initiative and American Rivers green infrastructure initiative.

The student presentations culminated a semester of work on the projects. The students developed designs for their senior capstone projects and as part of Sweet Water’s Collegiate BMP Design Challenge. 

The Collegiate BMP Design Challenge, one of the Joyce Grant initiatives led by1000 Friends of Wisconsin for Sweet Water, connects university students with priority projects in the Kinnickinnic and Menomonee Restoration Plans and challenges them to develop designs utilizing green infrastructure to improve local water quality and create a community amenity in the process.

The Collegiate BMP Design Challenge was a good match with the goals of Marquette’s School of Engineering’s senior capstone course: to connect students with area projects and local professionals to build a bridge from the classroom to real world applications and to develop relationships with engineering professionals. 

An initial set of projects were identified by the co-chairs of both WATs. Projects were selected that could benefit from the preliminary design and planning work of the students. These projects were then reviewed by Professor Clifford Crandall of Marquette who then selected two projects that fit the needs of the course adding the green infrastructure projects into the mix presented to the students. 

Sean Foltz, of American Rivers and co-chair of the Kinnickinnic WAT, served as a mentor for both projects. Foltz observed, “This was a perfect opportunity to give burgeoning engineers the chance to incorporate green infrastructure into project design. This lays the foundation for them to make routine use of these practices in their careers moving forward.” 

In addition to introducing green infrastructure practices to young professionals, the Collegiate BMP Design Challenge helps advance priority watershed projects by using the students’ designs to help galvanize public support and to strengthen funding proposals for selected projects. 

The Collegiate BMP Design Challenge will continue into the final year of the grant through spring of 2012. Additional universities will be recruited to join the Challenge. For more information about the project, contact Kate Morgan at kmorgan@1kfriends.org or at 414-416-6509.

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