Thanks to the efforts of Ron Swenson and INIST (International Institute of Sustainable Transportation), the fourth year architecture students at SIU (Southern Illinois University) are designing a multi-modal station for downtown Santa Cruz. The station design includes solar powered PodCars along with 14 buses, 210 parking spaces, 165 bicycle spaces and 60,000 square feet of station and site. The goal for the station design is for the station to operate close to net zero energy as possible. They will be using an Encitra model for the final presentation, a physical built model of the site, and IESVE energy analysis for their plans, sections and elevations of the individual station designs.
Five of the SIU students visited the site in Santa Cruz, staying in California for a week. They presented to multiple groups including The City of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz University, PodCar advocates, Watry Design, citizens and transportation officials. They also visited the engineering students at San Jose State University who are designing solar powered podcars. The SIU architecture students were invited to exhibit their final designs at the Maker Faire at San Jose, CA in mid May.
Ron Swenson provided tours of several solar installations while also showing the SIU group multiple sites for the proposed podcar line in Santa Cruz. The SIU students will also be designing smaller podcar stations at three different sites in Santa Cruz.
Shannon McDonald, Southern Illinois University