How could land near Morro Rock, power plant be used? Cal Poly students take on design challenge
The surf crashed into Morro Rock on Tuesday afternoon while a group of architects and Cal Poly students toured the coastline.
Yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribal Consultant Kelsey Shaffer gestured to Morro Rock, saying it is a sacred site of prayer for many indigenous groups. The Chumash serve as caretakers of Morro Rock, which they call Lisamu, “the place that sits above,” Shaffer said.
“As far as Morro Bay, that’s a huge part of our heart here,” Shaffer said.
This week, Cal Poly hosted a three-day design challenge for landscape architecture students and young professionals in the area.
Sixteen Cal Poly students and 11 early-career landscape architects split into two teams to re-design 26 acres of land between Morro Rock and Morro Bay Power Plant in ways that address climate change and are respectful of Northern Chumash culture, according to a news release.
The event, called Xtreme LA, is organized every other year by the Michigan-based outdoor furniture design firm Landscape Forms.
For the first time, the firm selected Cal Poly to host the event this year.
“It’s really an opportunity for students to grapple with so many issues that are at play in a lot of the projects that landscape architects do these days,” Cal Poly Landscape Architecture Department Head Beverly Bass said. “How do we respect the cultural life of an area? How do they respect the ecology of the area? How do they integrate all of that with how people want to use the site?”
What is the landscape architecture project?
The two groups, each mentored by a senior landscape architect, toured the project site Tuesday afternoon.
The site included the parking lot and dune restoration area near Morro Rock, Coleman Park, the entrance to Morro Bay harbor, the Embarcadero and the “triangle” parking lot next to the power plant, the release said.
The project participants spent Wednesday creating their designs and were expected to present the final projects on Thursday at Cal Poly, Bass said.
“Charettes are very quick, intense design experiences,” Bass said. “I think one of the ideas is to just kind of get this burst of creativity and energy going so you can kind of look at the project in a new way.”
Students joined the project by enrolling in a landscape architecture studio class taught by professor Lauren Hackney, Bass said.
“The sky’s the limit,” Bass said, and she encouraged students to design for improved traffic circulation, accessibility, the potential for rising sea level and respect for Morro Rock as a sacred place for the Northern Chumash.
“This is a sacred site, it’s been here for thousands of years,” Bass said. “We just want to make sure we’re being respectful and not doing any harm.”
According to Bass, the city will not necessarily build the designs.
“It’s really, right now, a kind of academic exercise for the studio,” Bass said. “But we’re hoping there will be some really creative ideas that maybe they can take away and use.”
