Eight Calvin architecture students are designing a monument for the busy hub of an established inner-city Grand Rapids neighborhood.

The students, members of the Calvin chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), have created several designs for a sculptural marker that will best represent the East Hills neighborhood.

The monument, whose design will be determined by the marketing committee of the Uptown District, will be built on a traffic island where Lake Drive Avenue intersects with Cherry and Diamond streets, at the center of East Hills’ revitalized business district.

The students will present their designs to Uptown District’s marketing committee at 8 a.m., Thursday, December 1 at Bazzani Associates, 959 Wealthy St., SE.

“Before this, we’ve only had experience in the Calvin community and around campus,” says senior Todd Palmer of the AIAS, which has in years past executed a design for the lobby of the college’s Rooks-Van Dellen residence hall and a redesign for Calvin’s Knollcrest East apartments. “This stretches our experience and allows us to get out and help our community.”

That’s the idea behind the East Hills project, says Nate Gillette, an architect for Bazzani Associates and incoming vice president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Grand Valley chapter. Gillette became aware of the plan to build a monument in East Hills when he was searching for projects for the West Michigan Community Design Collaboration (WMCDC), which he formed this summer with associate AIA member Geoff Gamsby.

The WMCDC welcomes architects and architecture students alike to collaborate on community-based design projects.

“Anybody with an association with the AIA is welcome to participate in the program,” says Gillette.

The WMCDC’s mission is two-fold, he says. It’s a way to put architecture and design in the public sphere. It’s also a way to the younger associates of the group to get involved in these projects.

“If you look at a cross-section of younger architects, they’re working in architecture firms doing CAD drawing all day. They’re not getting involved in the kinds of projects they want to do,” Gillette adds. “This is way for them to get out and do projects in the public eye with us kind of fostering the program along and lending them a helping hand.”

Although the WMCDC contacted all of the associate AIA members and local schools with architecture programs about the monument project, only Calvin students responded to the e-mail, Gillette says.

At a design charrette held on Saturday, October 15 at Calvin, the students brainstormed their way to three monument designs. “Our designs are not finalized. They have to be refined,” says junior Michael Westrate, whose design featured a globe motif and incorporated the neighborhood’s longtime slogan: “East Hills Center of the Universe.”

“The end design will probably incorporate ideas from all the designs,” Gillette says. The neighborhood association plans to build the monument, using money from a Grand Rapids Community Foundation grant, in the spring, and the Calvin students will participate in its construction.

“I like the designs,” Gillette says simply.