If you see some cool bike racks at the St. Pete Times Forum (AKA The Ice Palace), you have to thank the Tampa Downtown Partnership and the Tampa BayCycle campaign that teamed up with Tampa Bay Technical High School.
Students in the school's architecture program designed 10 bike racks made in part from old bicycle parts. The bike racks were fabricated by welding students and painted by auto body students at the school.
"We are always searching for creative ways to enhance downtown's outdoor environment" notes Karen Kress, director of transportation and planning for the Tampa Downtown Partnership. "This project is a win for all involved - bike riders, public art lovers and students gaining valuable experience."
Designed for the urban environment, each rack is painted with a rust-resistant paint used for outdoor projects. The color black was chosen so it would blend well with the rest of downtown Tampa's street furniture.
"The students working with me to develop these concepts understand that great functional art helps make a community a wonderful place" said Bryant Martinez, TBT teacher and local artist. "Because of this experience, upon graduation several of the students will be heavily involved in large scale art projects at the Winthrop development in Brandon ."
The first bike rack was installed yesterday on Earth Day. Bicycle Stories correspondent Jose Menendez was on the scene to report the bike rack unveiling.
"We are excited to be one of the recipients of these bike racks. The work of the students is tremendous. As an organization, the Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Pete Times Forum support both bike friendly and earth friendly endeavors. Many of our workers bike daily to work. These racks will be well used by our employees and visitors," said Mary Milne, vice president of operations.
2 comments:
These were actually stolen from the original bike fest and donated to the school to create the functioning art.
They are very cool aren't tjey?
hi,You have a very good blog that the main thing a lot of interesting and useful & the pic is very original keep it up! Bridging Tampa Bay , thanks
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