The Design Summit, co-sponsored by the PLACE Program and UVM Continuing Education, will be hosted at the University Heights residential complex on the UVM Campus. Home of the GreenHouse Residential Learning Community, University Heights South (UHS) is a LEED-certified facility featuring local and recycled materials, energy-saving systems, ecological design projects, and community gardens. Throughout the weekend we will be making the most of UVM’s location within the small city of Burlington, and will be exploring several unique places around the town. Burlington Geographic, a current initiative of the PLACE Program, will be showcased at the Summit, thus demonstrating the PLACE model in action as a process for carrying out place-based systems analysis and community engagement. We will also visit Shelburne Farms, the founding partner in PLACE, and its beautiful working farm and environmental center along the shores of Lake Champlain, 20-minutes south of Burlington.
Summit participants will be housed at UHS in four-person suites with a shared bathroom (two beds per room). We will also utilize several meeting spaces within the living-learning complex for our discussions, as well as a small kitchen for food preparation. We will collectively prepare and serve meals Thursday dinner though Sunday lunch. Participants should plan to arrive in Burlington on Wednesday (July 18) evening or by mid-day Thursday, and depart Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. For ground transportation we have rented two 12-passenger vans to pick participants up at the airport (airport code=BTV; 10 minutes from campus) and facilitate travel by group to the various field trip sites around Burlington.