Page 31: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2002)

Elliott Bay Design and Bauer Interiors Create A "Prince" § "if... • - '

When a naval architect and interior designer sit down to design a commercial vessel, they must blend together a multitude of considerations that delicately balance form and function. The naval architect's job is to ensure that the vessel meets a variety of government safety regulations and marine engineering codes, from ADA compliance to Coast Guard fire protection. The interior designer arranges colors, lighting, fabrics, and fin- ishes in such a way to ensure the owner realizes that their needs are met with the final product. "There are several phases in the construction of a vessel, and in each one the most critical element to the success of the project is the interaction of the naval architect and the interior designer," said

Grace Bauer, president of Bauer Interiors of New

Orleans. "All communication is shared, reviewed, reworked, revised, and then forwarded to the owner for review. Discussions can be continuous and lengthy in order to understand an owner's needs and desires, as well as budget and regulato- ry issues."

In most cases when the owner is a government entity, both the naval architect's and the interior designer's choices are limited by budget con- straints. One notable exception when both archi- tect and designer were able to combine their skills to achieve a higher-than-usual level of comfort and safety occurred when residents of Prince of

Wales Island commissioned their own car ferry.

Prince of Wales Island, the third-largest island in the United States, was accessible only by small aircraft, floatplane or an infrequent car ferry oper- ated along the Inland Passage by the Alaskan highway system. "The highway system had an overnight ferry that stopped semi-weekly at Prince of Wales Island as one stop along many others," said Will Nickum, senior naval architect at Elliott

Bay Design Group (EBDG), Seattle, Wash. When residents wanted more frequent service, they formed the Inter-Island Ferry Authority, whose efforts resulted in the construction of a new car ferry. Hence the completion last January, of the 197-ft. (60-m) Prince of Wales performed its inau- gural sail between the island community of Hollis and Ketchikan on the mainland; its 12-cyIinder

Caterpillar engines able to push its full load dis- placement of 1,100 tons up to 15 knots/hr. across the Clarence Strait. "As the vessel's designer, our primary task was to set the structural, mechanical, electrical and safety boundaries for the ship," said Will Nick- um, senior naval architect at Elliott Design Group (EBDG) in Seattle. "In this case, we were able to apply them at a higher, slightly more stringent level." "The entire project is a perfect example of out- of-the-box thinking," said Bauer, who provided design consultation for the project. "It was an unusual situation where the owners were the peo- ple who would be using the ferry and they were involved from start to finish." Construction of the car ferry required EBDG and Bauer to collaborate closely to ensure the vessel met federal and state regulations and specifications, while continuing to meet the owners' needs. "Most jobs get to the final stages and the owner is trying to rein in costs, so your fabric selection gets reduced to which shade of gray do you want," Bauer said. "But in this case, the people were able to control the decisions that were made. They picked what they liked and the entire process was devoid of the politics that can accompany this type of project."

From Paper...To Reality

A designer's task is to create a layout that meets specific requests by the owners. In this case, the owner wanted a children's play area and a com- fortable galley to provide hot meals during the lengthy voyage. As a space trade-off, crew quar- ters were eliminated since the vessel operates only during the day. The client also wanted a sick bay, so a "quiet room" was designed to serve in that function. During the design phase (the program- ming phase) there can be many meetings between the architect, designer, and owners to discuss the goals for a project. Priorities are listed in terms of importance and can include performance, cost, maintenance, durability, etc., according to the owner's parameters. "The interior designer must always listen to what is not said, the non-verbal communication, so the end result will produce the (continued on page 35) "Now with leak detection

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February, 2002 31