Architect
Wendel
With more than 12 transportation projects in his national portfolio, Sean Beachy has accelerated as a strong leader in public transit design with his enthusiasm for fostering collaborations among the community, clients and design teams. This is evidenced in the award-winning Kalamazoo Transportation Center, a design that evolved from the input of 30 community groups. Additionally, Beachy led the effort to co-present with a client at the recent APTA conference to communicate the Greater Bridgeport Transit Bus Maintenance Facility design, which utilizes an expansive roof replacement for installing a vegetative roof and photovoltaic solar array that contributes to the facility’s silver LEED rating by minimizing storm water and powering the entire facility. While Beachy, individually, is often deserving of recognition, he is known for commending the efforts of the team.
Beachy values improving the quality of public transit for the community’s benefit and views this as the basis for increasing ridership. He is committed to implementing innovative details such as green design elements and exploring strategies for improving natural lighting and ventilation in bus maintenance facilities. Beachy has also focused community education as an important aspect of design. His co-authored paper, Children in Transit, highlights the importance of educating the younger generation to instill a commitment to sustainable transportation choices throughout adulthood. Several of his projects integrate outreach as part of the design such as an intermodal plaza that incorporates provision for local college art sculptures or a field trip to appreciate how a green roof on a transit facility could contribute to the surrounding community’s ecological habitat.
By excelling as an effective communicator and leader, Beachy facilitated Wendel’s D.C. expansion, building an office that is a mainstay for transportation design projects in the region. His dedication, persistence and attention to detail for accepting nothing but his and his colleagues best efforts, have put him on a path to carving a successful niche for himself in transit architecture.
Beachy has a special early morning ritual when arriving at a new project site. Before 5 a.m., he travels to a maintenance facility to study the morning pullout of 20-40 buses as they begin their routes, sometimes in winter weather, to understand what the drivers deal with every day.
“Transit architecture relies on a unique type of building to provide service benefits to the public and can create an effective and efficient transportation gateway for customers. Each project requires collaborative effort among teams and calls upon creative thinking skills to solve challenging design problems. Our goal is to design a transit center that will offer improved services based on effective design, but also a building worthy of public and community pride.”
