January 26, 2010 – Primarily a final resting place, the 200 plus acre Mount Pleasant Cemetery is also a peaceful, pleasant place to walk, run or ride your bike in Toronto with little intervention of vehicular traffic. To enhance the bike-friendly environment and to facilitate cycling, the Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries asked Ryerson University students to compete with each other in designing the most functional, appropriate and aesthetically pleasing bike racks to complement their urban sanctuary.

Seven teams participated, each anchored by an Interior Design student and rounded out by another Ryerson student from the discipline of their choosing. The winning team, Katy Alter, third-year interior design, and her partner Jeff Cogliati, a graduate student in architecture, picked up $3,000 in prize money for their design, “The Lotus.” The student-designed bike racks now move to the prototype stage with the final product set for installation at Mount Pleasant Cemetery this summer.

“We wanted to create something that blended in with the cemetery and was sensitive to the surroundings,” Alter said. The Lotus is a dynamic, functional and sculptured bike rack that’s practical in purpose and artistic in vision. Alter and Cogliati chose the lotus flower to symbolize regeneration and the continuing cycle of life.

The Lotus, along with the six other submitted bike rack designs, is currently on display in room 106 of the School of Interior Design (302 Church Street). The display is open to the public until February 10.