News: Arch Nexus Hosts Design Competition for New Bat Barn
In partnership with The Nature Conservancy and Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources, Arch Nexus is enthusiastically participating in the design and creation of a bat barn on the Great Salt Lake’s Shorelands Preserve area. There are several groups of participants within the firm, each of which will submit their own unique design for selection by a jury-style panel.
This bat barn will be designed to house thousands of bats, serving as a home for bats currently living in abandoned buildings as well as migratory bats. The design will also include room for and access to monitoring equipment, where several different species of bats will be studied.
While bats may have a less than desirable reputation, they are actually crucial to environmental balance and agriculture, eating hundreds of insects which would otherwise be harmful to our crops. “We’re really excited to have people who know what they’re doing design this bat barn, make it really innovative, make it hospitable for the bats and have a really successful bat barn with lots of different species using it,” Andrea Nelson of Utah Nature Conservancy said. “These bats, especially in the Great Salt Lake’s Shorelands Preserve area, are helping farmers,” Nelson said. “They eat a lot of agricultural pests, and they also eat other pests that bother humans, mosquitoes, those sorts of things.”
The design is expected to be complete by November, with construction completion occurring in March. For recent interviews and news on the topic, please visit:
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