Architect takes initiative to help commuters, environment

COURTESY HASHEEM HALIM

Hasheem Halim, an architect and founder of Derita Designs, with a prototype bus stop bench made from recycled plastic that was installed across from Derita Presbyterian Church. “We have all these bus stops,” he said, “no benches.”

Hasheem Halim noticed the bus stops without a place to sit.

In response, the architect sprang into action with an idea to help commuters and the environment: build a bench prototype made of recycled material. The first bench – made from plastic bags – is across from Derita Presbyterian Church, located at 2225 West Sugar Creek Road.

“I realized it’s not really anywhere to sit in Derita and it’s kind of a weird phenomenon,” said Halim, an architect and founder of the community creative studio Derita Design.

“We have all these bus stops, no benches.”

Last fall, three drop-off bins for recyclables were placed around Derita and Halim received permission from the Food Lion on North Graham Street to collect their plastic bags – more than 10,000 in all.

Sponsored by Charlotte Urban Design’s place making grant program, Halim partnered with Hadia Ghandour, founder of the recycling center Inspired Plastics, to create a bench from recycled bags and water bottles. They shredded the bags into pellets, then designed and fabricated metal molds to form the melted plastic into bench parts.

The project’s budget was $5,000, which included hiring a welder and hosting events for the community.

Halim, 33, an Atlanta native, graduated Virginia Tech in 2015 and has worked as an architect for four years. Outside of designing the bench, he has designed retail and commercial spaces as well as private residences through HELT Design, an architecture firm in Belmont. The biggest challenge with installing the bench was getting permission from the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which is responsible for maintenance on state-owned North Graham Street.

The bench was supposed to be installed last year but the team had to wait since December for approval.

“I feel like it was on the back burner for a while,” Halim said. “They had other products that were more priority. But we kept pushing them and they finally approved.”

That was in July. Next was proceeding with the installation. “When we first installed it, we had somebody walk up and sit on it like it had been here forever,” Halim said. “It made me feel awesome just seeing how grateful people are to have somewhere to sit, somewhere to feel like they belong.”

Now that Halim has completed the bench, he is open to building more.

“I’d like to do more in Derita,” he said. “The issue is it takes a lot of time and effort to collect the bags and then make the bench, and I mean I have a full time job so it takes a while. But if [Charlotte Area Transit System] offered another spot to put a bench I would be willing to do one.”

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