Second, Rob will be speaking with Teresa (from
on "
Landscapes and Community Health
" on 2/10 at 1:30pm Rm 501.
Now go follow us so you're not left in the dark any longer.
Rifle's New Park Celebrates History and Looks Towards the Future
With the grand opening coming up on Saturday, September 25th, we here at Design Concepts are getting excited about the completion of Rifle, Colorado's new Centennial Park. We have been working on this project for several years now, starting with a master plan and proceeding to help Rifle win a sizeable grant for the park, then on through construction documents and completion of the first phase of the park.
The park is designed to celebrate the city's first 100 years of settlement. But it also points the way into the next 100 years through things like the use of LED lighting and off-the-grid solar technology to illuminate the park's walkways. For more details on this, see the CLEER organization's September 15th edition of its newsletter, which explains how the energy-saving lights were made possible through technical and financial assistance at the state and local levels.
Grants, partnerships, sustainable design, and cutting-edge technology are all crucial parts of building parks today. They also keep our job interesting and challenging. Next time you are passing through Rifle, pull off the highway and spend some time there. This progressive community has many interesting things to see, including a beautiful new park!
The park is designed to celebrate the city's first 100 years of settlement. But it also points the way into the next 100 years through things like the use of LED lighting and off-the-grid solar technology to illuminate the park's walkways. For more details on this, see the CLEER organization's September 15th edition of its newsletter, which explains how the energy-saving lights were made possible through technical and financial assistance at the state and local levels.
Playgrounds of London
My recent trip to London was great fun, with the added bonus of incredible weather: long days of sunshine and warm temperatures. Perfect for enjoying the many fine parks found there. Fortunately, my two young traveling companions, aged seven and eleven, shared my own personal interest in parks and especially playgrounds. We visited every playground we could find, and what we found was that London offers some great places to play. The large and well-known Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens lived up to it's reputation, with a sand beach and water play, huge pirate ship and a variety of nooks and crannies to explore. The playground is not only fun for the kids, it's also a pleasant place for parents, with places to relax in a garden-like setting.
The girls also had a great time at the Holland Park Adventure Playground, which has a wide variety of moving elements, including several different types of swings and spinners, and platforms suspended on cables that all bounce and jiggle when kids (and their parents) jump on them. It also has one of the long zip-lines that we found in many of London's parks. With so many interactive things to do, the girls couldn't help but make friends among the children of many nationalities who visit the park. It was interesting to see how the kids all quickly figured out how to cooperate to make things spin faster and go farther, even when they didn't speak the same language.
In Kew Gardens we found a number of fantastic interpretive playgrounds, including one inside a greenhouse (especially popular in the wet weather London is famous for, I'm sure) and several natural play areas built around the concepts of photosynthesis, the food chain, and other natural processes. Lots of great ideas for combining play, learning, and nature can be found at Kew Gardens.
London's playgrounds were among the highlights of our trip, offering the girls a way to burn off some youthful energy, interact with people their own age, and maybe even learn a little about the environment while we grownups enjoyed a shady spot to take a break from the rigors of sightseeing. They make a great city even better.
Rob Layton
July 16th, 2010
Q&A on Playgrounds
Centennial Park
Colorado’s newest incorporated city is Centennial. Located in the southern portion of the Denver Metropolitan area, Centennial stretches from the Platte River Valley on the west to the eastern plains. Centennial is so new that it lacks much of the imagery and activities that most towns grow up with. One great start being planned by Centennial is the new Civic Center Park and Town Plaza. Located on the central spine road of Arapahoe Avenue and at almost the geographical center of the city, the Park will provide a highly visible place that defines the look of Centennial. The theme of “One hundred years of settlement, ten thousand years of habitation” talks about the history of habitation from the Clovis people, to the cattle people, to the jet set of today. The design and materials used in the park keeps this theme apparent throughout the space. As well, this park includes a diversity of uses from an outdoor coffeehouse to climbing walls and multigenerational play. In this town, having a place that is accessible and inviting to meet your friends and neighbors will be a great new asset. The park also includes a creek, a regional trailhead, diverse topography, a plaza for events, a large amphitheater, and a huge variety of play. The architecture includes a shelter overlook, a large venue group shelter, sledding, restrooms, climbing, and a looped linear arboretum. There is a lot of activity packed into this eleven acres! That is exactly the point of a civic space. This gives people a chance to rub shoulders with other people in a very active way, or to read on the side of the mesa that dominates the park. A new generation of public spaces, well exemplified by this park, focuses on getting people outside, getting them together, and creating education and activity that is meaningful and healthy. That is how the people of Centennial define themselves.
-Axel Bishop
