Meet The DC Team: Amanda

Name: Amanda Castelli

Number of years at DC: 2+

Title: Landscape Designer

Where are you from? Originally, I am from a small town, Rillton, which is located outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I moved to Colorado 7 years ago and never left!

Where did you go to school? For my undergraduate degree I attended Pennsylvania State University and received a degree in Environmental Resource Management and a minor in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). For my graduate work, I attended Colorado University – Denver and received a Master of Landscape Architecture and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning.

What's one thing you can't live without? Where to begin? Professionally, I would say I cannot live without my computer. Personally, I can not live without my family. I talk to my mom, dad and sister practically everyday.

Where is the farthest you have traveled? In college, my husband studied abroad in Australia and I traveled to see him for about two weeks, we had a great time.

What's your favorite food? Nothing beats a slice of east coast pizza, hands down, thin crust pizza is the only pizza. What’s up with dipping your crust in Coloroado?

What's your favorite part of working at Design Concepts? My favorite part of working at Design Concepts is the people. It was one of the major reasons why I took the job. Everyone is willing to help and share their knowledge and experience, which only helps everyone grow professionally.

What would you do with $1 million?

1. Pay off any dept for me and my family
2. Buy my parents an awesome retirement home
3. Travel wherever I wanted
4. Give some to charity or set up scholarships for college students
5. Buy a cupcake store
6. Hire a chef, I can’t cook!

What inspires you? Nature, family, friends, music, art, food….

What's one totally random fact about yourself? I am addicted to flavored seltzer water; there are probably about 10 cans of it in my recycling bin.

The Public Process

Recently Axel, Kurt, and I hosted an open house held at the City Center Offices. It was the third and last meeting as part of the public process regarding Centennial Civic Center Park.

Centennial recently incorporated to officially become a city on February 7, 2001. It is Colorado’s newest city. Consequently, this is the first park that the City has commissioned. The site is located adjacent to the city offices and will be a true civic green space—something fairly unique for the Front Range (above photo shows the preliminary site). Because of the central role this park will play in the city, it was very important to receive strong public feedback from the residents on their park.

This meant holding three meetings to which the citizens of Centennial were invited. The first two meetings were public workshops wherein feedback was solicited from those in attendance to drawings and graphics presented. The most important discussion involved ideas about developing a park program (playgrounds, amphitheater, trails, shelters and other amenities). What did people want in the park and how should they relate to each other? The other critical thing to establish was the look and feel of the park: aesthetics, character, materials and other park aspects. As Centennial is such a new community this park will, in part, be establishing the identity of the city, making these elements all the more important.

The third meeting was not a formal presentation like the other two had been but instead an open house that allowed for more discussion to take place and for the public to comment on the current plan. It was obvious that residents were starting to get excited about the direction the design was headed and to see the park start taking shape. They provided great feedback and came up with great ideas about things that could be incorporated and changed in the design as it moves forward.

While sometimes it can be hard to juggle so many opinions, in this case everyone was on same page: especially in establishing a list of program elements. For example, most everyone was in agreement that the project should not incorporate any sports fields. In the end, city council has the final say of what stays and what goes. It is nonetheless important for community members to provide their input so as to influence decisions city council makes.

With the public process over DC is incorporating public comments from the final meeting as the plan evolves into the final master plan. Personally, I am very energized to be a part of the public process and design of this project for many reasons. The site has lots of natural features that make it unique such as 35’ of topography difference from east to west, a creek on the west boundary and great mountain views. Not only is this Centennial’s first park but it is not often that we get to help establish the identity of an entire City through park design. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the park is that it is located at the heart of the City and provides a great opportunity to bring the community together. To see people using and enjoying spaces that we have designed is a part of what drives my passion for Landscape Architecture. I believe connecting people to outdoor spaces helps contribute to a better quality of life for everyone. This park will help residents in the City of Centennial feel more connected to each other and the larger community.

-Scott

The Value of Play

Clemson University recently hosted a national Summit on the Value of Play, which I was fortunate to attend. It was exciting to witness a groundswell of what might be called the “Back to Play” movement. People from a wide range of professions, from education and child development to parks and recreation all gathered to discuss the importance of play on the health and well-being of children, adults, and society in general. The result is a series of strategies to bring play back into the lives of people everywhere at all ages. To read a report on the summit see the website, or to stay informed on the play movement check here.

Now go outside and play...

Posted By Rob Layton

What Are You Doing Outside?

It’s summer and time to get outside. Following up on our recent blog regarding the Denver Post’s article on playgrounds (see the Friday, June 12 post of this blog below), I decided to look for other online postings related to parks that we have worked on. It is fascinating to find out what people are doing in our parks – especially the ways they find to make them part of their own lives. For example, Westlands Park has become a venue for a variety of Meetups where people can make new friends, get fit, and have fun together.

One young athlete is on his way to becoming an action video star by filming his skateboard skills at some of the skate parks we’ve designed and posting them on YouTube.

What are you doing outside? Let us know what your favorite places are this summer and what you are doing there. If you’ve posted pictures, videos, or other info online, we’ll publish a link to them here.
Get out and have fun!

Rob Layton

What We're Reading

A few on-line publications caught our attention this week, check them out:

The first comes from LandscapeOnline.com. Mark Laska's article on 10 Tenets of Urban Restoration highlights several of the tenets important to many of our projects.

We also discovered the blog CommitToBlue.com which centers around the importance of water conservation.

Finally, though it was published less recently, Peter Harnik, Ben Welle, and Albert Pingree wrote a fantastic article on "the role of parks in redevelopment projects" titled When There's Nothing To Conserve - Create! that we found by way of sustainablesites.org.

Photo courtesy of www.cc.gatech.edu