Axel's distinguished as "Fellow" by ASLA

Meet the newest class of fellows. Jump to the 4:08 mark for Axel.

We are extremely pleased to announce Axel Bishop joining the Society of Fellows, the highest recognition within the landscape architecture industry. There have been a total of 1033 Fellows initiated since the creation of the Society in 1899.

The ‘Council of Fellows’ of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recognizes the contributions of distinctive individuals to their profession and society based on their body of work, leadership and management, knowledge, and service.

Axel has been at the forefront of modern planning and design in Colorado for over three decades. He is a recognized thought-leader and pioneer creating community where play, living, education, commerce and nature are seamlessly intertwined.  He is an innovator in, and advocator for sustainable landscapes, multi-use stormwater management, and learning landscapes. 

His accomplishments include redesign of regional stormwater and drainage systems as naturalized recreational amenities. Axel forged new frontiers in educational landscape design for school districts in multiple states. He possesses a unique ability to align citizens and government entities in support of fundamental changes in land design. Many of his original ideas are now common practice across America.

Axel is currently leading the firm in several new initiatives including the modernization of fairgrounds for the 21st century, and blending new digital technology into planned landscapes like multigenerational parks and restaurant and retail gathering areas.

CPRA Attendees Take a Walk for Science

Taking advantage of a glorious fall day in Steamboat Springs, attendees of one session at CPRA’s Annual Meeting in September got out of the classroom to study the science of walking. The results of their exercise help to shed light on how far and how fast people walk in different situations. This may sound trivial, but it’s actually pretty important. Surprisingly little empirical research on walking parameters is found in the realm of scholarly literature, yet walking times and distances factor into the policies of parks and recreation agencies across the state and nation and are even written into law in the planning and zoning regulations of many municipalities. These are based primarily on unproven assumptions, norms, and practices that have been around for a long time. Participants in the session on The Built Environment and Active Living at September’s CPRA meeting tested some of these assumptions in a controlled quasi-experiment.

Breaking into small groups, they fanned out from the base of the Steamboat Gondola and took a walk, carefully recording their routes and marking their final destinations. This information was later entered into a geographic information system (GIS) program for analysis. The results show how much ground they covered as well as how far away from the starting point they ended up on a walk of exactly ten minutes. Their average walking speed was calculated from this data. The results are shown in the following table:

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Steamboat Springs Walking Activity Results

From the table we see that on average people taking a ten-minute walk ended up about a quarter mile away as the crow flies from where they started, and travelled a bit over a third of a mile to get there. Their average speed was about 2 1/3 miles per hour.

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This is a very small sample with a wide range of values, and needs to be interpreted accordingly. For example, the fastest group travelled almost twice the average speed of the slowest one. But it shows us that when planners make decisions about how far apart to space things like parks and other facilities, they are relying on generalizations and there are many factors to be considered. In this case, participants were walking in a resort with a diverse choice of routes including streets, paths, and wide open ski slopes that allowed for numerous possible short-cuts to be taken. In other environments, the choice of routes may be more limited. Also, the steep terrain in Steamboat may have affected the travel speed of participants, depending on whether they chose to walk uphill or down.

All of this suggests that as we strive to make our communities more healthy and livable by providing walkable destinations and routes to get to them, we need a better understanding of what the true parameters of walking are. We also need to know more about what motivates people to walk and how long and far they will walk in various situations. Thanks to the participants in this session, we know a little bit more than we did before.

A full report on a similar study conducted in Estes Park last summer may be downloaded at:

http://gpred.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/GP-Red-Walkability-Standards-Final-sm-3.pdf

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Robby Layton, FASLA, PLA, CPRP is a Principal at Design Concepts CLA, Inc. and a PhD student at North Carolina State University College of Design, where he is studying the systematic allocation of parks and other greenspaces in the urban environment. He is also a member of the operating board of GP RED, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of inter-disciplinary, innovative, practical management tools and strategies intended to enhance and promote integration of health, recreation, and land management industries through research, education, and development.

Robby's studies help highlight Ghana's need for parks

One of our Principals, Robby Layton, is currently working on a PhD and teaching at North Carolina State University. He sends this report:

The faculty and students at North Carolina State University College of Design are extending the reach and impact of landscape architecture to far corners of the globe. This can be seen in the recent draft report on the NCSU Landscape Architecture program’s study abroad activities in Ghana this past summer. Professor Kofi Boone says that African cities are expected to be the fastest-growing cities in the world of the near future, and that there is a need for urban strategies to deal with a wide range of issues facing people there.

Kofi notes that cultural traditions in Ghana include many different types of public spaces, but that parks are notably lacking there. He points out that Accra, a city of 4.5 million people, has only about a half-dozen places that might be considered “parks”, and that these do not see a lot of use. Adapting these places to both traditional and contemporary needs of people could change this and affect the lives of millions of people. This was the challenge that the Ghana International Design Studio students took on, working with the Mmofra Foundation to generate both long-term visions and small-scale actions that utilize resources and skills close at hand to positively influence urban spaces across West Africa. Their report beautifully illustrates this work. You can see it yourself at:

http://issuu.com/kofiboone/docs/playtime_in_africa_student_report_f/1

And to learn more about the Mmofra Foundation, visit their web site:

 http://mmofraghana.org/our-work/playtime-in-africa-initiative/

Press Release: Celebrating New Learning Landscape in Denver’s Conservatory Green Stapleton Community

New Learning Landscape Focuses on Animals, Insects and Patterns of Nature on the Shared School Campus of Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST): Conservatory Green Middle School and High Tech Elementary School.

Lafayette, Colorado . . . August 22, 2014 Design Concepts, an award-winning community and landscape architecture firm, announced today the grand opening celebration of a new Learning Landscape at Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST): Conservatory Green Middle School and High Tech Elementary School.

The shared school, with grades from early childhood education through eighth grade (ECE-8), is a new Denver Public School located in the Stapleton ‘Conservatory Green’ neighborhood, a redevelopment community situated on the former Stapleton International Airport.  Design Concepts was hired by RB+B Architects to design the shared school site. 

From active play to passive and reflective areas, the Learning Landscape features abundant opportunities of interactive learning and educational teaching tools integrated throughout the school campus. 

“Design Concepts’ theme for the Learning Landscape combines colors, patterns and textures of animals, insects and patterns found in nature,” stated Carol Henry, PLA, ASLA, president and principal landscape architect of Design Concepts.  “Special design features include integrating fun and colorful educational symbolism like a butterfly lifecycle walkway, the US map painted on asphalt, nature-themed play equipment with dragonfly-like patterns, abstract insect forms embedded into play pits, a flight path of a bee integrated into an outdoor adventure area, and QR codes etched into a maze providing an integrated learning component.”

The site’s animal and nature theming is interwoven throughout the site. An outdoor discovery area is themed around plant life and includes an outdoor classroom with a tactile discovery walk. Custom shade structures designed as giant leaves are located throughout the site.  At the main entry plaza, etched water patterns provide a visual progression typically found in a watershed.  And in the student garden area, natural materials make up the site, with plentiful native materials and plantings: a buff sandstone amphitheater sits in dappled shade formed by leaf cutouts in the shade structures, an oversized cottonwood stump creates a picnic table and seats, a wooden bridge crosses a cobble stream channel, stone patterns are imbedded in the crushed gravel walkways, and a pathway of tree stumps form an adventurous balance walk.

The landscape design also includes common amenities appropriate to a school site including outdoor recreation and play fields, open spaces and plazas to embrace the community, along with carefully planned parking and student drop-off and pick-up zones for both parent and bus access.

“The design not only provides maximum functional site organization and amenities, but offers a fun and healthy active learning environment for students, teachers, parents and the surrounding community.”

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Get Out and Play - Healthy Play for Alexandria, Virginia

We recently completed a city-wide study of playspaces throughout Alexandria, Virginia. This video encouraging people to provide children with healthy play was one of the items we produced as part of the project. Although we're located in Lafayette, CO we love working for people and municipalities across the country.

We have created a video for Alexandria, Virginia to promote healthy play for kids. It's called Get Out and Play.