Design Concepts
Redesigning Possibilities: How Butterfield ...

Possibilities Playground at Butterfield Crossing Park is a bold rethinking of what inclusive play can be. Designed as a sensory-rich, fully accessible space shaped by community input, it invites children and caregivers of all abilities to connect, explore, and belong, together.

Redesigning Possibilities: How Butterfield Crossing Park Became a New Benchmark for Inclusive Play
Design Concepts
Pickleball Court Design: Maximizing Fun and ...

Pickleball is one of the hottest trends in recreation right now, and for good reason. It’s a welcoming sport that offers an abundance of fun. It’s known as a ‘game for everyone.’ Pickleball encourages physical activity to improve people’s fitness and wellness. As park designers, we see pickleball on the agenda for most of the park projects we work on.

Pickleball Court Design: Maximizing Fun and Functionality
Erik Spring
Erie Community Park: Third and Final Phase

This summer we celebrated the grand opening of the third and final phase of Erie Community Park. 12 acres of features were added to this park extending its value to the community. The park is consistently filled with people enjoying all it has to offer, and we could be more excited to see that enthusiasm.

Erie Community Park: Third and Final Phase
Design Concepts
Outdoor Classrooms: Now More Than Ever

This past year, schools all over the country were forced to allow fewer students inside and keep classes physically separate from each other, making their outside spaces a hot commodity. In many cases schools had to scramble to figure out ways to make this happen with little time to plan. We propose that to better equip schools for the future, more time, funding, and attention is needed to design these outdoor learning environments in ways students, teachers and the neighboring community can enjoy throughout the year.

Outdoor Classrooms: Now More Than Ever
Design Concepts
Two Hunters Park: A Tribute to Mark Martinez ...

Parks all around the world are known for igniting emotions of hope, peace, and optimism. Two Hunters Park, a commemorative park honoring the lives of Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin of Firestone, CO is no exception.

Two Hunters Park: A Tribute to Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin

First BVSD PK-8 School in Erie Breaks Ground

A 15-acre parcel in Erie’s Flatiron Meadows neighborhood is the site of the first PK-8 school for Boulder Valley School District. Design Concepts celebrated the groundbreaking on June 6, 2016, along with Cuningham Group Architects, future students, teachers, parents and district representatives. Shovels of all sizes were available for anyone who wanted to dig in!

The school, designed to hold 750 students, offers great views of the front range mountains including Longs Peak and the Flatirons. The outdoor courtyard connects to a below-grade amphitheater with a stage for performances and an outdoor seating area/classroom. Each grade level has their own raised garden beds. The PreK-K playground has nature-themed play equipment, a wavy walk, trike track, and sand play. The playground for grades 1-8 also offers nature-themed play equipment, along with seating areas and court games. A fitness trail with distance markers encompasses multi-use playfield for all to utilize, and the trail system connects with the neighborhoods and proposed future regional trails.

Set to open in the fall of 2017, the project encountered a few delays due to relocating the building on the site because of potential oil and gas drilling on an adjacent property. An agreement between Anardarko Petroleum Corp. and BVSD sets conditions that include drilling only when the school isn’t occupied.

Design Concepts is also working with the Town of Erie and BVSD on the adjacent 8-acre Star Meadows Park. The team collaborated to make sure the school and park site will complement each other, with special emphasis on keeping the school site secure and safe during school hours. 

New Study Identifies Potential Health Measures Associated with Public Parks and Trails

Design Concepts Principal Robby Layton, FASLA, is a primary author for a new report on potential health measures associated with public parks and trails in the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration. The peer-reviewed study identified metrics linking parks and trails to public health goals and vetted them through a panel review process to select those best suited for use in an overall public health strategy. The study was a collaborative effort between the National Park Service and North Carolina State University, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results will be useful to park planners and designers, as well as policy-makers and researchers in assuring that parks and trails are provided in ways that improve physical, mental, social, environmental and economic health within the communities they serve.  Click here for an abstract.

Groundbreaking for BVSD’s Creekside Elementary Highlights Reused Site Elements and Features

After a substantial collaborative design process, Design Concepts is celebrated the groundbreaking of Boulder Valley School District’s Creekside Elementary replacement school on May 25, 2016. 

The 9.5-acre site for this Exemplar school will feature an outdoor eating plaza complementing the ‘Growing Garden’ program.  Nearby Bear Creek influenced a subtle ‘stream theme’ that interconnects the building to the site and surrounding community.  Site features include a focus on sustainable practices, an outdoor learning area with views to the dramatic Boulder Flatirons, an outdoor eating plaza which opens out from the “Heart” of the school and the beautiful “Café” with views from the front entry out onto nearby Bear Creek. The eating area is surrounded by a planter of wildflowers, casual boulder seating and café tables. The school’s front now boasts an open playfield, playgrounds and a carefully planted water quality pond. 

Saving existing plantings from the original site was an important design goal. The design team was able to incorporate many of the existing large trees, and elements from the existing garden were saved and incorporated into the new site. Features reused include bird houses, stepping stones, bike racks, picnic tables, a shed, benches and chairs, 3-bay swings, slides, climbing structure, and a fire truck and jeep climber play feature.

Design Concepts provided landscape architecture services to Bennett Wagner Grody Architects and Fielding Nair International who served as the architectural team.

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Knock it out of the park! GIS helps improve quality of life for park users

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The May issue of Parks & Rec Magazine features an article by our own Dave Peterson and Carter Marshall. Stafford County, VA needed to understand current demand and capacity of their athletic facilities, and specialized GIS applications were used to help the county make justifiable, evidence-based decisions. The study also determined target locations for new fields based on user access and population density. Ultimately  GIS analysis was used as justification to secure additional funding for needed ballfield improvements.

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is a powerful tool for mapping our world and understanding spatial relationships.  GIS applications allow users to create a digital model of the real world that may be used to answer real world questions.  Utilized in a wide range of industries and disciplines, GIS can be a valuable analysis and planning tool for park and recreation professionals as well.

GIS analysis provides more robust evidence for action than traditional master planning techniques and yields decisions based on customizable factors specific to an agency or community. GIS datasets may be used to identify gaps and allow service providers to prioritize improvements based on evidence based decisions.  Click here to learn more.

“Prioritizing projects and their locations based on the data collected and the results of the study, we are now confident in our investment choices, knowing we are addressing actual needs,” says Jamie Porter, now Former Director of Stafford County Parks. That’s a home run in our book!

INCREASING ACCESS TO PARKS AND GREENSPACE BY INCREASING AWARENESS

Robby Layton, FASLA, Ph.D. Candidate and Design Concepts’ Principal is speaking at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference Thursday May 19 in Raleigh, NC from 8:30-10 am. Along with Teresa Penbrooke of GreenPlay LLC, their presentation will discuss access to parks and other greenspace features and how it has been shown to be correlated with improved health and well-being. While traditional measures of access have been based on distance and/or travel times, access is actually a more complex concept, involving cultural and socio-economic variables as well as proximity. One aspect of access that is often overlooked is awareness that a park, greenway, or open space even exists. Recent studies indicate that awareness of the presence and location of parks and programs available within one's local community is surprisingly weak among the general public. 

Robby shares “This presentation will frame the issue of awareness and discuss methods by which agencies can improve the public's perception of what is available and motivate participation, which in turn can lead to greater return of value from investment in greenspace features and programs.” 

EDRA has been the international leader for design research on all environments. This year’s EDRA conference “Innovation: Shifting Ground” features educational sessions and keynote speakers discussing transitions in the design industry affecting values, methods, and practices of both research and design practices.

Design Concepts is an M/WBE, SBE Landscape Architecture design firm with the City and County of Denver and a DBE under the US Department of Transportation’s Colorado Unified Certification Program (UCP).