Landscape Architecture

For the win: A semester worth celebrating

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 18:23:46 +0000

For the win: A semester worth celebrating Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/19/2023 - 11:23

The Program in Environmental Design hosted its Open House exhibition on Dec. 15, 2023. The Open House is a building-wide exhibition of design and research produced by students and faculty during the fall semester. The event was established in 2018 to encourage the connection between students, their peers, alumni and friends, as well as the Boulder community.

Couldn’t make it this year? Watch the video reel above!

At the end of each fall semester, Environmental Design (ENVD) hosts a building-wide exhibition of design and research produced by students and faculty.

Off

Traditional

White

Green is the New Asphalt: Landscape Architecture Students Redesign Green Schoolyards in Fall Studio

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 20:15:53 +0000

Green is the New Asphalt: Landscape Architecture Students Redesign Green Schoolyards in Fall Studio Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/15/2023 - 13:15

Sierra Brown

Sticky metal playgrounds and hot asphalt. Bare patches of dirt on browning soccer fields. Limited shade with no space for solitude and quiet. A small cluster of trees - sometimes. This is what tends to come to mind when we think about a typical schoolyard. Soon, however, six Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) schoolyards may receive a green makeover.

In the third iteration of the Green Schoolyards Studio, third-year landscape architecture students have spent the past semester analyzing schoolyards, collaborating with school communities, and crafting feasible plans that redesign schoolyards for learning, creativity, mental health, and interactions with nature.

We spoke with Assistant Teaching Professor Emily Greenwood about how her class approached this monumental task:

What’s the idea behind “Green Schoolyards”?
The inspiration came from work I did in my graduate program. A professor at CU Denver started this movement called Learning Landscapes which began with a few schoolyard designs and then became this 15-year-long project of redesigning all 52 Denver public schoolyards. I’m still really involved in the one that I designed from conception through construction. It planted a seed.

At that time, we realized that schoolyards weren’t just for play - they can also be for learning. Schoolyards are really just public open space that we’ve accidentally set aside. So, taking advantage of them more as this public amenity and not just for play between the hours of nine and three. That’s the Green Schoolyards movement.

What does the process look like for your students in the studio?
I tell them that this project is their world, their oyster. They do a pretty good precedent analysis at the beginning and they’re designing it according to how they compiled that initial information. Then all of the student groups do a community engagement activity with students and parents.

My students love this bit. Kids never get asked questions about what they want their spaces to look like. They can be super imaginative, and we can take those probably unrealistic ideas and make it into something that’s grounded. It’s totally the way to go. Because otherwise you go in and only respond to the site. And that’s such a small piece of the equation. There’s nothing cuter than asking kids what they want to see in their schoolyard.

My students also did research to understand the mental health piece of the Green Schoolyards movement and then reached out to the community to elicit their feedback as to their needs and constraints.

Can you tell us more about the mental health piece?
This is from more modern research - we’re realizing that schoolyards should be play, they should be learning, they should be a community amendment and they could have spaces for all different types of people. There should be quiet spaces, private spaces, thinking spaces. It’s trying to incorporate all of those principles into schoolyard design.

Are schools designed the same way for all age groups?
It’s very different. It’s interesting culturally what we think students need. There’s a ton of research on developmental stages, but it feels to me that we kind of abandon them around middle school. I always use the example of swinging – you can’t tell me that a seventh grader doesn’t want to swing. It’s this universal human, self-regulating, nourishing activity that we just kind of pull out from under them at this certain, pretty random age.

The elementary schools usually are rich with play equipment but not with other learning tools. Middle schools will just have tether ball courts and that’s it. And then there’s high schools – the one we’re working with has a great view of the Flatirons but every space around this school is just totally unprogrammed. The day we visited the sites I was wondering – are we actually making high schools harder for people who are already in the hardest years of their life? They are more easily bored and the mental health crisis in teens is horrifying. Maybe we could help with this.

To find out how redesigning schoolyards might be helping, we sat down with Lily Flanum, Slater Weil, and Danny Eisenstein, some of the students involved in the studio:

What are the main focus areas for your school’s design?
Lily: We’re mostly focused on designing outdoor classrooms for mental health and incorporating Native land acknowledgment. Rather than just making a plaque we wanted to create a design centered around traditional medicinal herbs for students to learn and interact with. We also put seating in there and color-coded the different plants around it.

How was the engagement with the students?
Lily: This is our first community project. I loved it. We had a day where we asked them what their dream playground would be. Would they want more social space, more learning space? Their brains work so differently, they are so imaginative. In design, we’re so used to these standards that we confine ourselves to - why would we ever think outside the box? This one girl wanted tanning chairs and a pool. Other kids just wanted shade and more nature. One kid wanted a horse track.

Danny: Generally, they wanted creative spaces and more terrain, more things to climb on. It’s very primal: they really just want to crawl around, dig in the dirt.

Do you think pieces of your project will be implemented?
Lily: Each school has different parameters. Our school will take our suggestions into account and budget for them. There's a lot of analysis that goes into it and you have to consider what’s actually important to the site and what the kids would actually use. A horse track would be awesome, but it’s also not the most realistic.

The horse track may not make the cut, but other aspects of the student designs will likely be incorporated in the future. Greenwood elaborated:

Are these schools going to be able to implement the plans once they are finished?
Some schools have enough money to execute phase one in the first year, other schools use the material to apply for grants. What happens to those drawings depends on the school’s needs. But they at least have well-designed documents that could be pushed forward through a professional to become something that’s executional. This is part of how I convince the schools to do it. You’re going to have hundreds of donated design hours. Even if it’s not perfect, in the end, you have this amazing tool that saves so much money.

Do you see growth in your students through this studio?
Yes, it’s super cool. We all have these preconceived notions of what schoolyards are, largely based on our experience in whatever schools we went to. So, it does feel like as we add more research and better understanding of the precedence, the students understand more of the intricacies of what those spaces could be. It’s beautiful to bring fresh minds into that conversation.

Off

Traditional

White

Landscape architecture students, faculty attend ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 22:24:33 +0000

Landscape architecture students, faculty attend ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/27/2023 - 15:24

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) conference was held Nov. 11-14, 2022, in San Francisco. There was a record turnout in attendees from Environmental Design, which included seven landscape architecture majors, Taylor Atkins, Sean Donovan, Halley Douglas, CJ Ebberly, Theo Johnson and Austin Shoer, and three faculty members, Maggie Aravena, Christy Rogers and Amy Saunders. Aravena was named a WxLA Scholar.

“This was my first ASLA conference and I was impressed by the fact the ASLA Climate Initiative was presented in San Francisco–a powerful symbol of how popular culture and sustainable action plans manifest in an urban setting,” ENVD Lecturer Amy Saunders said.

As a recognized and registered student organization at the �� and the Center for Student Involvement (CSI), the Student Affiliate Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and it's members did not have to pay our of pocket for airfare and lodging expenses. To get funding approved, the ASLA student board created a budget and presented it to the Student Organization Allocations Committee (SOAC) funding board.

"I hope the newsletter helps inspire other ENVD clubs to apply for funding for their disciplines' national conferences or events," ASLA Co-President Austin Shoer said. "It is something I think all clubs should know about and take advantage of. Funding can be used for travel or hosting events at CU.”

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) conference was held Nov. 11-14, 2022, in San Francisco. There was a record turnout in attendees from Environmental Design.

Off

Traditional

White

Third-Year Landscape Architecture Students Design for Eco-Healing Near Marshall Mesa Site

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 16:45:26 +0000

Third-Year Landscape Architecture Students Design for Eco-Healing Near Marshall Mesa Site Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/04/2022 - 10:45

In the summer of 2022, a group of collaborators from the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP), Growing Up Boulder, CEDaR and ENVD began meeting about the concept of eco-healing–the ways in which connecting to nature can help communities process and heal from traumatic disaster events and create educational opportunities around climate change and natural disasters.

Growing Up Boulder conducted community engagement activities with the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and students from Whittier Elementary school that focused on exploring emotions around climate change and the super fires of today. Within the first few weeks of the fall 2022 semester, a third-year landscape architecture studio, instructed by Teaching Assistant Professor Emily Greenwood, has expanded on the work carried over from summer.

Students began their design project with an exploration of emotion and tying that emotional connection into what is typically referred to as the initial research phase. In mid-September, representatives of the multi-agency collaboration presented at the Colorado Open Space Alliance conference on Eco-Healing with youth: Inspiring Emotional Resilience through Wildfire Interpretation and Climate Action. Third-year landscape architecture students will spend the rest of the semester designing interpretive education opportunities along the Marshall Mesa (and adjacent) trailhead that will be presented to OSMP and folded into the future designs for those trailheads.

Third-year landscape architecture students take on designing interpretive education opportunities along the Marshall Mesa (and adjacent) trailhead that will be presented to OSMP and folded into the future designs for those trailheads.

Off

Traditional

White

Senior landscape architecture capstone focuses on climate resilience this spring

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 18:17:07 +0000

Senior landscape architecture capstone focuses on climate resilience this spring Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/31/2022 - 11:17

The senior landscape architecture capstone studio, Landscape as Agent: Climate Resilience (LAND 4100), instructed by ENVD Instructor Emily Greenwood, launched the spring semester with a research paper that covered a specific theme of climate change, along with a graphic collage that represented their research. The data-driven collages were used as tools to help frame discussions around climate change impacts. The research from this assignment will inform the studio’s next assignment.

Using various research resources, students could choose from the following climate change vulnerabilities to investigate to create a better understanding of the issue.

Extreme weather events
Climate change inequity
Air quality and carbon emissions
Ocean health

Water quality and quantity
Food security and safety
Human Health
Energy Sources

Referencing their new knowledge, students were tasked with creating a tabloid-sized collage using digital and/or analog tools. Using techniques such as layering, the collage could have included compelling graphics such as maps, text, photographs and sketches.

The senior landscape architecture capstone studio, Landscape as Agent: Climate Resilience (LAND 4100) launched the spring semester with a research paper that covered a specific theme of climate change, along with a graphic collage that represented their research.

Off

Traditional

White

Landscape architecture studio helped school welcome new outdoor learning space

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 19:42:40 +0000

Landscape architecture studio helped school welcome new outdoor learning space Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/12/2022 - 12:42

At the end of the fall 2021 semester, students from the landscape architecture studio Green Schoolyards: Playgrounds of the Future partnered with Lafayette Open Spaces and Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer Elementary to host a soft opening of the new Lafayette Outdoor Classroom.

Students presented brief examples of the types of outdoor learning that could happen at each station as they welcomed the community to the new space.

Students in the landscape architecture studio Green Schoolyards: Playgrounds of the Future partnered with Lafayette Open Spaces and Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer Elementary to host a soft opening of the new Lafayette Outdoor Classroom.

Off

Traditional

White

Sisters Community Park

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:15:27 +0000

Sisters Community Park Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/04/2020 - 10:15

Over the past two weeks, students in Instructor Siobhan Brooks’ landscape architecture studio have been exploring Boulder County, learning firsthand about the structure of community parks and their role in regional recreational planning. The studio will be collaborating with the City of Longmont’s senior planners and landscape architects to develop masterplan schemes for a future community park in southwest Longmont.

During the first week, students visited Foothills Community Park, Sandstone Rand and Dry Creek Community Park. This week, students launched their site reconnaissance analysis phase, with a site visit to the 80-acre Sisters of St. Francis property. The studio was accompanied by City of Longmont Senior Project Manager Steve Ransweiler, PLA.

During the first clear and cool day of the semester, Brooks and the students enjoyed marching through the cornfields, hopping across irrigation ditches and investigating riparian zones.

The landscape architecture studio will be collaborating with the City of Longmont’s senior planners and landscape architects to develop masterplan schemes for a future community park in southwest Longmont.

Off

Traditional

White

Green Schoolyards: Playgrounds of the Future

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:05:06 +0000

Green Schoolyards: Playgrounds of the Future Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/04/2020 - 10:05

Students in Instructor Emily Greenwood’s landscape architecture studio, have developed work for their first assignment. Students were asked to reconnect with their own memories of play before launching into designing schoolyards. Through the diversity of their childhood experiences they were able to see the beauty of any child’s natural desire to play, how play becomes interwoven with locality, culture and families, as well as how play resonates over decades of life.

Students in Instructor Emily Greenwood’s landscape architecture studio, have developed work for their first assignment.

Off

Traditional

White

Summer session: Intro to landscape architecture

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:01:52 +0000

Summer session: Intro to landscape architecture Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/13/2020 - 11:01

This summer, students in the intro to landscape architecture studio developed their sketching skills as well as a design intervention proposal for Boulder’s Central Park.

Twice weekly, students participated in workshops that explored the basics of sketching and visual notetaking, which encourage them to find their own style and use different mediums.

Over the course of five weeks, the class was tasked to explore, analyze and produce a concept that would improve Boulder’s, Central Park. Each student produced early concepts to drive their final project and presented a final proposal for the park during the week of July 6.

This summer, students in the intro to landscape architecture studio developed their sketching skills as well as a design intervention proposal for Boulder’s Central Park.

Off

Traditional

White

Student's design selected by Harlem Community Board

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 21:32:03 +0000

Student's design selected by Harlem Community Board Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/10/2020 - 14:32

Congratulations to ENVD student Ben Pesso for being selected to continue his studio work with Mary Mattingly, the CU Art Museum’s artist-in-residence, on a project in New York City.

Last fall, students in Instructor Seth Wilberding’s landscape architecture studio designed a food forest located on a barge in Harlem. This project was inspired by Mattingly’s design, Swale.

The designs were then presented to the Harlem Community Board, where they chose Pesso’s design. Pesso will continue to work with Mattingly and Wilberding to move the project forward.

Environmental design student Ben Pesso was selected to continue his studio work with Mary Mattingly, the CU Art Museum’s artist-in-residence, on a project in New York City.

Off

Traditional

White