image: Alexandra Hay
To highlight our members during Parks and Recreation Month, we are taking a look back at the last annual meeting of the ASLA Parks and Recreation Professional Practice Network (PPN). At that meeting, the PPN’s co-chairs came up with a few questions to spark conversations and let the attendees get to know one another, including identifying key areas of interest and trends in parks and recreation design and moments of inspiration they’ve had in public spaces. The meeting attendees came from across the country and from all stages of their careers, from students to senior landscape architects and firm principals.
Read on to see some of the key questions, topics of interest, and inspiring places that are on Parks and Recreation PPN members’ minds.
image: Alexandra Hay
Topics of interest for Parks and Recreation PPN members:
Balancing needs of more passive users with more vocal, well-funded sports
Bringing access to nature into highly developed, contrived parks
Construction details
Coordinating with city and regional planning
Creative outdoor experiences for children and teens
image: Alexandra Hay
Dog parks – issues, surfacing choices, etc.
Early childhood outdoor experiences
Maintenance – raising awareness about its importance and funding it
Managing competitive public bidding
Multi-use trail design and trail connections to parks
Park irrigation
Partnerships with other agencies, non-profits, and corporations
Political support for parks’ legacy
Product reviews – what works well and what doesn’t
Project development and Capital Improvement Plans (CIP)
Project management
Public engagement and community involvement
Public health – opportunities for program development, partnerships, design impacts
Risk management of public playscapes
Risk-benefit analysis and liability
Specifications
Standards for needs of population – how much per 100,000 residents
Stewardship of existing parks
Synthetic turf fields – pros and cons
image: Wade Zimmerman
Have a keen interest or expertise in any of the topics listed above, or have an experience to share? Write about it for The Field!
Trends impacting parks and recreation design:
Bringing green infrastructure into cities and designing, using, and managing it as park space
Creating different types of open spaces within new developments – neighborhood parks, plazas, etc.
Funding sources (or lack thereof) – grants, federal programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)
Inclusive design and inclusive play areas
Infilling cities with urban parks
Major art elements in parks – how to make the site iconic
image: Alexandra Hay
Nature play-based playgrounds that are very designed
Recreation programming for diverse demographics
Stormwater objectives, especially value-added visitor experience and education
The increasing need for municipalities to provide outside space for residents
Too much geometry in design
Water efficiency and sustainably designed parks – how will water conservation affect quantities of turf and traditional aesthetic values of parks?
The most memorable park or public space you’ve experienced in the last 5 years:
Aspinwall Riverfront Park, Pennsylvania – “A brand new low-budget park on a former industrial site that made brilliant use of oddball spaces to create a wide variety of experiences using inexpensive materials in creative ways.”
Denali National Park, Alaska – “Environment-centric vs. auto centric”
Downtown Providence, Rhode Island – “Daylighting the two rivers and moving I-95 out of downtown—Roger Williams’ vision”
Maggie Daley Park, Chicago – “It is dense, but functional and fun.”
Market Street Prototyping Festival, San Francisco – “Streetscape installations of interactive public art and technology—achieved a very satisfying level of vibrant interactions with other people and challenged the imagination and the senses with new ways of connecting with the natural world.”
Millennium Park, Chicago – “Everyone seems happy because of the Bean and it’s a coming together space.”
image: Alexandra Hay
Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis – “Beautiful in the fall.”
Seattle Center – “Historic park design and modern technology woven together with entertainment, creating a public destination.”
Southlake Town Square, Texas – “Traditional town space feeling.”
Wilhelma Park, Stuttgart, Germany – “It is natural, inviting, historic, and playful.
National September 11 Memorial, New York – “The noise and motion of the waterfalls.”
image: PWP Landscape Architecture
A recent epiphany or A-HA! moment you’ve had as a planner/designer of parks and public spaces:
“Dog park dynamics.”
“Freeplay is the most important kind of recreation there is.”
image: Kongjian Yu
“Using a stormwater retention pond as a programming element and embracing stormwater as a focal point of a park.”
“That health—physical, social, mental—must be a standard part of park programming and design and it should be seamlessly integrated with play and stormwater.”
It’s inspiring to see your dedication to enhancing public spaces. The diverse topics of interest, trends, and memorable experiences you’ve shared reflect a deep commitment to creating vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable parks. Your insights on dog park dynamics, the importance of freeplay, and the integration of health into design are thought-provoking. Keep up the amazing work in shaping our communities for the better.