Only 7 weeks until the greatest basketball weekend on earth: Hoopfest 2021! Have you been out to see the completed Hoopfest mural at the North Bank?
During the opening weekend of the Ice Age Floods Playground, we hosted a coloring contest. We were SO impressed by the entrants, that we had to give away more than one skateboard! We definitely see potential architects, landscape architects, and interior designers in this bunch. Congratulations!
The Trust for Public Lands has produced a report ranking city parks systems – Spokane made it to the top 20.
The North Bank of Riverfront Park was a hot spot this weekend, with many families visiting the playground and splash pad. Have you visited the Ice Age Floods Playground?
#ThrowbackThursday to demo day at the North Bank in Riverfront Park, February 2020. We are so proud of the end result of this playground. Have you been to the North Bank yet?
The Ice Age Floods Playground in Riverfront Park is DONE and ready for action! We hope that you and your family can visit the playground this weekend during its opening. The new regional playground will open to the public at 12pm, Friday, May 21. Come join us and play!
Check out the latest construction updates from the Ice Age Floods Playground at Riverfront Park. Crews are working toward the finish line, with the opening right around the corner. This footage shows the play equipment, splash pad test, and the completed basketball court and wheels park. We can’t wait for Spokane’s residents to enjoy this playground. Bernardo Wills Architects provided playground design, landscape architecture and architecture services for this project.
The Spokesman-Review took a tour of the North Bank Playground site last week. Spokane Parks Garrett Jones explained the true purpose of the park – to provide an opportunity to learn about our region’s history through play, as well as the importance of investment in public spaces during these strange times: “We’re still making these community investments…during a time of crisis, the community need their public spaces. They need their parks.” Check out the full article for more.
Matthew Halstead, BIM/CAD technician, has joined BWA. He is currently providing drafting, design, and construction support for two new buildings in Washington state: Vivacity Care Center, a primary-care medical clinic in Spokane Valley, and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ SEL Event Center in Pullman.
A city parks department goes after funding to update a well-loved park. But in order to apply for various funding resources, they must have a plan – what the industry calls a master plan. A master plan determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. It can both express and regulate public policies on transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing. But where to start? Landscape architects are one of the resources available to parks departments and other public entities, serving as a guide for the development of a master plan. One key tool that design teams utilize for information gathering is a series of public forums with the various stakeholders. Clients generally start the process with many ideas for the plan but need additional input to build a unified vision. This is where the public process comes in: engaging the community (including many user groups with varying needs) to collect an informed response of what everyday users would like to see in their public project.
The public process is important for a variety of reasons. It provides transparency to the public, allows time for feedback, airs concerns, and creates a sense of buy-in and ownership from the community. Feedback gathered from the process informs the design, allowing consultants and public entities to consider additional factors and unique insights. These ideas are potentially not evident solely through site observation and client direction, and all contribute to the overall vision. One challenge we often find in the information gathering stage is engaging a wide range of age groups and families, based on various schedules, comfortability with technology, and access to information. In order to overcome this, it is important to use a multi-faceted public input process, allowing the best range of feedback. Some of the techniques we use include public meetings, mailed surveys, online surveys, voting boards, comment cards, and pop-up studios.
From the Liberty Lake Regional Park Master Plan to the Sandpoint Parks Master Plan Update, our landscape architecture team has been increasingly involved in the public process phase for projects. The success of these projects would not be the same without community members investing their time to share what matters most to them.
Written by Julia Culp, ASLA