What Are You Doing Outside?

It’s summer and time to get outside. Following up on our recent blog regarding the Denver Post’s article on playgrounds (see the Friday, June 12 post of this blog below), I decided to look for other online postings related to parks that we have worked on. It is fascinating to find out what people are doing in our parks – especially the ways they find to make them part of their own lives. For example, Westlands Park has become a venue for a variety of Meetups where people can make new friends, get fit, and have fun together.

One young athlete is on his way to becoming an action video star by filming his skateboard skills at some of the skate parks we’ve designed and posting them on YouTube.

What are you doing outside? Let us know what your favorite places are this summer and what you are doing there. If you’ve posted pictures, videos, or other info online, we’ll publish a link to them here.
Get out and have fun!

Rob Layton

What We're Reading

A few on-line publications caught our attention this week, check them out:

The first comes from LandscapeOnline.com. Mark Laska's article on 10 Tenets of Urban Restoration highlights several of the tenets important to many of our projects.

We also discovered the blog CommitToBlue.com which centers around the importance of water conservation.

Finally, though it was published less recently, Peter Harnik, Ben Welle, and Albert Pingree wrote a fantastic article on "the role of parks in redevelopment projects" titled When There's Nothing To Conserve - Create! that we found by way of sustainablesites.org.

Photo courtesy of www.cc.gatech.edu

Meet The DC Team: Scott

Name: Scott Hodson

Number of years at DC: 3 years

Title: Landscape Architect (in-training)

Where are you from? Lafayette, IN

Where did you got to school? Purdue University

Do you have any pets? What are they like? I have a black Lab named Luna. Great laid back personality and temperament. She does not mind kids climbing and sitting on her. She loves to catch bubbles in her mouth.

What's one thing you can't live without? Family. My wife and two kids are very important to me. I could give up anything else in life to keep our family strong.

Where is the farthest you have traveled? Northern Alaska. My wife Melissa and I took this trip back in summer of 2004. Little did we know it would be our last for quite a while because we found out she was pregnant soon after the trip. It was amazing to see true wilderness where wildlife is preserved and roads are few.

What's your favorite food? Fondue. Favorite restaurant is The Melting Pot. We have two pots at home and have customized recipes for cheese, meat and chocolate fondue. If it is my wedding anniversary you know where to find me.

What's your favorite part of working at Design Concepts? DC provides opportunities to work on multiple teams in a meaningful manner. There is freedom to express interest in certain realms and pursue those aspirations. It is not the type of firm that manages from the top down in a pyramid scheme. DC has the reputation that it is capable of winning a great project. Working in a creative and fun office culture. Most DC projects get built.

What would you do with $1 million? Pay off all of my debts would be priority number 1. Then I would buy a house for my parents so that they could retire and move out to Colorado. Since I have not done much travelling outside of the U.S. I would take some time to travel around the world. I have always wanted to see the Himalayan Region.

If you could be a professional athlete, what sport would you play? I grew up in Indiana. Enough said. Basketball is a major part of the Midwest culture. We had a lighted 30’x50’ pole in the barn with a concrete floor and a basketball hoop. I hosted pick-up games most days after school. My hometown was not quite 2 hours from Chicago. I was a teenager when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won 6 championships.

What inspires you? Nature is a spectacular thing. I love hiking and backpacking, which is why I moved to Colorado in the first place. To get away from people and out into beautiful outdoor environments is inspiring on many levels. I am part of a volunteer group called Poudre Wilderness Volunteers which enables me to get out and enjoy wilderness while giving back to the community by educating people about the national forest.

What's one totally random fact about yourself? I was the first person under 18 years of age to ride more than 1,000 miles in the Wabash River Cycle Club. As a member of the club, each organized ride accumulated miles over the course of a year, from January to January. I logged more than 3,500 total miles for that entire year.

The Denver Post's Popular Front Range Parks

The Denver Post recently published the 11 most visited parks along the Front Range in an article titled "Come Out: Summer's Waiting". Design Concepts was involved with five of the parks mentioned:

• Fossil Creek Park in Ft. Collins
• Louisville Community Park
• Northglenn Sensory Park
• Utah Park in Aurora
• Westlands Park in Greenwood Village.
  

Photo of Westland's play structure courtesy of Denverpost.com

Connections to the Land

Part of landscape architecture is showing a love for the land by shaping it to serve the needs of both the land and the community of which that land is a part. At Design Concepts we all have different ties to the land which influence how we work with cities and people as land use changes.

Linda Anderson-Biella’s family has lived in Boulder County since 1915 where for generations they grew crops and vegetable gardens, had milk cows, grazed livestock, and made a living solely from the farm’s production. Over the course of the near century during which the Anderson family has maintained the land near Arapahoe Road a lot has changed. As development in the area increased demands on water became greater and greater, the traffic increased substantially, and the City of Boulder Open Space has acquired some of the land. Under a lease agreement, Linda’s family has been able to continue to farm the land so that it can maintain its historical status by producing crops and providing pasture for livestock. 

While Boulder County wants to maintain agriculture in the areas that have a heritage of being used in this way, development has not stopped and agricultural space is shrinking. In the past it was possible for people to live purely off the farm, as Linda’s parents did while she was growing up, but this way of life has become more or less a thing of the past. “Farming is not a living, it’s a way of life” says Linda, “but nonetheless it continues to be a deep-rooted value that defines who we are.” Linda and her husband run about 35 head of cattle on the land that has long been home to her family.

The entire staff at Design Concepts have a deep respect for the land, based on so many factors. For Linda, her heritage and connection to the land has created the foundation for the respect she feels for the county’s oldest resource.