November 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 52

l e a rnin g b y d e si g n

that was virtually abandoned in terms
of maintenance, " says Badanes. The
neglected park was going to be sold
by the city for housing, but the neighborhood stepped in to save it, successfully lobbying the city to change the
ordinances that would have allowed
the property to be sold. Following
that victory, the community began
looking for grants to redevelop the
park and approached Badanes about
coming to work on the site. Over two
years, the students built numerous
structures, including a dramatic leafshaped pavilion. " When you look
up toward the ribs of the roof structure, it looks like a cherry leaf, with
the parallel veins, " says community
member Joyce Mote.
Funding was a challenge for the
park, but the students' labor provided
essential momentum. " It was a $50,000
structure that we got for $10,000 worth
of materials, " says Mote. That labor
also counted as a matching contribution for grants, making the park project
especially competitive. Mote estimates
about $450,000 was raised, and volunteers have contributed around 40,000
hours to the park.
Most recently, the Neighborhood
Design/Build Studio worked with

the Beacon Food Forest, a permaculture demonstration garden and
teaching space in Seattle's Jefferson
Park. Because of the course's tight
timeline, students worked offsite in
a warehouse, fabricating structures
that would eventually be taken apart,
moved by truck, reassembled and
craned into place onsite. But the effect when installed is dramatic. " It
was a really nice moment for [the
Beacon Food Forest], because they
were just getting out of the ground
with the project, and suddenly they
had structures and covered seating for
the gardeners, " says Jake LaBarre, an
instructor with the studio. " It made
the community feel like something's
really happening here, " he says.
Although many of its projects take
place in parks, typically the studio
works directly with local organizations,
rather than the city government, which
can move a little too slowly for the
course's 11-week timeline. " It's usually
the nonprofit who makes the deal with
us, " says Badanes. " Also, they don't
have any money, " he jokes.
Developing Structural
Intelligence in the Deep South
At the other end of the spectrum is

Jared Polesky

The unique pavilion in Seattle's
Bradner Gardens takes its cue from
the natural beauty of a cherry leaf.

50 Parks & Recreation

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the Rural Studio, which operates far
from Auburn University's main campus. Students live in the small town of
Newbern, Alabama, and take part in
a year-long immersive program. Over
the course of two semesters, small
teams of students will design and build
a single structure all on their own.
Initially, the Rural Studio took on
small public projects: a park pavilion
here, a playground there. In 2001, it
began a multiphase project for Perry
Lakes Park, a 600-acre nature preserve
near Marion, Alabama, on the Cahaba River. The park, first established in
the 1930s by the CCC, shuttered in the
1970s. Between 2001 and 2005, four
student teams constructed a pavilion,
restrooms, a massive covered suspension bridge and a 100-foot-tall birding
tower, recycled and reassembled onsite from a decommissioned fire tower. The park reopened in 2002 when
the Rural Studio's first phase, the pavilion, was completed.
The next big project was Lions Park
in Greensboro, Alabama. The local
Lions Club chapter purchased the
property that would become the park
in the 1970s, and baseball fields and
an arena for equestrian events were
built, but the park wasn't well-managed. To retire debt on the purchase,
the Lions Club sold portions of the
property to the county and city governments, leaving the park in three
sets of hands. Other portions were
sold off for industrial development,
and it seemed more might be, threatening the future of the park. " The
Lions Club got together and said
'We've got to do something. Greensboro doesn't have another park,' "
says Bill Hemstreet, a member of the
Lions Club. He and others formed
the Lions Park Development Committee in 2001 and began to plan for
the future of the park.
" The park was just kind of out
here and was not being utilized very

November 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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