Timeline: August 2022 - September 2022
Site: Lime Hollow Nature Center Courtland, NY
Course: CRP3348
Team: Group
Role: Researcher, Community Engagement, and Playground Designer
Programs: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Sketchup, Enscape, AutoCAD
Objective: To research and ideate a plan to implement a central nature playground for the forest preschool and an extended ADA trail.
Lime Hollow
Client
Lime Hollow is a nature center in Courtland, NY. It is located in one of two counties in New York that do not have a state park and therefore acts as the main nature site of the area. Lime Hollow provides environmental education and recreational activities year round. Although they have an extensive trail system, they hope to expand their ADA accessible trails and to create a second nature playground in between the Visitor Center and Educational Center.
Site Visits
We took multiple site visits during the semester to meet with the people who worked and visited the nature center. We also took drone observations and site measurements to get a better reading of the landscape.
Community Engagement
Creatures of the Night
Board Meeting
During the Creatures of the Night Event, our team set up a station where we had different activities to collect feedback from the visitors. The goal was to collect information from everyone of all ages.
A map where participants could place landmarks of ideal spots for playground elements or where their favorite spots were located.
A board to stick post-its answering prompts:
Favorite spot at Lime Hollow
How to improve the trails
Ideal playground
A drawing activity for children to draw their dream playground to get a sense of what children play with in a playground environment.
We also included a survey that visitors could fill out or provided a QR code to fill out the digital version.
At the board meeting, our group mates were able to get feedback and insight from the leaders of Lime Hollow.
Design Process
Over the next few weeks, we worked in two groups: Playground design and trail design. As a part of the playground design group, I worked on creating a design guideline template and came up with natural playground elements that could be added based on our research and feedback from the community engagement.
Take a look at our final report here:
Technical Drawings here:
