LASN is a photographically oriented, professional journal featuring topics of concern and state-of-the-art projects designed or influenced by registered Landscape Architects.
Issue link: https://landscapearchitect.epubxp.com/i/320919
76 Landscape Architect and Specifier News Salmon Bay (Continued from page 74) The playground had deteriorating paving and "Lake Salmon Bay," a low spot that puddled water. With a construction budget of $260,000, we couldn't transform the entire site, but instead focused on inserting a playground within the playground. We concluded the most important concept was separating stimuli and offering choices, creating divisions of space to allow kids to hang back before jumping in. This was accomplished by removing the requisite asphalt to make room for a 10-ft. diameter, 30-inch high concrete circular planter with a catalpa, a flowering plant in the Bignoniaceae family. This starfish-shaped "stone tree root planter" has a compacted crushed rock base, a concrete rat slab layer and a mortared 1"-2" thick granite veneer. Granite boulders and donor recognition cobbles were incorporated. We hope the catalpa will soon be a giant green umbrella with the stone arms appearing to be like giant roots that extend for an overall diameter of about 50 feet. The "roots" create separate spaces without creating visual barriers. Kids, walk, lie, crawl and sit on the inclined surface. For the ASD kids, walking on it is a bit of a challenge. The head playground supervisor opines the tree root planter is the best achievement of the new playground, and popular with the kids. You'd think it was designed expressly as a pre-teen hangout. The planter is a transition space for the kids where they can hang out before deciding on an activity. The root planter transitions on one side into a dry stream bed with embedded recycled glass and boulders. The shape of the stone root planter is echoed, in an eroded form, by the "plinth," a concrete surface elevated a couple of steps above the playground. It separates the blacktop games from the new play area, functioning as a stage, a lookout and a gathering point. Bottom the root planter transitions on one side into a dry streambed with embedded recycled glass populated with igneous river rock, 'Gold Rush' tumbled granite (Marenako's Rock Center) and boulders. With the lack of a landscape maintenance budget, the landscape architects opted for concrete block planters (right), a strategy to help the plants and trees survive the daily activity of nearly 600 kids. Right Landscape Structures play equipment was carefully selected to meet the needs of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). one of the favorite playground pieces is the Double Bobble Rider. the research of the landscape architects reveals that ASD kids like the rhythmic movement of teeter-totters, but sharing equipment can be intimidating. With a set distance between users, however, ASD kids are more comfortable with sharing. Project Team Design: Johnson+Southerland, architects and landscape architects, Maggi Johnson-principal, Benjamin Barrett-project landscape architect. Construction: Celtic Concrete, Damian howard Project Owner: Friends of Salmon Bay Property Owner: Seattle Public Schools 70-77.indd 76 5/22/14 8:34 AM