Design Concepts
Pickleball Court Design: Maximizing Fun and ...

Pickleball is one of the hottest trends in recreation right now, and for good reason. It’s a welcoming sport that offers an abundance of fun. It’s known as a ‘game for everyone.’ Pickleball encourages physical activity to improve people’s fitness and wellness. As park designers, we see pickleball on the agenda for most of the park projects we work on.

Pickleball Court Design: Maximizing Fun and Functionality
Erik Spring
Erie Community Park: Third and Final Phase

This summer we celebrated the grand opening of the third and final phase of Erie Community Park. 12 acres of features were added to this park extending its value to the community. The park is consistently filled with people enjoying all it has to offer, and we could be more excited to see that enthusiasm.

Erie Community Park: Third and Final Phase
Design Concepts
Outdoor Classrooms: Now More Than Ever

This past year, schools all over the country were forced to allow fewer students inside and keep classes physically separate from each other, making their outside spaces a hot commodity. In many cases schools had to scramble to figure out ways to make this happen with little time to plan. We propose that to better equip schools for the future, more time, funding, and attention is needed to design these outdoor learning environments in ways students, teachers and the neighboring community can enjoy throughout the year.

Outdoor Classrooms: Now More Than Ever
Design Concepts
Two Hunters Park: A Tribute to Mark Martinez ...

Parks all around the world are known for igniting emotions of hope, peace, and optimism. Two Hunters Park, a commemorative park honoring the lives of Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin of Firestone, CO is no exception.

Two Hunters Park: A Tribute to Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin
Schools
Design Concepts
Helping Our Community Grow

We worked alongside these supporters for several years with continuing development on Lafayette Elementary’s garden as well as their three playgrounds. Recently, we began replacing raised flower beds in areas being reestablished.

Helping Our Community Grow

behind the design

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BTD-Inspiration Playground: Artists at Work

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The collaboration between landscape architect and master artist is the storyline of this video.  In this Behind the Design story at Bellevue’s Inspiration Playground, we’re celebrating the artistry and master craftsmanship happening in an eclectic back alley of Denver’s National Western Complex neighborhood.  Here, in the emerging Rhino Art District, tucked among historic buildings, restaurants, studios, railyards, storage yards and stockyards, is the workshop of Chevo Studios.  Master stone artist and maestro of art that lives beautifully in its surroundings, Andy Dufford and his team are skillfully carving, cutting, grinding, hammering and fabricating massive boulders of sandstone and granite, soon-to-become the Water Play Table and Canyon Waterfall Boulders at Inspiration Playground.

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At Inspiration Playground, We’ve Got Stories to Tell!

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From Gestural Concepts to Easter Eggs, special features at Inspiration Playground have many Behind the Design stories to tell, and we’re gonna tell them all!

A Plethora of Special Features

There’s no shortage of fun design features for this extra-special inclusive playground. Inspiration Playground’s custom features have a life in the making with a conceptual process spanning five phases of implementation and creation:

  • First comes the idea. 
  • Second comes the client’s approval.
  • Third comes the final design and detailing.
  • Fourth comes fabrication.
  • Fifth comes installation.
  • Finally comes play time!

Inspired Collaborators

Some of the Behind the Design (BTD) stories revolve around the seriously talented team for the sculptural climbing features. These collaborations are reinventing outdated playgrounds and shaping them into dynamic, interactive and fantastical playworlds. The two firms of Design Concepts and ID Sculpture have worked together for years, changing the face of traditional playgrounds. 

At Inspiration Playground in Bellevue, Washington, this teaming is creating a playground full of life, both real and sculptural. With ID Sculpture’s collaborative brilliance in craftsmanship, artistic imagination, and cutting edge technologies, they’re using innovation and imagination in new ways. 

Upcoming Chapters

Currently under construction, Inspiration Playground is a story worth sharing.  We’re documenting and telling how things take shape on paper, and literally, on site.  Stay tuned . . . more BTD stories to come about Inspiration Playground’s special features:

Step-by-Step Process: From Gestural Concepts to Easter Eggs

  • A Design Process From No. 2 Pencil to Haptic Sculpting
  • Art in Stone
  • It’s in the Details: Art, Craftsmanship, Design Fidelity, Textural Nuances and More
  • Big Grand Themes
  • Technologies Make Features Reasonable Realities
  • Creativity Across Many Mediums
  • The Making of a Wisdom Tre

Design Concepts is an M/WBE, SBE Landscape Architecture design firm with the City and County of Denver and a DBE under the US Department of Transportation’s Colorado Unified Certification Program (UCP).