Lead Landscape Architect- Jennifer Toy
Design Intern- Esmi Rennick
Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) is a non-profit design and community development organization, that partners with undeserved communities in the US, Africa, and Latin America to physically transform communities and in the process, improve environmental, economic, and social quality of life.
Public Health Advocates (PHA) is a state-wide organization that works to make neighborhoods and schools healthier places. One of the main ways they do this is through their policy work.
Complete Parks Research Beacon
In partnership with Public Health Advocates KDI conducted community engagement workshops in the cities of Colton and Placentia CA for the Complete Parks project. Residents were surveyed on what they felt were the highest priorities for improving their park systems.
The “complete park system” is a more holistic way to approach park design. Pushing people to move beyond aesthetics and park amenities to think more along the lines of accessibility, location and connecting a city. KDI’s main task was finding out what parts of the “system” residents felt their current parks could improve upon.
The ultimate goal is to improve public health and quality of life by creating greater access to recreational opportunities.
Complete Parks Gallery
Beacon Design
Designed to be collapsible and interactive the beacon includes the Complete Park voting process right in the structure. Onlookers were given ping-pong balls to vote on which aspect of a complete park they felt was most important.
For this project I was tasked with designing and building this research beacon from start to finish. The structure needed to be mobile, collapsible, interactive, and eye catching. The structure was modeled in Rhino and as many off the shelf parts as I could source to help us keep the structure strong, on budget and shorten the construction phase. I then coordinated and managed the full day of construction needed to build the final product.
