Here’s a look back at some of the projects we completed in 2013. Thank you to all our clients, prime consultants, and subconsultants.
We are looking forward to 2014!
Happy New Year!
Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) Accessibility Guidelines for Outdoor Developed Areas, Final Rule
by Dan Shaw
The ABA Accessibility Guidelines for Outdoor Developed Areas final rule went into effect on November 25. Anyone involved in outdoor accessibility issues in a federal setting will likely be affected by the final rule.
Several of us at the office recently participated in a webinar on these updates. The ABA Accessibility Guidelines provide technical requirements to ensure projects on federal lands (or built by federal agencies) are accessible to people with disabilities. In our day-to-day work we often choose to follow ABA standards (even on non-federal projects) because they provide effective, reasonable, and specific design guidelines for accessible outdoor facilities including trails, beach access, camping sites, etc.
ABA guidelines may also serve as the basis for ADA updates, potentially going into effect as early as Spring of 2014 depending on how negotiations go with rule-makers. We anticipate that even more municipalities will start to adopt ABA guidelines on a project-by-project basis.
The webinar format made it easy for us to learn about these updates- we simply gathered in our conference room and listened in, which made it possible for us to discuss what we were learning with each other and how these guidelines will shape future projects.
The new guidelines are a great way to enhance accessibility for all.
The full report is available at this link. The ABA PowerPoint show may be found here.
The Beauty in My Garden
by Tanja Wilcox, Senior Associate, Landscape Architect
Creating, Nurturing, and Watching Things Grow
As landscape architects, we all come to our profession for a multitude of reasons, but one of the reasons that I am drawn to landscape architecture is due to a shear love of creating, nurturing and watching things grow. At home I get to play this out in my own vegetable garden! The miracle of tiny seeds planted in the cool and rainy days of spring that sprout up to create big heads of lettuce, giant Swiss chard, black dinosaur kale, and green bean stalks that curl and twine far above my head! We go from having to run off to the grocery store for every bit of vegetable to frantically doing research on new ways to use the incredible bounty of produce springing forth in the back yard.
Solving Challenges
Landscape architects enjoy a challenge, a chance to experiment and to problem solve…Being an urban farmer provides me with ample challenges, such as when my carefully tended 200 square foot garden plot is attacked by a prowling neighborhood cat eager to dig up my lettuce starts, or the pill bugs multiply madly and come up from their hiding spot along the garden borders to eat all my freshly sprouted peas (again!), or when the cabbage worms hide in plain sight as I wonder what could possibly have made my perfect kale leaves look so holy! Armed with sets of new, bigger, lettuce starts, a slew of sticks, Sluggo, and gardening gloves, I go on the attack! The sticks, planted firmly in amusing patterns give us something to look at while we wait for the lettuce to grow and simultaneously create a simple way to keep the naughty kitty at bay. My be-gloved fingers go after and mercilessly squash the unsuspecting cabbage worms, and the Sluggo Plus sprinkled about, guards the delicate plants from pill bugs and slugs when I’m away.
As a landscape architect, I love natural beauty, especially when I’ve had a hand in shaping it. There is beauty in the sunflowers that attract bumble bees, mason bees, honey bees and later nuthatches and chickadees. There is beauty in the purple bean flowers and later, the long green bean pods tossed together with bright red cherry tomatoes. Landscape architects enjoy being a small part of “the solution.” I practice that at home by planting a garden and reducing the carbon footprint of our food. By planting flowering plants we’re providing much-needed habitat for beleaguered butterflies, bees, and many other pollinators. In the process, there’s a chance that our efforts will be contagious, infecting our friends and neighbors with the same bug!
Things are happening at Entiat Park!
Construction is underway for the Entiat Park Revitalization project. Here’s how it looked last week.
Here’s a zoom-in look at the future!
Here’s the whole plan…
J.A. Brennan is currently providing construction support services for the 30-acre waterfront (5,600 linear feet) park remodel. Our multi-disciplinary team (AJEM, Pacific Engineering, Z Engineers, HV Engineers, Nelson Geotechnical) developed the design and construction contract documents for Chelan County Public Utility District. The $6 million revitalized park will offer visitors new campsites, a group camping area, RV sites with amenities, improved water access, a new boat launch, a hand-carry boat launch, comfort stations, swimming areas, multi-use trails, and day-use areas.
A Focus on Improving the Camping Experience
The upgraded camping facilities include new walk-in sites laid out to consider privacy, views, and access. Fully-equipped RV sites will accommodate a larger variety of vehicle lengths and provide RV camping accessory configurations. The RV sites and access road will be rebuilt further away from the shoreline, leaving the shoreline environment for pedestrian and bicyclist enjoyment, and enabling native plant revegetation along the water. This dry, often hot eastern Washington site will consist of irrigated areas of lawn and shade trees for park use, as well as extensive areas of invasive species eradication, native shrub steppe-restoration, and riparian revegetation.
Creating a New Identity
Here are some images of the new signage and park architecture.
For more information and a few demolition pictures, please check out the PUD’s website.
Evolution of Project Photography
by Chris Nack
Keeping the image library organized and up-to-date is time consuming for a design firm. We found something image-related to smile about when we found this relic, with its original box, in the back of our old storage cabinet.
Then: $26.99 Fred Meyer price tag
Today: $6.99 on ebay
As the pre-digital version of instant-photo gratification, The Button performed for us when we desperately needed a real-time photo. From the early days through the 1990s, the majority of our project images were collected as slides and organized in binders. We still have the binders and are on the verge of converting some of that collection to digital format.
From the Slide Era:
The slide library awaits selection for digitizing. Too bad we can’t locate our slide projector. We’re looking forward to a day of bending over the light table!
Negatives and Prints
What will we do with these?
Scan the prints? Scan the negatives?
Most likely: After we pick out our favorite images for scanning we will accept that we have not opened a box in seven years and let the rest go.
A Digital World
Today site photos come back from the field via phone camera, DSLR camera, and compact digital camera; we have a camera for every occasion. Keeping digital images organized is no easier! There are more photos than we had in those simpler days of The Button’s reign.
Recreating Historically Significant Public Spaces
by Mike Perfetti
Public parks and outdoor civic spaces provide many day-to-day and long-term civic and environmental functions. Park creation and re-creation require coordination and collaboration between designers and stakeholders in order to create a design that reflects the desires, trends, and economics of a community at a specific point in time. As well, the design must respect the past while responding to perceived environmental factors. Communities inevitably change and as time grinds away we are tasked with recreating the place. If we do it right, the place will be renewed and become beloved in new ways.
Understanding and Appreciating the Past
Many parks are rich with histories treasured by their communities. These stories are vital to a community’s identity.
Like buildings, outdoor public spaces can be historic, and are often guarded by the people who love them. For landscape architects, it’s important to engage with the community and project stakeholders and to demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of the past. We must also demonstrate the ability to implement changes that preserve, and ideally, enrich that history.
What are some of today’s cultural trends and environmental factors that affect parks? There are many. Some examples include
- The popularity of dog-ownership
- Urban Densification
- Cultural diversity
- Sea level rise
Old Town Dock
J.A. Brennan Associates has worked on several projects recently that featured the redesign of historically significant civic spaces. One project is Tacoma’s Old Town Dock. Located on the shores of Commencement Bay, the dock is an important place where people of the historic Old Town neighborhood connect with the water. Old Town was once a fishing village, which eventually grew into part of Tacoma’s industrial waterfront. Old Town Dock was built in 1873 and served the shipping industry until operations moved. The dock fell into disrepair, was condemned, then rebuilt in 1953 and opened to public use with the additions of railings, benches, lighting, a restroom, shelter, and artificial reef. As Tacoma’s Ruston Way waterfront was changing from industrial use to recreational use, the dock became a popular public space, but was closed in 2008 after it was determined to be unsafe.
Working with Owners and Stakeholders
The City hired Reid Middleton, with J.A. Brennan, to design the dock renovation and restore the vital public space. The design team worked closely with the Old Town Dock Citizen Advisory Group to understand the history of the dock and the Old Town Neighborhood. We incorporated many of the advisory group’s recommendations within the context of the Ruston Way waterfront, while accommodating the City’s project budget.
The advisory group sought to recall the character of the older dock and relate to its setting in the Old Town neighborhood. The group wanted to provide day-use moorage and launching for human-powered watercraft, opportunities for water access and enjoyment, and strengthen the connection between the dock and Old Town.
Re-creation
The re-created dock maintains its original footprint. For the design of the dock, floats, and upland area, we tried to achieve the advisory group’s goals through the selection of appropriate materials, namely wood on the dock, and brick onshore. Both materials relate the character of the dock and neighborhood. Double mast-arm lights, designed by Harbor Power Engineering in collaboration with J.A. Brennan, recall the old wharf’s design standards.
The old wood decking was generally in disrepair but some wood was in good condition, allowing for adaptive reuse. This salvaged wood was laid in a distinctive pattern beneath the viewing pavilion. Originally a wood-shingled roof structure, the pavilion was restored with a standing-seam metal roof and rebuilt to recall the original pavilion.
The dock was renovated and reopened May 15, 2013. The design process was a successful collaboration between designer and stakeholders, and the outcome reflects the needs of the community while enhancing the historic character of the place. Since its opening, Old Town Dock has been a smashing hit in Tacoma’s Old Town neighborhood, defining public space, expressing its history, and drawing people to the water.
Nature Play
Recently Mike Perfetti, senior associate, presented at the Washington Recreation & Park Association’s (WRPA) Annual Conference & Trade Show, held this year in Vancouver, WA. WRPA’s mission is to promote excellence of current and future Parks and Recreation professionals through advocacy, education, networking, and training.
Mike’s presentation, Nature-based Playgrounds: From Design to Operation, provided insight for park managers, staff, and students interested in implementing nature play opportunities in public parks.
Background
Today there is substantial amount of awareness and supporting research regarding the unhealthy state of many American children. Since the release of Richard Louv’s best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005), it has become a priority among parents and park managers to help children play safely outdoors and, at the same time, benefit from the teachings of the natural world.
In his book, Louv cites the well-known obesity epidemic among American children today and the lack of exposure to the natural world, which he posits inhibits nature appreciation, understanding, and survival skills, as well as physical conditioning. He believes this lack of exposure to the outdoors has to do with parents’ and guardians’ real and perceived fears, as well as a high level of exposure to time-consuming pursuits of gaming and video watching.
Mike’s presentation advocates for the implementation of nature-based play opportunities within public spaces. Mike describes two nature play models:
Model 1: The Informal Free Play Model
In this model, nature play takes place on a piece of public land set aside for that purpose, or within which it is an allowed use, but the amount of introduced play components is kept to a minimum. This model represents nature play at its core, allowing children to play in an essentially undeveloped, naturalistic environment, and is also beneficial in terms of being inexpensive to implement.
Model 2: The Fabricated Nature Play Model
The fabricated nature play model relies on introducing fabricated play components into an area, which provide some degree of nature-oriented play and/or learning. This is useful in a number of applications, such as sites that lack significant natural components, or where maintenance, liability or supervision may be issues. This can be a particularly effective model in terms of appealing to a great number of people, and can be adapted to a wide variety of sites and conditions.
Case Study
Mike presented J.A. Brennan’s design for the Discovery Pond Nature-based Playground at the Tacoma Nature Center as the major case study in understanding how to implement nature-based play in a park. He highlighted the need for outlining a program with goals and objectives and listening to stakeholder input as key components to creating a successful nature play area.
Discovery Pond is centered around a recirculating water feature and features an array of fabricated natural-looking play elements that serve children of all ages and is ADA accessible. The design carefully restores the site and creates a natural appearance that complements the Nature Center’s site and programming.
Aesthetic Enhancements for a City of Kent Flood Wall
Typical concrete floodwall?
Or integration of art that signifies place?
These were the choices the City of Kent had when considering improvements to the Boeing Levee at Three Friends Fishing Hole Park. As the city neared completion of flood wall design for the Boeing Levee, inventive thinkers proposed adding art to the wall’s face along the span of the park.
Six weeks of design time
We were brought into the project as the structural engineering design of the flood-wall levees was nearing completion; a short time remained until the project would be going out to bid. The short time-frame required quick thinking and an organized process. Our design team’s familiarity with designing aesthetic treatments for walls and bridges allowed us to go from zero to fully developed construction drawings for wall textures and surface treatments in the allotted time.
An initial brainstorming session with the client led our designers to develop two alternative themes. A nature-based Green River Ecology theme could honor the ecological story of the river. The second potential theme employed the history and geomorphology of the Green River Valley, from pristine river to agricultural and then modern-day industrial corridor. In either case, a part of the river’s story would be told for passers-by on the adjacent bike trail, park visitors, and adjacent industrial landowners.
Working out the details
Multiple material and treatment possibilities were discussed for the expression of the considered themes on the wall face. Options included
- Standard and custom formliners, which would create bas relief sculptural elements integral to the wall face
- Sandblasted aggregate reveal
- Sawcut patterns
- Glass fiber reinforced concrete
- Green wall
In the end, cost was a major consideration. Research made it clear that the best way forward would be with custom formliners.
Ecological Story
With cost information and design alternative sketches in hand, our client opted to tell the ecological story. Our designers got to work developing a story board with appropriate images. Meetings with the client further refined the initial choices and allowed us to move forward with detail design of the custom formliners required to make this vision a reality. We generated CAD drawings that went into the bid package on time and on budget.
The final design celebrates the Green River with shapes, textures, and colors that are stylized representations of the life forms within the river system. Recognizable images were selected: salmon, salamander, maple leaf, redtwig dogwood, and blue heron.
Custom formliner panels are 3’x3’, which are easily multiplied to cover the typical wall heights (front and back). The panels depict the wildlife/vegetation in detail surrounded with a subtle background texture. Panels are designed so that they can be repeated in differing sequences and orientations, interspersed with standard formliner panels, thereby providing a rich and varying experience as one moves along the length of the wall.
In the end, our understanding of the aesthetic design process helped guide the client through a quick decision making process and resulted in a design that tells a place-sensitive story, turns a wall into art and enhances the park experience for all visitors.
The $2.65 million levee project is scheduled to begin construction mid August.
More information: Work to begin soon in Kent on $2.65 million levee project
Don Morse Park Beach Restoration Update, Chelan, WA
Park use is up substantially and visitors are having a great experience now that the bulkhead has been buried and the park has a beach designed by the J.A. Brennan Associates team. Next spring native aspen trees and other vegetation will be added to create shade, beautify the site, and enhance the riparian habitat.
Sketching outings
By Meghan James
We’re starting a new office activity to keep our drawing skills sharp, fuel new design ideas, and just spend a little time together outside: sketch outings!
Thursday, during the lunch hour, Drew and I strolled over to Occidental Square to sit in the sun and sketch. It was a gorgeous day and the bricked plaza was filled with people sitting in the sun, eating lunch, and listening to live music. It took us a minute or two to find a spot to sit, as the place was so crowded. We eventually settled on a seat near the bakery and next to the chess game.
I decided to focus on the chess pieces in front of me. I was drawn to them because they were so huge; each one stood at least two feet tall. I worried that the pieces would be moved around before I could finish sketching each one, but the game was nice and slow. Drew had his eye on paving patterns in the plaza, and capturing people as they relaxed in the sun.
Sketching is a critical tool for designers, even today when nearly everyone has a digital camera on their phone. Sketching is not just about recording the facts of a sight; sketching is about truly seeing your surroundings. Sketching forces you to deeply observe a place and capture it on paper with lines, tones and textures. In this way, you see the space much more vividly and sear it into your memory. Taking a snapshot is certainly faster, but sketching makes the place your own.
Observation – through sketching – trains the eye to see patterns, composition, and themes. We all tend to see the world with a visual shortcut. We see: car, building, child. Sketching teaches us to really look and see how the car has a dented bumper, how the building has a torn awning, and how the child has an ice cream stain down the front of his shirt. Ice cream stains may not directly translate to good landscape architecture, but it’s a richness of detail that does turn into excellent design.
We’re planning to make our new sketch outings a weekly event. Although this first trip was just the two of us, this will hopefully become an occasion that the entire office looks forward to. In fact, I have a new sketchbook and a handful of watercolor pencils which need to get some exercise. Keep an eye out, because we’ll keep posting selections from our sketchbooks.
j.a.b.LOG 
