Transforming Urban Schoolyards Design Charrette

**annie** · 05-10-2012, 12:20 PM

Transforming Urban Schoolyards: Design Charrette and Public Presentation :: Community Design Collaborative Blog

Join us for Transforming Urban Schoolyards on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street. Co-hosted by the Community Design Collaborative, AIA Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Water Department, this design charrette will explore how we can create greener, more sustainable schoolyards in Philadelphia.

Transforming Urban Schoolyards will focus on two Philadelphia public schools: Lea Elementary School in West Philadelphia and Kelly Elementary School in Germantown. In the process of brainstorming ideas for Lea and Kelly Schools, the charrette will generate design models for greening schoolyards throughout the city.

The design charrette portion sold out but there will be a public presentation of the designs today from 4:00-5:30 at the Center for Architecture at 1218 Arch Street. Charrette participants are also live tweeting using #infillsoakitup

Why this is important:
New partnership will green Philly schoolyards and rec centers
South Philly school, surrounding neighborhood get $400,000 grant to improve stormwater management

**Andy Sharpe** · 05-11-2012, 10:51 PM

Thanks Annie! I always love it when people share my articles.

Guess what? I just wrote about the design charrette as well. Interesting plans for Lea and Kelly Schools addressing stormwater management, children and nature, and the schools' connections with their communities. Look for an article in this-coming week's issue of Flying Kite.

**randomuser** · 05-12-2012, 01:56 PM

Glenolden? Odd, I didn't think people from SE Delco tended to get involved in this sort of stuff. I mean I assumed you didn't move there because no offense to Glenolden but it's kind of a boring, family place.

**seand** · 05-12-2012, 02:31 PM

I'm excited to see what comes out of this. Breaking up that sea of concrete at Lea will certainly be a change for the better.

**phillyaggie** · 05-12-2012, 02:39 PM

Sean Roulan of the Food System Design Group has designed and built "edible gardens" for some PSD campuses. I had him as a speaker/panelist for an environmental forum at Drexel's campus late last year.

I think it's great that Philly area has local talent and a drive to turning more of our landscapes greener.

**raider.adam** · 05-12-2012, 02:49 PM

Not to be dense, but what is a sustainable school yard? My initial reaction is that it is attaching a buzzword to something as simple as needing to fix a schoolyard.

**seand** · 05-12-2012, 03:10 PM

Well the old version of a non-sustainable school yards was a sea of blacktop in Philadelphia, which means a lot of water impervious suface helping to overflow our storm sewers and dump junk into the river in heavy rains. So the idea is a school yard that is "sustainable" in the sense of having the capacity to absorb storm water run off. And you know kids sometimes benefit from doing things like growing a garden at school, etc.

The other part is that the School District gets assessed those same stormwater runoff fees the rest of us do by the Water Department, so they might as well do it to beat the fees, besides being green and giving the kids exposure to some part of the real world besides concrete.

**phillyaggie** · 05-12-2012, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by raider.adam

Not to be dense, but what is a sustainable school yard? My initial reaction is that it is attaching a buzzword to something as simple as needing to fix a schoolyard.

another examples of "green coating" or slapping the word "Green" or "sustainable" as marketing ploy to get funds?

or it could be that making a school yard sustainable might mean not using traditional pesticides, using less water or having a rain barrel, planting more green cover, having xeriscaped surface rather than just lawns, etc etc...

**seand** · 05-12-2012, 03:17 PM

Most school yards in Philadelphia have no lawn, no landscaping period - just blacktop so any change at all is a dramatic change in terms of Philly's giant infrastructure problem with stormwater run off.

In terms of funding, there are some grants available fromt he Water Dep't for plans that dramatically reduce stormwater runoff so thats part of it. As well as reducing the stormwater fees the Water Dep't charges the School District and the benefit of you know giving urban kids any exposure at all to green living things.

**randomuser** · 05-13-2012, 01:33 AM

And what about the fact that the majority of games urban kids play growing up are on blacktop? Was any thought at all actually given to this? I guess it makes sense in certain sections of the city that are less rough around the edges than others but in sections where kids grow up pretty damn hard, how will this help them? How much of the blacktop they play games on will remain? How much will the time they use these playgrounds be taken into consideration?

"Green cover" is not a part of life for many urban kids outside of parks maybe. Turning an urban campus suburban-like in nature will only make them forget where they are for a bit (something I have experience with, having gone to a school in the suburbs despite living in a working class urban area outside of them), and unless you can make things easier for them where it really matters then that isn't exactly a good thing for them. Sure, this will work fine in places like University City and parts of South Philly and of course Center City but what about the rest of the city?

One size does not fit all, and really that is what my whole problem is with what raider.adam pegged perfectly (see, I give credit where credit is due). That urban/suburban thing is fine for neighborhoods in places like the Northeast and certain more working class but stable western suburbs, but that's not where we're talking about. It only hurts kids to distract them from the reality of their situations, something I know about firsthand.

Also, "real world outside of concrete"? You do realize that these kids grow up in more of a real world than 99% of the country I hope? Most people in the suburbs and in other parts of the country only know about their real world through hip hop music, TV, movies, etc. Is it great to give them breaks from the realities of their situations? Of course. Things like horseback riding in Fairmount Park and even teaching them how to garden at their schools and giving them places to plant things is great. However, it won't change the reality of their situations. You can't "green" away the obstacles they will undoubtedly face and that most of them already face from a young age.

**raider.adam** · 05-13-2012, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by randomuser

And what about the fact that the majority of games urban kids play growing up are on blacktop? Was any thought at all actually given to this? I guess it makes sense in certain sections of the city that are less rough around the edges than others but in sections where kids grow up pretty damn hard, how will this help them? How much of the blacktop they play games on will remain? How much will the time they use these playgrounds be taken into consideration?

"Green cover" is not a part of life for many urban kids outside of parks maybe. Turning an urban campus suburban-like in nature will only make them forget where they are for a bit (something I have experience with, having gone to a school in the suburbs despite living in a working class urban area outside of them), and unless you can make things easier for them where it really matters then that isn't exactly a good thing for them. Sure, this will work fine in places like University City and parts of South Philly and of course Center City but what about the rest of the city?

One size does not fit all, and really that is what my whole problem is with what raider.adam pegged perfectly (see, I give credit where credit is due). That urban/suburban thing is fine for neighborhoods in places like the Northeast and certain more working class but stable western suburbs, but that's not where we're talking about. It only hurts kids to distract them from the reality of their situations, something I know about firsthand.

Also, "real world outside of concrete"? You do realize that these kids grow up in more of a real world than 99% of the country I hope? Most people in the suburbs and in other parts of the country only know about their real world through hip hop music, TV, movies, etc. Is it great to give them breaks from the realities of their situations? Of course. Things like horseback riding in Fairmount Park and even teaching them how to garden at their schools and giving them places to plant things is great. However, it won't change the reality of their situations. You can't "green" away the obstacles they will undoubtedly face and that most of them already face from a young age.

I agree with some of this and why I was curious about the "sustainability" tag. There isn't anything wrong with having hardtop for basketball and such. If they want to mix in some grass in parts that's fine, but yeah, in general, I think it is hard to get away from hardtop without getting rid of a lot of activities with it.

I will be interested to see what the charette comes up with.

**annie** · 05-13-2012, 10:16 AM

The Lea main blacktop play yard is so massive I can't capture it without posting multiple pictures so please Street View it instead:
Click here for Lea play yard on Street View

Lea students, parents, teachers, staff and community members all served on the design teams in addition to the volunteer architects, landscape architects, planners, etc. (This is all mentioned in the link I posted). They very much took into account Lea students current use of the yard - both designs included a basketball court but the play yard as it is right now has enough black top for five or six basketball courts. By the way, permeable surfaces do not just equal grass - there is permeable concrete, astroturf, playground surfaces etc.

I was able to attend the presentation and the designs were about making the play yard more functional for the school and provide more play and learning options for the students while helping the school and city manage rainwater runoff. All of these design aspects are intertwined but improved stormwater management can bring a lot more funding opportunities to make the redesign overall possible. Each design had phases because this is going to take a bit of money and have to be done in stages over time.

I'm looking forward to seeing Andy's write up as I had to leave early to go to the PSD Community Budget Hearing at West Philly High. The next step will probably be taking Lea's designs to the wider community for further input and feedback.

Kelly Elementary also had great design proposals with some interesting ideas. Anyone living in the Germantown area should keep an eye out for that as well.

**raider.adam** · 05-13-2012, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by annie

The Lea main blacktop play yard is so massive I can't capture it without posting multiple pictures so please Street View it instead:
Click here for Lea play yard on Street View

Lea students, parents, teachers, staff and community members all served on the design teams in addition to the volunteer architects, landscape architects, planners, etc. (This is all mentioned in the link I posted). They very much took into account Lea students current use of the yard - both designs included a basketball court but the play yard as it is right now has enough black top for five or six basketball courts. By the way, permeable surfaces do not just equal grass - there is permeable concrete, astroturf, playground surfaces etc.

I was able to attend the presentation and the designs were about making the play yard more functional for the school and provide more play and learning options for the students while helping the school and city manage rainwater runoff. All of these design aspects are intertwined but improved stormwater management can bring a lot more funding opportunities to make the redesign overall possible. Each design had phases because this is going to take a bit of money and have to be done in stages over time.

I'm looking forward to seeing Andy's write up as I had to leave early to go to the PSD Community Budget Hearing at West Philly High. The next step will probably be taking Lea's designs to the wider community for further input and feedback.

Kelly Elementary also had great design proposals with some interesting ideas. Anyone living in the Germantown area should keep an eye out for that as well.

I'm not knocking redesign (and from the streetview, the first thing that pops into my head isn't that it is so much blacktop, but that they aren't doing anything with it). I was just curious about the sustainability attachment if there was something more to it than just handling water runoff better.

**annie** · 05-14-2012, 09:18 AM

Newsworks article on the Kelly charrette with pictures:
Germantown elementary school grounds one step closer to being 'transformed'

**randomuser** · 05-14-2012, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by annie

The Lea main blacktop play yard is so massive I can't capture it without posting multiple pictures so please Street View it instead:
Click here for Lea play yard on Street View

Lea students, parents, teachers, staff and community members all served on the design teams in addition to the volunteer architects, landscape architects, planners, etc. (This is all mentioned in the link I posted). They very much took into account Lea students current use of the yard - both designs included a basketball court but the play yard as it is right now has enough black top for five or six basketball courts. By the way, permeable surfaces do not just equal grass - there is permeable concrete, astroturf, playground surfaces etc.

I was able to attend the presentation and the designs were about making the play yard more functional for the school and provide more play and learning options for the students while helping the school and city manage rainwater runoff. All of these design aspects are intertwined but improved stormwater management can bring a lot more funding opportunities to make the redesign overall possible. Each design had phases because this is going to take a bit of money and have to be done in stages over time.

I'm looking forward to seeing Andy's write up as I had to leave early to go to the PSD Community Budget Hearing at West Philly High. The next step will probably be taking Lea's designs to the wider community for further input and feedback.

Kelly Elementary also had great design proposals with some interesting ideas. Anyone living in the Germantown area should keep an eye out for that as well.

Thank you for explaining all of this to me. This is how it should be done, by the kids and the parents. After all, it is all about the kids at the end of the day.

I know about permeable pavement. They installed some of that in my area at a court in a not-so-nice neighborhood. I have no idea if it's actually being maintained or hasn't been graffiti-ed by now but one can hope. It was the typical "buzzwords" in some posts and in the write-up that made me believe it was the same "one size fits all" nonsense.