Palouse Prairie Charter School

I love children and I love seeing my own children play outside experiencing nature. For this reason I chose to study Outward Bound Expeditionary Learning for my senior thesis. Fortunately for me I have a local application for my design thesis; the Palouse Prairie Charter School. I have an interest in this as a parent and designer, there is a plethora of evidence that access to nature is at least as important to children as math and language arts. In fact, exposure to nature helps children with these subjects! I highly suggest reading, Last Child in the Woods, and doing your own research. Expeditionary Learning is gaining attention all over the United States and I am thrilled that my children have an opportunity to be involved and that I have an opportunity to be involved in the design of the play area.

The site for Palouse Prairie Charter School offers challenges and opportunities. The building which previously housed Brown's Furniture Store, offers a wide open feeling with plenty of space for children to play and learn. The challenge however is how to provide outdoor play opportunities for children at a location next to US 95 and a gas station. Additionally, the city has allocated the best possible play space for parking. As a student of landscape architecture I am taking into consideration the needs of the children vs. the utilitarian needs of parking. This is one of the largest challenges for designers in the United States, how do we move the focus from the automobile onto people. American's have embraced the car culture and we see evidence of this everywhere from unnecessarily wide suburban roads to acres of parking lots.

Parking is just one of the challenges onsite...I am also taking into consideration the northern aspect of the building which initially was assumed to be the play space. This location faces the gas station and abuts the highway. This is concerning to me as a parent AND land designer, how do we weigh the need for children to play outside and keep them safe from traffic, air pollution from passing vehicles and the nearby gas station. On top of this the location is very shady much of the year, leaving serious concerns about winter use of the play ground. Also this would limit the school's ability to use planting opportunities as part of the children's learning experience.

The design of the play area is still in the works. We are constantly bouncing new ideas off of each other, trying to think outside of the box. Ultimately the city will determine where parking will go, and the school will be left to work with whatever is left over. Hopefully, using the skills I have learned as a student of landscape architecture we can convince them that we can balance the needs for parking and access, with the needs of the Palouse Prairie Charter School students.

Check out the Palouse Prairie Charter School website and a blogspot: http://palouseprairieschool.org/

http://whypalouseprairie.blogspot.com/

Here is the Expeditionary Learning website: http://www.elschools.org/