Bringing the bear home - Spring construction

We had the pleasure this spring of working with a local artist, Jillian Banks-Kong (http://www.jillianbanks-kong.com), on the creation of a bronze sculpture of a bear for a residential garden and children's outdoor play space. The piece was created as part of a dry creek water play area that includes a water-pump, climbing rocks, and bridge. In a month or two willow playhouses will arrive to finish off the piece.

After much anticipation, the bear was finished and ready to be installed this week. He now rests happily in his new home among the ferns at the edge of his very own creek waiting for his next fish to arrive.

RYSE Center Capital Campaign

We've had the honor this spring to collaborate with APA for RYSE on the design for their new campus in Richmond. Check out their capital campaign here, to get a tour of the new campus design and a full description of the project.

Join us for "Why do school grounds need risk?" Green Teacher Conference Webinar

Principal Lisa Howard of BAY TREE DESIGN and Anders Wånge Kjellsson of Naturskolan Lund will be presenting “Why do school grounds need risk?” as representatives of the International School Grounds Alliance.  The presentation will be hosted on Green Teacher and will take place tomorrow, March, 13, at 4:30 PM PST.  https://greenteacher.com/webinars/

Join them in their presentation and discussion.

Playing with materials - Black locust

At Bay Tree Design, we're always working to use natural materials in children's play spaces. Who doesn't dream of a treehouse that really makes you feel like you are in a tree?

In our quest to design this type of experience we've come across a material that is relatively new to the scene in North America, black locust lumber.

Meg Calkins recently reviewed black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) in the Landscape Architecture Magazine's April 2017 issue. Based on her research black locust is a truly renewable product with a 50-year life expectancy and a 25-40 year growth time. This durability is exceptionally useful in play structures, weathering the elements without being treated with potentially harmful chemicals. 

Recently we've begun to experiment with it in our projects. While it is commonly used for play structures in Europe it is a new material here. We can't wait to see how these play structures turn out.
 

Risk-taking Is Essential for Children's Well-being Says International Alliance

"School grounds should not be as safe as possible but as safe as necessary"

While promoting risk-taking on school grounds may raise questions of liability for schools and concerns for parents it is essential for the development of healthy young people, according to a declaration released September 4, 2017 by the International School Grounds Alliance (ISGA).   The ISGA is a global network of organizations, educators, architects, planners and researchers, including Berkeley-based landscape architecture firm BAY TREE DESIGN.  This declaration is endorsed by all 54 ISGA Leadership Council members, representing 38 organizations from 17 countries and six continents.

The declaration cites research from around the globe demonstrating the benefits of risk-taking and showing that indiscriminate risk-minimization policy can be a source of harm. "Since the world is full of risks, children need to learn to recognize and respond to them in order to protect themselves and to develop their own risk-assessment capabilities."

Manfred Dietzen, Landscape Architect at Grün macht Schule[1] (GMS) and ISGA Leadership Council member, in Berlin, says, “You can only learn to fall by falling.”  He explains that “Conventional playgrounds provide children with safety in ‘pretend worlds’ which they cannot find anywhere else.  At our 400 playgrounds we give our students opportunities to individually assess risk. Over the past 30 years our students have shown that this approach results in fewer major injuries, and our children graduate with better risk assessment capabilities.“

The declaration calls on those who plan and manage school environments to take benefits of risk into account. It further encourages parents, school officials, legislators and insurers to devise policies and processes that permit schools to provide activities with beneficial levels of risk.

Lisa Howard, Principal of BAY TREE DESIGN, ISGA Leadership Council member and Co-chair for the ISGA Risk Working Group, says "when we don't provide our children with opportunities to appropriately challenge themselves we do them harm.  Exploring beneficial risks in the world allows children to develop self-confidence, resilience, independence, and sound judgment.  Small accidents may happen from time to time but when the risks are appropriate to the children's developmental levels there are more benefits than harm and large accidents are less likely to happen than in school grounds that do not provide beneficial risks. We need to believe in our children and let them explore.  It is part of healthy development." 

The ISGA encourages other organizations to add their support by endorsing the declaration by going to http://www.internationalschoolgrounds.org/risk/  

The Risk in Play and Learning Declaration (also called the Ubud-Höör Declaration) was developed at ISGA Leadership Council meetings in Ubud, Bali and Höör, Sweden. For more information about the declaration and a complete text, see attached document and visit http://www.internationalschoolgrounds.org/risk/. Visit www.baytreedesign.com for more information about BAY TREE DESIGN.

[1] Grün macht Schule - is the name of the organization.  It is related to a saying in German and is a play on words.  The meaning of the name is the greening of/green spaces (Grün) is going to catch on/help people understand and reproduce more green (Schule machen).