Bay Tree Design

Bay Tree Design, inc.

Landscape Architecture & Planning
EcoSchool Design®

Contact Us

Bay Tree Design, inc.
2927 Newbury Street, #B
Berkeley, CA 94703 USA
510-644-1320
info (at) baytreedesign.com
www.baytreedesign.com

PUBLICATIONS BY
BAY TREE DESIGN, INC.

NEW BOOK!
Danks, Sharon Gamson. Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation. New Village Press. Oakland, CA: November 2010.

Danks, Sharon and Tamar Cooper, editors. Green Schoolyard Resource Directory for the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance. San Francisco, CA: February 2006. 52 pages. (Click the link to download this file.)

Danks, Sharon. "After the Asphalt: A San Francisco Alliance Sows a City Full of Green Schoolyards," reprinted from Orion Magazine in Community Works Journal. Joe Brooks, editor. Vermont Community Works. South Burlington, VT: Fall/Winter 2004, Vol. 7, No.1, pages 14-16.

Danks, Sharon. "After the Asphalt: A San Francisco Alliance Sows a City Full of Green Schoolyards," Orion Magazine. Jennifer Sahn, editor. The Orion Society and The Myrin Institute. Barrington, MA: July/August 2004, Vol. 23, No. 4, pages 16-17.

Danks, Sharon. "Stewardship Begins at School: In England, a Superlative Example of an Ecological Schoolyard," Landscape Architecture Magazine. J. William Thompson, editor. American Society of Landscape Architects. Washington, DC: June 2003, pages 42, 44, 46, 48.

Danks, Sharon. "Green Mansions: Living Willow Structures Enhance Children's Play Environments," Landscape Architecture Magazine. J. William Thompson, editor. American Society of Landscape Architects. Washington, DC: June 2002, pages 38, 40-43, 93-94.

Danks, Sharon. "Ecological Schoolyards: Design Guidelines," New Village Journal. Lynne Elizabeth, editor. Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility. Berkeley, CA: Issue 3, May 2002, pages 74-77. Note: This article was reprinted/excerpted from Landscape Architecture Magazine, November 2000. (see below)

Danks, Sharon. "Courtyard Oases: Ecology at the Heart of the School," Landscape Architecture Magazine. J. William Thompson, editor. American Society of Landscape Architects. Washington, DC: January 2002, pages 36-41.

Danks, Sharon. "Schoolyard Ponds: Safety and Liability," Green Teacher Magazine. Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn, editors. Toronto, ON, Canada: Spring 2001, Issue 64, pages 29-30.

Danks, Sharon. "Schoolyard Ponds: Safety and Liability," Greening School Grounds: Creating Habitats for Learning. Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn, editors. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, January 2001, pages 87-88.

Danks, Sharon. "Ecological Schoolyards," Landscape Architecture Magazine. J. William Thompson, editor. American Society of Landscape Architects. Washington, DC: November 2000, pages 42-47.

Danks, Sharon. Ecological Schoolyards, Master's Thesis (MLA-MCP). Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, CA: May 2000.

For more information, please contact:
info (at) baytreedesign.com

Bay Tree Design, inc. and New Village Press (newvillagepress.net) announce Sharon Gamson Danks’ new book, Asphalt to Ecosystems (asphalt2ecosystems.org), an illuminating guidebook for designing and building creative, ecologically diverse schoolyards and integrating nature into learning and play activities across K-12 curricula. With a wealth of practical advice and over 500 color photographs, Sharon Danks offers a fully illustrated, easy-to-understand guide for transforming the traditional school ground’s slab of asphalt into edible gardens, wildlife habitats, and other sustainable uses.

Using real-life examples from over 150 schools in 11 countries, Danks takes readers on a tour of successful green schoolyards emerging from vastly different climates and sensibilities: a permaculture project with fruit trees, vegetables, chickens, an apiary, and outdoor cooking facilities; wilderness habitats with prairie grasses and ponds, or forest and desert ecosystems; schoolyard watershed models, rainwater catchment systems and waste-water treatment wetlands; renewable energy systems; and waste-as-a-resource projects that give new life to old materials in beautiful ways.

Along the way, Danks includes K-12 curriculum ideas offering creative connections to a wide range of disciplines from the sciences to the humanities, evincing the many benefits and applications of designing and building green schoolyards: experiential learning opportunities that deepen students’ understanding of abstract concepts; play-based solutions to the problem of childhood obesity; and opportunities for social and emotional development through the cooperative, problem-solving activities involved in both the participatory design process and the maintenance of the green space. The book’s abundant illustrations and stories show readers how ecological schoolyards can improve students’ classroom performance, increase self-esteem, better lifestyle practices, and instill in young students a much-needed sense of environmental stewardship.

With this handbook to guide the planning, design, and implementation process, educators, parents, students, designers, and environmental activists will see the potential for redesigning under-utilized schoolyard spaces to cultivate richer learning and play experiences.

A frontrunner in the green schoolyards movement, Sharon Danks is an environmental planner and a founding partner of Berkeley, California-based landscape architecture and planning firm, Bay Tree Design, inc. Danks has visited and documented more than 200 green schoolyards in North America, Scandinavia, Europe, and Japan, and has facilitated the master-planning for dozens of ecological schoolyards.

For more information about the book and to purchase it online, please visit www.asphalt2ecosystems.org