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As you approach the park, you first notice tall masts and sails rising on the horizon. The closer you get the more they look like ships sailing over the North Texas plains. Once you arrive you also begin to see bright blues, yellows, reds and greens sprinkled throughout the park and you realize that this is no ordinary park. This is Celebration Park.
Celebration Park is located in Allen, Texas, just north of Dallas. It is a 104-acre community park at the eastern edge of the city. Allen is a progressive city with a rapidly expanding population of 60,000 in one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. Quality of life is extremely important to the city?EUR??,,????'???s residents, and they place great importance on parks and recreational facilities. Celebration Park is a great expression of their desire to create first class facilities. The Allen Parks and Recreation Department shares that commitment and successfully implements creative programs to meet the needs of their community.
>Clark Condon Associates was the prime consultant for a multi-disciplinary design team including architects and engineers. Through the master planning and design phases of the project the design team worked with city staff and facilitated many meetings with the public, the city council, the parks board and other community organizations to establish a consensus for the park program and design. Clark Condon Associates was challenged by the city to create a dramatic landscape expression that would reflect the dynamic vitality of their rapidly growing community and be a showcase for the region.
The site was originally farmland with a fairly flat, gently sloping topography. Some existing vegetation had been preserved in low-lying areas that were unsuitable for agriculture. The site was ideal for the types of recreation that the city needed and provided the inspiration for the design of the park. The concept for the park was to create a dramatic contrast to the vast horizontal expanse of the North Texas landscape by using bold forms and colors not unlike those created by Luis Barrag????n in Mexico. Luis Barrag????n is a famous Mexican architect who is known for bold colorful contemporary walls and columns. Barrag????n was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1902. After he graduated with a degree in engineering in 1924, he traveled extensively throughout Europe. His future design ideas were shaped by the Moorish architecture of Southern Spain, the domestic architecture of the Mediterranean, the gardens of Ferdinand Bac, the theories of Frederick Kiesler, and the writings and theories of Le Corbusier. Barrag????n designed his early works in the International Style. However, in 1945 the ideas generated by his travels through Europe and by his own sense of Mexican ?EUR??,,????'??regionalism?EUR??,,????'?? synthesized into a personal design style. Additionally inspired by native artwork, Barrag????n sought to create an architecture that retained its vernacular roots while it strove for spiritual beauty and harmony with nature. Barrag????n has tried to recreate the serenity and beauty of his childhood surroundings through a romantic approach to landscape architecture. Unlike his contemporaries, he adhered to the theories of painter and landscape architect Ferdinand Bac, who focused upon the garden as a magical environment. Thick walls, small openings, bright colors, and the use of natural material characterize his mature compositions. These later works also depend on the delightful interplay of sunlight and water for much of their success. Concepts inspired by Barrag????n led to the development of strong vertical structures that would rise above the ground plane and become visual landmarks for the area. The use of bright colors would be used wherever possible on buildings, furnishings and playground equipment.
The most dominant elements in Celebration Park are the mast and sail-like pavilions. These tensile fabric pavilions are used as a stage canopy and as a cover for the restroom/concession buildings. The 70-foot tall bright red masts support large white triangular sheets of fiberglass reinforced and Teflon coated fabric. The structural integrity of the pavilions is derived from the tension that is applied to the fabric. Besides being visually striking, the fabric sails also provide shade and weather protection while still allowing air and light to pass through. Since the fabric is translucent, they have the added benefit of glowing when they are internally illuminated from below at night.
The soccer area pavilion shelters three round restroom and concession pods as well as picnic tables that are painted in bold primary and secondary colors. A similar pavilion will be constructed in the future across a great lawn to serve the baseball fields.
The lake pavilion functions as both a stage and picnic shelter. It was constructed to host large-scale outdoor performances and community events.
All the furnishings are consistent with the concept of using bright colors and add sparkle throughout the park.
New home communities are rapidly springing up around the park creating a demand for active field sports in the area. Developed in cooperation with local athletic organizations, Celebration Park features a large multi-sport court, two league 300-foot baseball diamonds and 15 league soccer fields to serve a wide range of age groups. Two more baseball fields will be added in a future phase. The soccer and baseball fields are organized on both sides of a great event lawn.
Most of the soccer fields are located on large contiguous zones of grass that allow for changing both their size and orientation as the need arises. The largest soccer field is a permanent lighted 220-foot by 360-foot tournament field. The baseball fields are organized around a 15-foot tall round berm that provides a wonderful vantage point for viewing games and looking out over the rest of the park.
The parking demand for this much recreation is high. Accommodations for 1,100 cars are provided by three crescent shaped parking lots located on three sides of the park. The crescent shapes were developed to minimize the impact of so many cars and concrete.
Leisure recreation is also included in the park with regulation horseshoe pits and washer toss courts thereby providing a range of activities for all age groups. Surrounding the park is a 1 1/2 mile hike and bike trail. Combined with another 3,000 linear feet of internal walks in the park there is ample opportunity for serious bikers, skaters and joggers.
The citizens of Allen wanted a playground at Celebration Park to be a spectacular one-of-a-kind facility. To make this goal a reality, the non-profit Allen Parks Foundation began to raise the funds and organize volunteer help. The result was the impressive 66,000 square feet Kidmania playground that has won widespread recognition for its innovative design, ambitious scope and success in meeting the diverse needs of handicapped children. The Playwell Group, a regional supplier, generously provided a vast array of play equipment to the Allen Parks Foundation at a minimal cost that greatly expanded what could be achieved through the park budget alone.
Over a period of several weekends, hundreds of citizens and city workers came out to help assemble and install thousands of pieces of brightly colored play equipment. The playground is integrated with a sprayground, and both are bounded by berms of varying height. The berms are used to provide a buffer from the rest of the park, access points at different elevations around the playground, and to extend the play beyond just the play equipment and into the landscape. The 4,000 square feet sprayground contains seven different pieces of equipment within a sea of colorful rubberized surfacing.
The park preserves three acres of wooded open space that is further enhanced with the renovation of the existing stock pond into a 45,000 square feet amenity lake with geyser fountains. Expanding the already diverse recreational options, there is a crescent shaped detention/amenity lake that is stocked with fish. There are picnic tables and grills scattered throughout the woods where users can escape the city and find solitude in nature.
The 8 1/2 acre Great Lawn is the centerpiece of the park. It is a large space that is designed to accommodate very large citywide events such as the annual Allen USA (Fourth of July) celebration. Celebration Park opened to the public and was dedicated on June 28, 2003 as part of Allen USA. More than 30,000 people attended the event and were entertained by Loverboy and the J. T. Taylor Band (formerly of Kool and the Gang). The evening was capped off by music from the Allen Symphony and a spectacular fireworks show. The Great Lawn ensures that the park will be an important community-gathering place for many generations to come.
Clark Condon Associates is a landscape architectural design firm incorporated in 1985. The Houston-based firm specializes in landscape master planning and site specific landscape architectural design. CCA offers its clients creativity, good problem solving and attentive service.
The 21-person staff, versed in project in the public and private sectors, includes registered landscape architects, graduate landscape architects and administrators. Professional services include site analysis, programming, conceptual and preliminary design, cost estimating, site planning, design and design development, construction documents and specifications, and construction phase services. The firm prides itself on its record of meeting deadlines, budgets and drawing constructability.
As the complexities of projects have increased since the firm?EUR??,,????'???s incorporation, so have its abilitiy to work with teams of professionals. Clark Condon Associates, Inc. has been the prime consultant. CCA has experience and a good track record in working with teams of engineers, architects, lake consultants, urban foresters and environmentalists. This approach allows for the best possible solution to each project. The design team works cohesively as an extension of the client team.
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