Park Renovation Teams Students with Landscape Architects

by Kevin Doniere, Corvus Design Inc.

Students created 90 individual art works as part of nine separate art panels. The students' signature theme of a global village was the focus of the art pieces, and are represented throughout William B. Lyons Park in Anchorage.

The Clark Middle School/William B. Lyons Park Renovation was truly a collaborative park renovation project that involved the community, neighborhood, and a local school near the park in Anchorage, Alaska.

Local landscape architects, Chad Taylor with Intrinsic Landscapes and Kevin Doniere (with DOWL HKM at the time and now with Corvus Design Inc.) donated time and a great deal of effort by working with Heather McIntyre's 7th/8th grade class for more than 20 weeks.

They visited the classroom one to two days each week with different lessons and activities in mind for the students. They coordinated three different site visits for the class as the project progressed, and participated in after school meetings with teachers, the school principal, and community members. The landscape architects also worked with students on presenting their vision of a newly renovated park to the local community council.

Mentored by a couple of landscape architects, Clark Middle School students got involved in creating a park design to improve an existing park. They held discussions on landscape architecture and park planning, and aided in developing an overall design concept for the park.
Photos Courtesy of DOWL HKM

They wanted to bring a project to local students and have them be landscape architects by completing a project from concept design through construction. In association with the ASLA's Alaska Chapter and the MOA Parks & Recreation Department, Chad and Kevin developed a student outreach program to get students involved in learning more about landscape architecture by working on a real project.

The community's strong support of the student park project encouraged community leaders to provide additional funding to the project. The Anchorage Community Land Trust was so excited about the project that they donated $10,000 to go toward the student art pieces that were planned for the park.

Construction began in the fall of October 2011 and was completed in the summer of 2012. On August 23 the park had its grand opening and is a source of civic pride in the heart of the Mountain View neighborhood.