Embrace Past |Present | Future – Play Space Design at Haverford Bright Future

As one of many ambitious programs brought by Bright Futures Programs, Haverford Bright Futures is not only preparing a thrilling picture for both the Pre-K School and the neighborhood of Mill Creek, but also has offered us, as a design team, a number of great opportunities with challenges of delivering one comprehensive design solution to reconcile varieties of pre-school kids, community, and what has been given on the site. Our design approach is to establish a coherent physical hybrid that embraces local history(the past-presence of the Creek), district culture(African American dominated population) , human-nature(to have fun) and site identity(grassland). More importantly, we envision all these being implemented with low-impact design in a timely manner. It will set a new kind of play space prototype with flexible scales and programs involving kids, community and ecological technologies.

Situated in a historical African American neighborhood, the site has housed the Pre-K School silently,
without too much extension of outdoor activities including learning and playing. The site is not only lacking
programs but also very inaccessible and unwelcome for people who has no business to do with the school,
with a worn-out fence being surrounded. That strongly disconnects the community from internal vast
grassland, which, to us, is in good condition seen as a valuable amenity for neighborhood around.
Thus, from very beginning, our design mindset starts with idea – ‘Keep It’ ,rather than turning it into
something brand new, which means a pure land of prosper grass will anchor public’s impression to the
site and it’ll also take majority of space providing enough flexibility and resiliency for various purpose
of use in future. That attitude is the whole sense carried through our design process as it is important
for the school and community to rediscover the value of this property. The second step we took is to
identify suitable programs desired by the school and community around the main lawn.The mandatory
programs we conceived are including -1.a school kids play area with new play equipments and outdoor
lunch/classroom facilities. 2. a woven community play zone coated by rubber surface, intersected by
a shallow channel/swale following the same running trace of ever-existed Mill Creek . There are also a
few other programs(vegetable/flowering gardens, orchards, a social common, dog park)we’ve defined
in our proposal to extend and enrich involvement of community and learning experience for the school
kids. These are supplemental as the projects moves on with more benefits emerge while both the school
and the community start to love using it. Last parameter but not least measure in our design approach,
the stormwater management and security plan have been heavily placed to ensure the new framework
won’t bring hazards to the site. There are 3 rain garden planned in locations to catch runoff from adjacent
impervious surface.The proposed permeable surface has increased more than current by using permeable
materials on inevitable hardscape area and by reducing unnecessary impervious surface. There’re also
new security measure reinforced within our design framework to avoid conflict use between the school and
the community by gate control through certain timeframe.