Long term maintenance needs and costs are often overlooked when designing recreation facilities. Prior to starting design work, you should evaluate maintenance budgets and capabilities. We see facilities that require labor intensive maintenance (extensive mowing, watering) and  the use of harmful chemicals to keep the landscape healthy. This approach costs money and has detrimental environmental impacts that can and should be avoided.

We’ve all been there before: you select that perfect bench, bollard, or bike rack for your park or public space only to find out that within a week the furnishing was vandalized or even stolen. Site furnishing take the most abuse compared to any other park element, so before you select that perfect furnishing here are a few things to consider.

When discussing backcountry trails, one of the first questions I usually get asked is, “Do our new or existing trails need to be ADA compliant?”

If compliance measures aren’t practical due to terrain, access for equipment is difficult and will impact the environment negatively, or federal laws that protect threatened or endangered species will not allow this level of construction then they often do not need to be compliant. In many cases, backcountry trails meet most, if not all, of these exceptions.