The Center for Innovative Teaching (CFIT) Campus Development Project is an exciting partnership between Barrow Community Foundation, Barrow County schools, ArtsNow, and community leaders to create an innovative arts and science center that includes a playground and destination park in Winder, Georgia. This past summer, College of Environment and Design (CED) seniors in Professor Donnie Longenecker’s capstone undergraduate landscape architecture studio (LAND 4900) partnered with the CFIT to develop concepts for playground and park designs.
Within the CFIT there are flexible creative spaces students, teachers, and other stakeholders can access. Within these spaces, there will be the districts first Black Box Theater and Dance Studios. They also use the spaces as inspiration and research for projects such as the Barrow Arts and Sciences Academy.
Due to restrictions related to COVID-19, CED students were unable to physically visit the site and had to rely on a live walk-through of the site and utilize programs such as Google Earth and Google Maps Street View to explore their project site. The students also talked with children at the Center to understand what elements were desired in a park, and researched case studies to determine what has worked well elsewhere. To be included in the park design, all elements needed to relate back to the core values that were established for the space: usability, safety, fun, recreation, sound minimization, and accessibility. Some of the common elements that emerged in the final designs included spaces for food trucks, areas dedicated for a range of sports, and water features.
During the design process, students met via Zoom with members of CFIT and Winder-Barrow County government to present their concepts, answer questions, and receive feedback on their designs. The CFIT partners hope to incorporate the strongest elements of the student concepts into the final design of the campus, which will continue to evolve over time.
Partnering with the College of Environment and Design (CED) provides an economical preliminary design process that allows community partners to use more of their funding towards final design and construction. In turn, the students gain real-world experience with clients, insight to the project development process, and hone their presentation and public speaking skills.
Lee Bane, Director of Innovative Learning at the Barrow County School System, who has been working closely with the CFIT program due to the location of the center, states “We hope to publicly unveil the UGA CFIT Design Proposal soon in an event that will jumpstart community awareness and help launch the capital campaign near the beginning of next year.”
Please check the CFIT program website to learn more about the project and stay tuned for the design proposal unveiling!
