On August 7, members of the community, Portland Children’s Museum and consulting/construction team gathered to “think like a kid again,” while raising money for the Architecture Foundation of Oregon (AFO). Mayer/Reed, Hennebery Eddy Architects and Andersen Construction hosted a picnic and hardhat tour of the new Outdoor Adventure underway at the museum. Sponsored as part of the Dinner with an Architect program, the event contributed to AFO’s mission to create awareness of our designed environments.

Mayer/Reed’s design for the Outdoor Adventure was inspired by Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods. It will reconnect children and their families with nature and learning through active, engaging, outdoor experiences. The wooded hillside will feature a rocky streambed, splash puddles, bridges, trails, sand pit, hide-outs, plant thickets and hut-building areas for kids to explore. Hennebery Eddy Architects’ timber shelter provides a flexible location for special events, camp-outs and art projects.

Thank you to the Portland Children’s Museum, donors and skilled craftsman working on behalf of the project. We look forward to its opening on Earth Day, 2014!

What is one of our favorite things to do? Enjoy the spaces we design.

This year we converged on Sofia Park in Wilsonville, Oregon for our annual office summer party. Sofia Park is one of the three parks Mayer/Reed planned and designed in Villebois, a 540-acre mixed-use community in Wilsonville, OR. The warm summer evening was perfect for our growing Mayer/Reed families to enjoy a picnic and laughs over lawn games and giant bubbles. The kids explored the playground and climbed big boulders and trees in the rocky stormwater swale. We ended our evening with a stroll up the promenade to the town center where we played a few games of bocce ball at the recently completed piazza.

Parks and public spaces integrated into developments are integral to creating a sense of community. Meeting neighbors and forming life long friendships are important traditions of neighborhood parks. These spaces connect us and create shared meaning. It was a great to see these connections taking root and the parks filled with activities.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The four of us flew out the front door of the house, down to the park and straight into the creek—drawn to its rocky bed like bees to honey. I was not sure if we were going to find any crawdads, but we had found seven (a record!) just the day before. The creek offered us a new adventure every time: climbing over the rocks, prodding the mud with sticks, and turning over small logs—we explored everything. As we worked on the very serious business of finding crawdads, frogs and super-long worms, the playground behind us, interestingly enough remained conspicuously silent. That sluggish concrete slide hadn’t seen action in months, but for good reason; the creek was an entire world unto itself.

This is how many of us grew up and we wouldn’t have it any other way. The power of nature in our parks has not been lost on me. So when Chehalem Park and Recreation District said they were interested in nature play at one of their new parks, I was all ears. We visited the site, which is a spectacular 1.75 acre hillside of seasonal springs and oak savanna with scenic views of the Yamhill Valley in Newberg, Oregon. The next thing I knew we were knee-deep in the design of Schaad Park.

Fast-forward to the May 16th grand opening and you will see me proudly standing in front of “my” park. It’s a park of opportunity and discovery. It has a little bit of everything: sand, mud, water, forest, logs, natural boulders and a 30 foot long stainless steel slide built into the slope that I guarantee will see plenty of action—by kids and adults. Most importantly however, it has a neighborhood full of families who have been waiting in the wings until now. So, from one crawdad hunter to another—it’s all yours!

Schaad Park Opening
6:00pm
Thursday, May 16th
Eagle St, Newberg, OR 97132
Directions: drive past Chehalem Glenn Golf Course and turn left into The Greens, turn right at Hook Drive, and left onto Eagle Street