Currently, I am interning at our on campus daycare facility. They hired me to redesign their playscape and landscape to be more natural, educational, and beautiful. This is also my senior project -_____-.

Their existing site does not provide the children with any garden opportunities. It is rather unfortunate as the original plans of the center did include an herb garden and a lot more vegetation.

My job is to find opportunity areas and design solutions for these areas. I’ve lead charrettes with the staff and parents (soon with the children) to understand their thoughts/concerns/ideas. Then I developed a masterplan. We will slowly pick off designs from the masterplan and build them. I am also in the process of hiring an intern for the following year who will continue my position and make sure the rest of the projects get built.

I do a lot of work. I did not expect to have total control over this internship. I do everything. It’s great experience but it’s a lot of work. I lead meetings and I make the final decisions on everything. It’s great because I have one of our teachers, Steve Wheeler guiding me and helping me with these decisions. A lot of the time he just says, “What do you think/want to do? It’s up to you.” :)

I’ve done research, site analysis, met with so many people through the UC Davis campus and the Bright Horizons company to make sure I am complying to whatever rules they have. I’ve created a group that consists of staff, parents, and landscape architecture consultants (my teacher, on campus planner, etc.) and we meet every other week to brainstorm, delegate tasks, etc. I’ve also gotten plants from our Arboretum Teaching Nursery donated. SO MANY PLANTS! I’ve found activities and lesson plans that the teachers can use that allow for an in class and outdoor connection. I had to design, spec, cost, find suppliers, create a maintenance plan, etc.
Some of the parents have concerns about sharp materials or certain objects so I always have to create multiple versions of whatever I am designing.

Did I say it was a lot of work? -____- 

Some of my proposed ideas:
-Spiral Garden (as pictured). A take on an herb spiral. The herb spiral is usually used as a small space solution. We have the space and we want the children to be able to get into the garden (run through, touch, play) so we went with a spaced out spiral. Many of the parents love this idea and are have asked me to pursue this design. We are using option 2. The spiral is broken to allow for the childrens circulation. They naturally run around in a circle in this area of the site. Why not give them something to run around and through? I also added a small space in the center of the spiral so that children could sit or play. I was thinking of getting flag stone or tile but we found these small benches and tiles in the shed of the center so we can use that. (We are building the spiral on Saturday!!! also I just realized it kind of looks like a poo.. hahahahah)

-Small vegetable beds and a worm bin.

-Butterfly corner. All pollinator species and the kids can learn about the food web. They can also make cuttings of lavender, salvia, etc. dry them out or make perfumes in class.

-Bean teepee. YES. I love these. We are hoping to install this next quarter in spring. I wish I had one when I was a kid.

-Art wall. There is this large chain link fence in the back of the center. Behind the center is a parking lot and student apartments. I wanted to find a way to block out people looking in (but not entirely because the kids like looking into the street at trucks and squirrels and things… . yeah..this is a parent’s idea not mine..) SO.. I proposed a plexi wall, zip tie it to the chain link fence, use a reclaimed gutter to catch excess paint, and maybe a bucket for it to drip into. The kids can paint and still see through.

-Shaded structure. Not sure what yet.

-Playhouse. It’s more of an outdoor living room for kids.

-Additional plantings: Shade garden, “forest” oh you’ll see.., summertime vegetable beds.

-Woolly Pockets. We ordered some and want to do a salad theme.

-theres more but we haven’t officially approved them yet.

So that’s what I’ve been doing with some of my time. :)