Redefining the concept of 'park' for the 21st Century
Green Heart Partnership - Open Space
A Hertfordshire-wide team working to redefine ‘park’ or ‘open space provision’ as a cohesive design that integrates the needs of multi-users.
This project's aims and objectives were to bring together a cross-county team of individuals across the departments of open space, leisure, environment, sport and arts to work with a visual and land artist, and to investigate shared Hertfordshire local authorities’ needs for Open Spaces through a creative-led scoping exercise that demonstrates progressive governance in its working practice.
Through the Green Heart Partnership, a team of officers from district councils and the county council came together during 2006 to work alongside artist, Lorna Green, to develop a cohesive and multi-use concept of a park.
The project emerged from a collective need across the county to address how authorities can develop and design recreational facilities for potentially controversial needs (such as skateboard parks, bmx tracks) whilst also needing to address healthy living areas for children, families and older people.
The team looked to break the habit of designing parks with many separate purpose-built facilities for one profile of user. These types of spaces can often go unused for significant periods throughout the day, creating safety concerns, and potentially becoming isolated eyesores. From very informative planning guidance work at Three Rivers District Council, GHP identified that by addressing several needs and planning policies at once, a better provision can be designed to serve across the generations.
As well as encouraging various groups of users to share and enjoy a pleasant, landscaped space throughout the day for a range of different activities, this approach will also support improved bio-diversity on the space.
The resulting work from this project will be presented as an electronic guidance document that promotes a new way of working, case studies relevant to Hertfordshire, and acts as a tool for managers, senior management teams and outside developers/section 106 negotiations.
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More information
Documents
Art forms
- Environmental art
- Landscape
Themes
- Environment
- Urban development
Interventions
- New ways of working with LAs
- Training - non artists
Target groups
- Arts development workers
- Local authority staff
Venue
- Hertfordshire