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Designing the "New American
by The Olympia Fields Park District (Olympia Fields, Illinois) held a national design competition to find the best ideas for a new public park. There were 228 designers from 34 states and four countries, who submitted their ideas for the project. Recently, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the Astronauts Memorial at Kennedy Space Port were the results of design competitions. The winners receive prize money as well as options to continue the design process. Who won? The winning design team—Weiss and Manfredi—proposed a unique combination of landscape ideas combining elements of the prairie, the farm, and the park/commons. There were a wide variety of other concepts including a miniature agricultural landscape, avant garde landscapes, land sculptures, recycling centers, and park nurseries. Overall, three central themes emerged based on the prairie landscape, the agricultural landscape, and the tradition of the city park or town commons. Prairie landscapes are found among the newer nature preserves and larger parks developed in the last decade. Many designs included prairie concepts, some symbolic and others actual creations of prairie vegetation. Other ideas borrowed from or were reminiscent of our agricultural tradition, such as the planting of crops and community gardens. These used the grid patterns of farm cultivation. Some proposals combined this with the restoration of the historic barn and farmhouse on the site. The other theme was the park or town commons—the traditional town green. Proposals included traditional town squares, public lawns, and open areas reminiscent of colonial settlements. Other concepts used land forms and plantings that appeared more to be works of sculpture than a public space. The better designs combined themes. Several had large public areas surrounded with small farm landscapes as well as small prairie landscapes. It was up to the jury to decide which schemes had the best combination of all the ideas. How did this project begin? Olympia Fields is a suburb of Chicago, 30 miles south of the Loop. It is one of the oldest suburban communities in the region. In 1910, Olympia Fields developed adjacent to a country club with four golf courses. Today, it is a residential suburb with a population of 4,500. The Olympia Fields Park District is an autonomous unit of government. Its function is to provide quality facilities and programs for adults and children and to preserve open space. Land acquisition and facility development are continuing primary objectives. The park district has twelve sites of more than 114.9 acres. The park district planned the development of a large community park by combining two sites—an existing park site and an adjacent site currently operating as a private nursery. The new site had three historic buildings—an 1880s frame house with an adjacent small milk barn and a 1917 barn. The park district selected a national design competition to obtain the highest quality design for both the landscape and the associated public facilities. They stated their goals as follows: The design challenge is to develop a new type of public park, a New American Green, that fits the emerging character of today's suburbs. It should be exciting and appealing to families. It should embody ideas and opportunities that will serve Olympia Fields and similar communities well into the next century. Who are the designers and who picks the winners? The competition was open to landscape architects, architects, engineers, and persons in related disciplines. The top winners were professionals with expertise in the design and development of open spaces. A jury of experts picked the winners. The chair of the jury was Grady Clay, landscape architect, author, critic, editor and chair of the jury for the Vietnam Memorial Competition in Washington, D.C. The other experts were Ralph Johnson, A.I.A. (an award-winning designer from Perkins and Will) and Brigid Sullivan (past director of the Milwaukee County Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture), Mary Colmar (Director of the Olympia Fields Park District), and Don Ransford, (President of the Board of Park
Commissioners). The jurors were required to use four criteria in picking the winners: •The park had to be a major public space and social focus for the community—a new type of village green. How do you run a competition? Jeffrey E. Ollswand, A.I.A., and Lawrence P. Witzling, Ph.D., A.I.A., of Design Competition Services, Inc. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, conducted the competition including advertising, programming, and documentation, ensuring that the process was conducted in a professional manner. They also drafted the competition program, which states the proposed budget, space requirements, and functional needs. The program states what type of activities might occur on the site along with parking, access, and circulation issues. The program also states the presentation requirements. In this case, the size was kept to a minimum in order not to require an unfair amount of work from competitors. What happens after the competition is completed? The jury selected a first, second, and third place winner and six honorable mentions. The cash prizes were $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second, and $2,000 for third. The next steps are a finalization of the master plan followed by the first phase of implementation in 1993. The Olympia Fields Park District also hosted a public exhibit attended by residents, recreation professionals, and competitors. In addition, a catalogue of the results is being prepared. Further information about the catalogue and the competition process can be obtained by writing to: Olympia Fields Park District Design Competition. P.O. Box 297, Olympia Fields, IL 60461. The winners and honorable mentions were: First Place—Weiss/Manfredi Architects, New York, NY. Note: A Design Competitions workshop will be presented Friday, January 8, 3:30-4:45 p.m, at the Illinois Parks & Recreation Conference, Hyatt Regency, Chicago. About the Authors Mary Colmar is Director of Parks & Recreation. Olympia Fields ParkDistrict; Jeffrey Ollswand, A.I.A., and Lorry Witzling, Ph.D., A.I.A., are affiliated with Design Competition Services, Inc. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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