Carducci Spotlight: Emma Lesser / A Culture of Change: The Inherent Power of Restorative Justice to Transform Public Schoolyards

Emma recently completed an MLA thesis entitled: “A Culture of Change: The Inherent Power of Restorative Justice to Transform Public Schoolyards” that explores how landscape architects can co-create safe and healing spaces in Oakland's public schoolyards. Her thesis topic stems from a deeply personal conviction that childhood learning environments play a crucial and protective part in a child’s experience of trauma. She first sets the scene with a review of the psychology and physiology of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and how they are currently addressed by schools, focusing on restorative justice (RJ). She then investigates the current state of America's public-school spaces, their effects on students, and the politics and logic behind their designs. She presents landscape precedents that were designed with social emotional learning in mind, and their theoretical bases. Few of these precedents include schoolyards, particularly public ones, as they have only recently become the focus of landscape architects. Over the past several decades, the green schoolyard movement has grown to address heat and pollution, stormwater, community access, ecological learning, and even experimental or 'risky' play. Emma proposes restorative justice as a worthy rationale for schoolyard transformation. In doing so, she intends to not only push landscape architects towards working in support of social programs, but to also promote a more emotionally compelling rationale for schoolyard changes—and one that takes advantage of existing school social infrastructure. She concludes that RJ programming can indicate a school “culture of change” that would both more readily allow for and be supported by built environmental changes. 

Let there be plants! / Conrad Square gets a refresh

Intended as a short-term beautification and improvement to Joseph Conrad Square in San Francisco’s North Beach/Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhood, Carducci Associates’ landscape plan preserves existing trees and introduces a low growing and varied plant palette designed to draw and welcome visitors in all seasons.

The low growing planting and improved landscape lighting – two basic principles of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) – were incorporated in response to the community’s ongoing concerns regarding criminal activity in the space. These elements will help to increase visibility and surveillance, thus making it a safer place to occupy throughout the day, and night.

On January 17^th, the first phase of Conrad Square was completed in collaboration with the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District and the SF Rec & Parks. (The SF Rec & Parks Dept. obtained the plant materials, compost, and the mulch; it used 20 gardeners to install the planting in one day.) The first phase included: clearing previous planting that might have encouraged unwanted activity. In turn, this allowed the new succulent and drought-tolerant garden to take root on-site. Check out the new plants if you’re in the area!

More information about our project is available here.

Alameda High School Breaks Ground

Occasionally, we get the opportunity to work on a project that is interesting not only for its site conditions and context, but also for its highly personal connection to our own history. Philip Dinh, Associate, who attended Alameda High School, says, “This was a place that I spent four of my favorite years, attending classes [and] creating memories with friends. Not many people get to say they were part of a team to help redesign their high school, and I am proud to be able to say that!”

Carducci Associates is part of the team, working with project architect Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, that is restoring Alameda High School’s 1924 neoclassical campus to its former glory. Renovations to this registered Historic Landmark will deftly weave 21st century classrooms into the fabric of this remarkable building. At the April 24th ground breaking ceremony, Carducci Associates was recognized by Alameda Mayor Trish Spencer, and Alameda Unified School District Superintendent Sean McPhetridge, for our work in designing improvements consistent with both the historic site and future-forward sustainability goals of the state, city, and district.

Philip and Wesley Bexton, Associate Principal, (bios here) coordinated work with the district, architectural team, the City of Alameda, and East Bay Municipal Utility District (commonly known as East Bay MUD) to modernize the landscaped frontage, and maintain the historic character of the site, in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and with the State of California’s new Division of the State Architect (DSA) irrigation efficiency requirements.

Biophilic Design / Tools to Improve Health and Well-Being in Educational Environments for All Generations

Can designers foster biophilia in childhood education? Carducci Associates Principal Vince Lattanzio co-presented a workshop to answer this question at California’s Coalition for Adequate School Housing’s (CASH) 38th Annual Conference on School Facilities in February in Sacramento. Mr. Lattanzio presented with Anna Harrison, Senior Design Strategist with Aedis Architects, and Julio Lucas, Director of Capital Planning and Design for the East Side High School District of Silicon Valley.

With California’s Proposition 51 funding available for school construction and modernization projects, CASH holds the state accountable to support school facility needs. CASH’s annual conference provides a platform to propose an implementation strategy and share knowledge about school facility best practices. For landscape architects, this is an opportunity to build state-of-the-art learning environments informed by current scientific research translated into design and planning strategies.

Biophilia is described in scientist and naturalist E.O. Wilson’s 1984 book of the same name as “the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. Innate means hereditary and hence part of ultimate human nature” (31). Fostering this bond through design is studied in environmental design consultant Terrapin Bright Green’s “Fourteen Patterns of Biophilic Design” and in Timothy Beatley’s “Handbook of Biophilic City Planning and Design.”

Carducci Associates often incorporates these principles throughout their designs for educational and childcare facilities. On the boards, Principal Vince Lattanzio, Associate Principal Jin Kim, and Associate Monty Hill (bios here) bring biophilia to San Jose’s Overfelt High School. “The landscape emulates the energy of a river flowing through the campus that allows for free-flowing movement and restful eddies.”