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Graduate students from the University of Arizona operate a drone which is photographing the Oracle Park.
A partnership with Pinal County and the University of Arizona School of Landscape Architecture and Planning is seeking to help revamp the Oracle Park located on Parkside Street (Evergreen and Nuestro).
Last Wednesday, a small group of second-year graduate students from the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning visited the park. They asked the community members that attended the event about what they would like to see changed, fixed and improved about the park.
A drone hovers over the Oracle Park.
According to Kent Taylor, the Open Space and Trails Director for Pinal County, these concerns combined with the insight from the students will allow the county to create a master plan for the park.
“What the master plan does is allow you to budget for those (changes) and apply to grants,” he said.
Taylor said these changes will be happening over a long term period of time.
“You’re not going to see us coming in and revamping the park all at one time, what you would see us you see us doing is implementing those (changes) over the course of many years,” he said.
Some changes were implemented in the park in the past. The old playground equipment was taken out due to safety reasons. But the community members would like to see the park have more changes such as better parking and shade.
Frank and Kaz Pierson said they have lived within earshot of the park since 1979, and they said they love the park, but there are some things they would like to see improved.
“Any improvement on stuff for little kids would be great,” Kaz said, “and we would also love to see the water faucets turned back on.”
Community members gather at the Oracle Park to tell University of Arizona Graduate Students what they would like to see at the park.
“For larger groups, we need more shade, “ Frank said.
Kirk Dimond, an assistant professor with the U of A School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, volunteered his class for the project after hearing from the school’s director.
“Kent was in touch with a colleague of mine in planning and he forwarded on the request to our school director and she put it out to all the faculty to gauge and see how well it would fit into the class,” he said, “and my studio has three different projects we can work on throughout the semester, and it sounded it had good and had interesting aspects to it and I volunteered myself to Kent.”
This partnership helps the graduate students get real-world experience.
“We give them a certain amount of complexity before sending them off into the real world,” Dimond said.
The visit to the park was a class-project to the students not only for experience, but it was to help them meet one of their requirements for their studio course.
The students took pictures and scouted the park area to help pinpoint places where the future enhancements can be put into place. They also utilized a drone to get wider aerial shots of the park for the project.
One student who visited the park, Michael Cimino, will be coming back in Spring 2017 to help scout the park more and to work more closely with the community.
“I think my role, come next semester, will be working with the community to come up with some realistic things that can actually be implemented in the park,” Cimino said.
Cimino said he is looking forward to coming back in the spring.
“I think it will be a great opportunity for me just to interact with the community and learn more about the process and the things we do in landscape architecture,” Cimino added.
Article by Joshua Delauder
There are news or informational items frequently written by staff or submitted to the Copper Basin News, San Manuel Miner, Superior Sun, Pinal Nugget or Oracle Towne Crier for inclusion in our print or digital products. These items are not credited with an author.
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