New Castle County Parks Summer Internship

• Sean Williams, Landscape Architecture, University of Delaware

• Eric Bardenhagen, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware

For my internship I worked with New Castle County creating various park-focused design interventions. The main focus of my research was Talley Day Park outside Wilmington, more specifically the dog park. Over roughly a two-month period, I created an arrangement of draft plans in order to turn the ideas in my head into something presentable to the board. In these plans I tried to introduce interesting design features while simultaneously addressing issues that were presented to us. One of the biggest problems was a lack of vegetation, so we were told to come up with a planting plan in order to fill these voids. This leads into another issue which is the sometimes chaotic interactions between dogs in the current park. These negative interactions are mainly due to the dogs’ fear, uncertainty, and overall lack of comfort. This provided a goal: how to put the dogs in a peaceful state before entering the park, in order to create a more positive experience for everyone. To address this, various native plants were selected that produce calming aromas to soothe dogs. Paired with this was the inclusion of a series of winding pathways that give the dogs time and space to get acclimated to the dog park. To also be addressed was the lack of agility equipment and toys for the dogs. This is answered in the final plan, which pitches “islands” of obstacles and interactive features for the dogs to experience. Ramps, play structures, tunnels, rings, and balance beams are some examples of included equipment in the final pitch. The final plan seeks to spruce up the existing site by adding more color, curvature, and adventure. Overall, the goal with New Castle County Parks was to address problems while simultaneously adding more character, which is what I worked to achieve this summer.