All Day

Hotel Check-in
Cavallo Point at Fort Baker

6:00

Keynote Lecture and Reception

The Presidio, The Officers’ Club
Transportation available from Fort Baker to the Presidio and return beginning at 5:00 pm.

Milton Chen, Executive Director, The George Lucas Educational Foundation

Open to Public & All Participants

Day 1 : Tuesday, December 9

7:30

Registration and Breakfast Verbena Room

8:30

Welcoming Remarks Callippe Room

Brian O’Neill, Superintendent, Golden Gate National Recreation Area

8:45

Laying the Groundwork – Designing Principles and Vision for a Twenty-First Century Park Callippe Room

Jon Jarvis, Director, Pacific West Region, National Park Service

This session lays the groundwork for the three days and is designed to ignite passion and imagination about creating principles that will guide the course of future park planning and design.  This session includes all conference participants who are invited to explore, challenge, and question park planning and design of today and envision the possibilities for parks of the future. 

9:15

Break

9:30

Workshop Process and Product Expectations Callippe Room

Tuesday Chair: Rodger Evans, Chief Design and Construction Western Division, Denver Service Center

Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, President, The Cultural Landscape Foundation

10:00  

Plenary Speaker and Work Session 1:  Visitor Experience Callippe Room

Emilyn Sheffield, Professor and PhD
Department of Recreation and Parks Management
California State University, Chico

IYEL (Inspiring Young Emerging Leaders) Representatives

This session will explore in detail the interdependence of park design and visitors.  During the first 45 minutes, this Dr. Sheffield will energize the session, set the challenge, and frame the topics that will be central to the next days’ work sessions. Representatives from IYEL will also be present to discuss their perspectives and thoughts on where the parks are now, and how they should be designed in the future.

After the plenary talk, participants will explore, revisit and refine themes related to Visitor Experience.

12:00 

Lunch Verbena Room & Veranda

1:00

Plenary Speaker and Work Session 2:  Preservation and Environmental Stewardship Callippe Room

Laurie D. Olin, RLA,FASLA, Partner, Olin Partnership

This session will explore in detail the critical relationship between park design, preservation, and environmental stewardship. Mr. Olin is a well-known landscape architect and experienced in modern preservation and conservation challenges as they relate to park design.  Mr. Olin will explore the issues, set the challenge, and frame the topics that will be central to the next days’ work sessions.

After the plenary talk, participants will explore, revisit and refine themes related to Preservation and Environmental Stewardship that will provide the framework for the subsequent days’ work sessions.

2:45

Break

3:00 

Plenary Speaker 3: Design Imperatives Callippe Room

James Cutler, FAIA, Principal, Cutler Anderson Architects

This session will explore in detail the critical challenges of contemporary design imperatives.  Mr Cutler is well-known and experienced in park planning and design and has used vision and creativity to ensure design priorities are respected and observed throughout the process.  Like Plenary 1 and 2, Mr. Cutler will explore the issues, set the challenge, and frame the topics that will be central to the next days’ work sessions.

After the plenary talk, participants will explore, revisit and refine themes related to Design Imperatives that will provide the framework for the subsequent days’ work sessions.

4:45

Towards a New Park Planning and Design Future Callippe Room

Dan Wenk, Deputy Director, National Park Service

Mr Wenk and plenary speakers explore possibilities for future park planning and design.

6:00

Cash Bar Callippe Room

7:00

Dinner Callippe Room

8:00

"Learning From Larry" Callippe Room

Moderator:  Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, President, The Cultural Landscape Foundation

This specially produced video of Lawrence Halprin, FASLA  taken just days before the Designing the Parks conference will provide a springboard for informal discussion about the past, present, and future of park planning and design. Dessert and coffee will be served.

Day 2: Wednesday, December 10
Cavallo Point at Fort Baker

7:30-8:30

Breakfast Callippe Room

8:15

Welcome, Tuesday Recap, Wednesday Overview Callippe Room

Wednesday Chair: Stephanie Toothman, Chief , Cultural Resources, Pacific West Regio

8:30

Opening Plenary:  Design Principles – Past, Present and Future Callippe Room

Ethan Carr, Associate Professor, University of of Virginia School of Architecture

Professor Carr will look at the history of design principles and what we have learned as we consider shaping park planning and design principles for the 21st century.

9:00

Designing the Parks: Conference Track Small Group Work Sessions

World Café Style Work Sessions – Participants to Track Rooms
Short Presentations followed by a brief question and answer panel of the presenters.

:: Visitor Experience Callippe Room

A 21st Century Call to Action: Engaging Younger Generations in Public Parks
Gretchen Hilyard and David Roccosalva, Page & Turnbull, Inc

Present and Future Opportunities in Park Transportation Planning
Patricia Sacks, National Park Service

Contemporary Issues in Park Design:  Brooklyn Bridge Park
Rachel Gleeson, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

:: Preservation and Environmental Stewardship Verbena Room

Land Use Planning in Washington State Parks
Peter Herzog and Daniel Farber, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission

Partnership Efforts in Urban State Parks in New Jersey and Delaware: Successes and Challenges
Eric Tamulonis,  Wallace, Roberts, and Todd, LLC - Philadelphia

Designing For the Visitor: Providing Access and Protecting Resources: A Case Study of Three Overlooks in Yosemite National Park
Doug Nelson, Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey

:: Design Imperatives Verbena Room

Moving Beyond Olmsted: National Parks for the 21st Century
Alex Brash, National Parks Conservation Association

Enhancing the Visitor Experience in a National Historic Landmark District: Paradise Area Case Study, Mount Rainier National Park
Barbara Clement, Fletcher Farr Ayotte, Inc

Case Studies in Modern Contextual Design: Homestead Heritage Center, Fort McHenry Visitor Center, and Mount Vernon Visitor Complex
Alan Reed, GWWO Architects

10:00

Break

10:15

Work Session Round One

Each theme and its associated topics will be explored in smaller groups in world café style work sessions.  Ideas generated from the previous day will provide the discussion framework.  The three tracks will be set up in three different rooms and small round tables each holding up to  six participants will be assigned a single sub-theme.  Each table will have a facilitator/ recorder.  The table participants will work through why, what and how interrogatives for  each theme and begin to identify ideas, thoughts and scenarios for guiding principles that address that particular subtheme. 

11:00

Work Session Round Two

In tracks. Participants will be given the opportunity to move to a new subtheme table within the track and build on the concepts and ideas generated by the previous group.  

11:45

Lunch and Presentation Callippe Room

Three Parks
Mario Schjetnan, Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), Mexico City

Mr. Schjetnan will discuss succesful interventions in three public parks: 1) Xochimilco, Meixco City,  2) Chapultepec Park, Mexico City and 3) Union Point Park, Oakland, CA.

12:45

Work Sessions Reconvene

Short Presentations followed by a brief question and answer panel of the presenters.

:: Visitor Experience Callippe Room

Tinner Hill:  A New Park for Falls Church
Irene Chambers and Nikki Graves Henderson, Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation

Beyond Recreation: Emerging Concepts of Nature and Public Engagement in Art and Popular Media
Janette Kim, Urban Landscape Lab, Columbia University

Establishing, developing and sustaining successful, widely accessible environmental education to non-traditional constituencies in an inner city public park
Doug Campbell and Regula Campbell, Campbell & Campbell, USC School of Architecture

:: Preservation and Environmental Stewardship Verbena Room

Vicksburg National Military Park: Evolving American Icon Treatment - the New Battleground
Liz Sargent, Historical Landscape Architecture

Visitor Access:  The Critical Nexus Between the Visitor and Park Resources
Kevin Percival, National Park Service

Case Studies in Preservation and Sustainability: Commonality and Contrast
Stephen Farneth, FAIA, LEED, AP

:: Design Imperatives Verbena Room

From Retreat to Catalyst. The Park as Precinct in the 21st Century.
Catherine Bull,  University of Melbourne

Can Postwar Modernist Thinking Inform the Future of Our Parks?
JC Miller,  University of California, Berkley Extension

Bringing Together Citizens and Design Resources: Engaging Communities in Park Planning
Andrea Lavin, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh

1:30

Work Session Round 3

Participants will be given the opportunity to move to a new subtheme table within the track and build on the concepts and ideas generated by the previous group.  

2:15

Break

2:30 – 5:30

Towards a New Park Planning and Design Future Callippe Room

Track participants will process concepts and ideas identified during the day, provide further input and begin drafting potential design principles that will form the basis of Thursday’s work sessions.

6:00

Cash Bar Callippe Room

7:00

Dinner Callippe Room

Day 3: Thursday, December 11
Cavallo Point at Fort Baker

7:30-8:30

Breakfast Callippe Room

8:30

Welcome, Wednesday Recap, Thursday Overview Callippe Room

Thursday Chair: Shaun Eyring, Chief, Resource Planning and Compliance, National Park Service, Northeast Region

8:45

Opening Plenary: A New Design Future Callippe Room

Maurice Cox, Director of Design, National Endowment for the Arts

9:30

Track Report Out and Open Dialogue Callippe Room

This session focuses on short, focused presentations by a representative of each track summarizing the most important points developed during the previous day This session provides all participants an opportunity to comment on the findings and draft principles of all tracks. Each track will briefly report out and leaders will then host stations where the results from Day 2 are posted. Everyone is encouraged to provide input, refine, challenge, or shift directions.  Recorders will capture these ideas for further discussion and participants will identify the most important principles emerging from the sessions to develop further.

12:00

Lunch Callippe Room

12:30

Fort Baker to Cavallo Point - Panel and Site Walk Callippe Room

Panel participants representing the key points of view that had to be
reconciled during the 8 year design process for Cavallo Point --- Owner/Operator,  NPS Cultural and Natural Resource Managers, SHPO, the Community and the Designer --- will discuss their challenges and successes.  A brief site walk, illustrating built examples of the collaboration, will cap this session.

Cheryl Barton, FASLA, FAAR, LEED AP, Office of Cheryl Barton

1:45

Envisioning the Future

Tracks reconvene and further refine prioritized principles from the morning sessions.  Participants will be asked to provide advice to the design congress - who will be charged with refining the draft principles - and to envision how a park of the future would look if the principles were implemented.

:: Visitor Experience Callippe Room

:: Preservation and Environmental Stewardship Verbena Room

:: Design Imperatives Verbena Room

3:30

Break

3:45

Closing Plenary Panel: Designing the Parks – Principles into Practice Callippe Room

Moderators:
Adi Shamir, Executive Director, Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture
Alexander Brash, NE Regional Director National Parks Conservation Association

Following an overview of the history of design excellence programs and the influence that design competitions have had on public projects, Van Alen Institute and the National Parks Conservation Association will describe a planned initiative to field-test the draft principles developed at the conference through a series of coordinated design studios and open competitions. Several professor/practitioners involved in this initiative will be on hand to reflect on what they’ve learned from the sessions, how the principles might influence their professional work, and how they envision a studio or competition program might be developed to provide substantive assessment and feedback. The audience will be invited to provide input on the structure and content of studios and competitions.

Panelists: 
Ethan Carr, University of Virginia
Randy Mason, University of Pennsylvania
Linda Pollak, Marpillero Pollak Architects
Margie Ruddick, WRT

5:00

Closing Remarks Callippe Room

Jon Jarvis, Director, Pacific West Region, National Park Service

6:00

Cash Bar Callippe Room

7:00

Dinner Callippe Room

Day 4: Friday, December 12
Cavallo Point at Fort Baker

8:00 – 3:00

Design Congress Verbena Room

Refining Draft Design Principles
A small invited team selected from workshop participants will develop draft principles based on the products developed  from previous three days.  Draft principles will be posted on the web for review and comment.

8:00 - noon

Optional Field Trips – Bay Area Park Design

Trip Hosts:  Presidio Trust and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

Conference participants may choose to take guided tours of selected projects and sites in the Presidio and surrounding Bay Area. The sites will provide many opportunities to explore first hand some of the key opportunities and challenges of contemporary park design.