After a substantial collaborative design process, Design Concepts is celebrated the groundbreaking of Boulder Valley School District’s Creekside Elementary replacement school on May 25, 2016. 

The 9.5-acre site for this Exemplar school will feature an outdoor eating plaza complementing the ‘Growing Garden’ program.  Nearby Bear Creek influenced a subtle ‘stream theme’ that interconnects the building to the site and surrounding community.  Site features include a focus on sustainable practices, an outdoor learning area with views to the dramatic Boulder Flatirons, an outdoor eating plaza which opens out from the “Heart” of the school and the beautiful “Café” with views from the front entry out onto nearby Bear Creek. The eating area is surrounded by a planter of wildflowers, casual boulder seating and café tables. The school’s front now boasts an open playfield, playgrounds and a carefully planted water quality pond. 

Saving existing plantings from the original site was an important design goal. The design team was able to incorporate many of the existing large trees, and elements from the existing garden were saved and incorporated into the new site. Features reused include bird houses, stepping stones, bike racks, picnic tables, a shed, benches and chairs, 3-bay swings, slides, climbing structure, and a fire truck and jeep climber play feature.

Design Concepts provided landscape architecture services to Bennett Wagner Grody Architects and Fielding Nair International who served as the architectural team.