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The Road Less Traveled Makes All the Difference: Park and Wayfinding Enhancements

BY LISA HORNE, PLA

As the places where we live, work, and play have become more densely and more intricately developed, the need for visual cues to help inform, educate, and engage visitors has increased. Kevin Lynch coined the term wayfinding in 1960 during an era of unprecedented postwar growth, where new hospitals and airports required comprehensive signage and visual cues just for visitors and employees to find their way. Today museums, downtown districts, and high end retail centers include these systems as a matter of course, but they are less common for parks and trails.

Good design is intuitively navigable with wayfinding elements used to reinforce a sense of direction. For example, vehicular and pedestrian entries should provide a sense of arrival through the use of identification signage paired with carefully designed hardscape and landscape features. Identification signage, maps for orientation, and directional signage provide important enhancements to major trailheads, and mileage markers in appropriate increments generally improve usability of a lengthy wayfinding system.

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TCU Breaks Ground on Newest Phase of Worth Hills Residential Village

BY MEGAN ABERNATHY, PLA

Over the past five years, Texas Christian University (TCU) has been on a mission to renovate or replace nearly every residence hall on its campus.  Last month, the University broke ground on the newest component of this vision: the Greek Village.

Phase I of the Greek Village includes seven houses, which will hold a combined 13 sorority chapters and two fraternity chapters. Construction was scheduled so that students will move into the new houses in time for the Fall 2017 semester. At that time their former houses will be demolished to make way for Phase II, which includes four additional houses to accommodate ten fraternity chapters.  Once finished, the Greek Village will house all 25 of the University’s Greek chapters in one place and will also feature a colonnade monument in recognition of the “Divine Nine” historically black Greek letter organizations that don’t have enough members to fill an entire facility.

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Intern Haley Armstrong Carries the Banner at Local Hot Dog Eating Contest

BY HALEY BARTLEY

World record holder Joey “Jaws” Chestnut devoured 69 hot dogs in ten minutes at the famous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island. Although he sets the precedent, there are many who follow in his footsteps hoping for glory, including our very own intern, Haley “Ketchup if You Can” Armstrong.

Competitive eating has become quite the sport since its start in 1916 – with world-wide participation and its very own regulating organization, Major League Eating. (Fair warning: prepare to be sucked down the rabbit hole of chicken wing eating techniques and upcoming contests such as Kale Yeah!: the world’s heathiest eating championship.)

With such global captivation, you better believe the competitive eating craze hasn’t escaped the AEC industry. That’s why, last week, Dallas’ Brightview Landscape Development hosted its annual intern/rookie hot dog eating competition at the Rustic off Howell Street.

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