Durable Design Toolkit + Workshops

Build Lab recognizes that the best classroom for landscape designers is in the field. With hundreds of built projects to learn from in OLIN’s portfolio - many of which have performed for decades in the most challenging urban contexts - Build Lab has developed a rapid post-occupancy toolkit that provides quantitative and qualitative metrics to gauge the physical and social performance of built work. This allows us to look critically at our own work to improve our practice.

TOOLKIT

The Durable Design Toolkit includes a mobile app, written survey, and analysis tools, which allows designers to track the success and durability of vegetation, hardscape, and furnishings and to analyze public usage and social performance.

WORKSHOP

Build Lab hosts Durable Design Workshops in which the entire OLIN staff is invited to go out in the field for a half-day blitz to analyze every square inch of an existing OLIN project. The first Durable Design Workshop, which included over thirty OLIN designers, documented the durability, use, & appearance of installed landscape features on the Independence National Historical Park (INHP) in Philadelphia. The workshop was integrated into the Build Lab educational series and submitted for LACES credits.

+ FIELD EVALUATION (1 hour)

During this workshop, participants, in groups of 2-3, engage in documenting the existing conditions of specific components of the project and complete a field evaluation.

+ ANALYSIS (1 hour)

After field work is completed, participants compare as-built conditions to the documented work, brainstorm recommendations for addressing construction issues, and prepare a short presentation of their findings.

+ FINDINGS (1 hour)

Findings Discussion and Workshop Happy Hour