Lots of great ideas

Last September three of us made a drive to Ball State University to meet with some of the staff of the Department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Architecture and Planning. We were there to ask if they could help with planning our community and to offer our site as a "lab" that classes could use as Raccoon Creek grows over the coming years.

The reception was positive. In fact, a visit was proposed for the graduate level LA 603, Community Design class later in the semester.

In December the class visited Raccoon Creek to walk the site, ask questions, and hear from a few of us about what we knew we wanted and what we knew we didn't want for the community. The assignment for each student was to recommend an overall site plan and a sequence of implementation that recognized the community will grow over a period of years and not all the funds will be available from the start to design and build everything. Though we did not ask for this, they were also assigned to recommend a name for the community.

About a week later two of us went to meet the class at Ball State for a preliminary presentation of their ideas. Rough sketches of the individual plans were presented, and we had an extensive give and take about what was being considered. We learned a lot from each of them. We also pointed out a few of the evolving recommendations that we were certain just would not be adopted by the community. This allowed them to drop these few ideas and concentrate on the more promising ones.

About a week after that some of us went back to their site to see the presentations of the final recommendations. We got seven very well prepared and presented overall plans for Raccoon Creek, along with seven unique suggestions for a community name. I thought "Beechfront Property" was the most clever.

The proposals included not just buildings and locations, but also suggestions for alternative energy systems, a living machine, water collection schemes, garden locations, parking areas, and lots more.

Though no single proposal will be adopted in toto, each has multiple features that will be incorporated as the Raccoon Creek Community grows.

We are very grateful for the efforts by this class and the faculty at Ball State, and look forward to future chances to work together.