Working with Ball State

On Monday, November 14, students from two graduate classes at Ball State visited Raccoon Creek in preparation for a short planning project. With them and two faculty members we walked much of the community site. Questions were asked and answered, lots of notes were taken, and the students saw most of the site and its possibilities.

Over the next few days a few phone calls were exchanged and the two classes, one in landscape architecture and one in architecture, worked on their respective assignments.

Finally, on Monday the 21st, a mere seven days after their site visit, the classes presented their plans to us at Ball State.

Unlike the class project last year, this year's group worked their proposals as a group and gave a single group presentation. (Last year each student proposed a complete site plan of their own.) This year's format worked better, I think, because, with only one proposal to create, there was no redundancy in various proposals. Students were able to discuss their ideas as a class, with the class choosing the best of them for inclusion.

Ideas that were especially interesting include:

• adding a large area attached to the barn in which the stairways would be located,
• infilling the barn walls with straw bales with at least one of the walls covered on the outside with transparent panels to show the bales,
• creating sets of water catchment areas to hold rain water on the hillside above the comunity area allowing it to be used for irrigation,
• moving some of the commuity activites to the third floor of the barn; and,
• building a boardwalk across the wetland area to protect it and allow more reliable access regardless of the weather.

I would like to publish the plans but they are larger than 30 megabytes as a PDF file. Those who attend one of our community meetings may see them there.

Since it is likely that the community building will not be built for at least five years, one issue that was discussed was using the barn for more of the community purposes. This means designing the barn with more thought for larger group meals and perhaps moving a few "barn" things, like equipment storage, to a separate building.

This was all good food for thought.

We hope our relationship with Ball State faculty continues as Raccoon Creek Community grows over the years. Having a nice place for overnight class visits is one reason we are planning for dorm rooms in the barn.