Pashek Lectures on Park Master Planning at Slippery Rock University

 Jim Pashek, president of Pashek Associates was the first of three lecturers from the firm invited to speak at Slippery Rock University on park planning.  The lecture Jim presented focused on the five steps typically found in master planning for parks, (1) Community background data collection, (2)Public Participation, (3) Site Analysis, (4) Programming the Activities in the park, (5) Developing the concepts, final master plan drawings and cost estimates.  After an introductory lecture to orient students to public processes, they participated in a mock town meeting, generating park ideas and prioritizing those needs.  Professor Christine Glenn commented on Pashek’s mock meeting, “I was struck by how effectively you guided the public meeting.  I’ve seen those types of meetings get quickly unfocused.  Yesterday, you effectively modeled key techniques which help to maintain control of the discussion and direction of the meeting.  I was very impressed with this, and learned a great deal, which I hope to utilize in the future.”

After learning about criteria often used to layout parks, the students were broken up into teams of 4-5 each and given a park site analysis and program to fit to the site.  They were cautioned to respect environmental constraints, the proper solar orientation of facilities, and important activity adjacencies.

Each team then reported why they selected the park plan they developed and how they were able to apply some of the design principles taught in the class.

John Buerkle will be lecturing on the design of Athletic Fields and Mike Kotyk will be providing information on how to plan greenway corrdiors during the next two lectures.