Designing Outdoor Environments for Children

Create fun, safe, innovative outdoor landscapes for children

This unique resource expertly details the design, installation, and maintenance of sustainable children's landscapes and play yards. Numerous case studies cover projects including storybook courtyards, music and barnyard gardens, nature trails, wildlife habitats, memorial, and edible gardens.

Lolly Tai, Ph.D., RLA, FASLA is chair and professor of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Temple University, and a practicing landscape architect with more than 25 years' experience. Dr. Tai's work focuses on the influence of the environment on landscape design. She is the coauthor and contributing writer of Landscape Design for Energy Efficiency, Tree Conservation and Home Site Development Guide, and Service Learning Across the Curriculum: Case Studies. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a recipient of the 2004 Bradford Williams Medal for Meritorious Writing in Landscape Architecture Magazine and a recipient of the 2005 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Award of Distinction in Teaching.

Mary Taylor Haque, RLA, ASLA is a registered landscape architect and Alumni Distinguished Professor of Horticulture at Clemson University. Utilizing a service learning model, she and her students and colleagues have partnered with USDA, the Sustainable Universities Initiative, and community partners to design children's gardens across the state of South Carolina. A primary focus area of her research and outreach has been sustainable schoolyard habitats for K-12 schools. These outdoor classrooms incorporate design principles centered on sustainability and resource management as well as usefulness as a learning and play environment for children. She is a 2005 John Glenn Scholar in Service Learning and a recipient of the American Society for Horticulture Science Outstanding Undergraduate Educator Award.

Gina K . McLellan, Ph.D., has been a professor of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University for 25 years with a teaching focus on recreation and leisure environments and natural resource management. She has also directed the U.S. Forest Service's national recreation management training program throughout her tenure at Clemson. She and her students, through service learning projects, have spent the past ten years working to design and develop creative, quality outdoor environments for children which help those children to develop respect for the outdoors, enhance their learning, and improve socialization through play. Her work with children's outdoor environments has led to numerous awards and to serving as an advisor to others developing children’s environments. She plans to continue researching and advocating environment-based education for schools around the country as a means of enhancing learning and environmental protection.

Erin Jordan Knight is director of natural resource protection at Upstate Forever, an organization that promotes sensible growth and protects special places in the upstate region of South Carolina. Her work includes providing and protecting the power and joy of nature for all children, and her public landscape designs include the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park in Greenville, SC and the neighborhood park at Sliding Rock Creek, both community projects led by Leadership Greenville. Ms. Knight graduated Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors from Clemson University in 2001 with a degree in landscape architecture. She was awarded the Certificate of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the highest award given to a student landscape architect.