School Description
McMeen Elementary is situated in a greenbelt and park area next to Cherry Creek. We have a diverse student population with an enrollment of approximately 550 students. Our student ethnicity is 44% Hispanic, 28% Black, 19% White, 7% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 2% American Indian or Alaskan Native. Our English Language Learner population is approximately 41%. Approximately 80% of the students participate in free or reduced price lunch programs.
Learning Landscapes Description
Conflicting patterns of pedestrian and vehicular traffic and inadequate parking, outdated unsafe play equipment, poor drainage, lack of shade, and unappealing visual elements are addressed in this master plan.
McMeen Elementary School
Construction Date
March 2005
Landscape Architect
Design Concepts
Play Equipment Vendor
Play World Systems
Master Plan
Vision
Promote social development and participatory learning in unique spaces representative of McMeen Elementary School’s diverse student body.
Goals
- To provide a comfortable secure environment for community gathering and different academic, physical, and social learning styles.
- To create a landscape that represents and celebrates the diversity of McMeen Elementary and instills a sense of pride in the students, teachers, faculty and community.
- To promote positive interactions through improved circulation and defensible space.
Design Development
Construction Documentation
Description from Architect
The Learning Landscape playground at McMeen Elementary celebrates the community in which students live, learn and play. The theme of “Sense of Place” was developed to compliment the school’s curriculum where each grade studies a different level of their community – from neighborhood to City of Denver to State of Colorado and beyond. The playground is organized around a central core. Located in this core are the amphitheater and a custom shade shelter for performances and neighborhood gatherings. A walkway spirals out of the core and leads students through the playground and then out to the community gateway. This project was a collaboration with Chevo Studios, who also created the “McMeen River Rhyme”, a poem sandblasted into the walk that takes students on a watershed adventure from Cherry Creek into the Platte River and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. The poem explores sites that the traveler would experience along the waterway such as the sandhill crane in Nebraska and the rhythm and blues of Mississippi. Sculptural seat boulders like a sandhill crane head and a guitar provide seating alongside the spiral walk.
Other special features include musical instruments provided by the PTA, student artwork formed into the seatwalls and on banners, and a custom gateway feature to welcome the neighborhood into the site. In addition, the school received a new expanded parking lot and drop-off drive. The principal reports an improvement in student play behavior and that less adult supervision is needed during outdoor playtimes.
Illustrative Plan
Construction Drawings
Architect’s Renderings
Play Equipment
Shade Structure