Former White Hutchinson Employee Designs Playgrounds in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Karla Christensen, former landscape designer at the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, contributed to the rebuilding effort in Bosnia-Herzegovina by designing and supervising the construction of 280 playgrounds and sport fields. The article that follows describes her work and is from the April 1999 issue of Landscape Architect magazine. Karla can be reached at <pelican_karla@yahoo.com>

Bosnia Rebounds Playgrounds and Sports Fields Help Heal A War-Torn Country

From Landscape Architect magazine, April 1999

Karla Christensen, Associate, ASLA, has had an unusual career. With a bachelor's degree in international relations and a MLA in landscape architecture, it may seem strange that she's specialized in playground design. But, over the years, she has made a name for herself, melding these realms by traveling the world to build landscapes for children.

This winter Christensen returned from war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she had been working on a project jointly sponsored by the American Refugee Committee and USAID, the agency that administers foreign-aid money. In just fourteen months, Christensen-overseeing a staff of sixteen Bosnian engineers - constructed a bewildering 280 playgrounds and sports fields for just over $3 million (about $11,000 per landscape, for anyone who's counting).

Although she's traveled the world, both as a Peace Corps volunteer and as a landscape architect with White Hutchinson Leisure and Learning Group, Christensen was profoundly affected by what she saw in Bosnia. "It was pretty devastated," she relates. "Schools and hospitals were destroyed. All the trees were cut down in the parks. All the places for children to play were gone."

Over the first six months, Christensen and her crew designed and built about 150 playgrounds and sports fields, usually combining both so that there would be activity space for younger children (the playgrounds) and older children (the sports fields). About halfway through, Christensen decided to involve the younger children in the design process. Oddly, she found that almost all of the children produced designs for boats. So, from these sketches Christensen developed a prototype for a playground boat, consisting of a wooden hull with bow and stern, a captain's wheel, and various slides, ladders, and firemen's poles.

While the children's input was helpful from a design view, it also served the larger mandate of USAID: to rebuild Bosnia as an incentive to encourage the peaceful return of minorities to communities. Christensen says that when you ask kids to get involved, inevitably their parents get involved. "They feel pride," she says. "They say, 'My child made that.'" Christensen and her team helped organize "inauguration ceremonies" for a few of the playgrounds, attended in each case by the U.S. ambassador. On one level, these events were intended to increase the community's attachment to the playground and thus ensure that it would maintain and protect it. But the ultimate purpose of all her work goes beyond just slides, ladders, and make-believe boats. The playgrounds, and the public space they create, are tools for strengthening the communal faith, say Christensen, as much as they are fun places for kids.

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