Parks & Public Spaces

At Board & Vellum, we believe it’s our duty to reinforce, protect, and enhance great public spaces. We’re leaders in designing community spaces that stand out as unique, functional, and artful — combining the best of both beauty and usability, while supporting and promoting physical health, social connection, and mental engagement.

Whether we are designing trails for accessibility or creating opportunities for environmental education and art, our goal is to offer people unique experiences that create lasting memories. Our familiarity with natural systems and knowledge of local plant communities allows us to create and enhance recreational amenities while also supporting and enhancing local ecosystems.

Our team is experienced at bringing the right players to the table to solve complex technical and regulatory requirements. This keeps projects moving forward with creative designs that meet project goals and budgets.

Complicated civic projects, like parks, require multidisciplinary teams to address their many complexities. The foundation of our collaborative process is transparency and teamwork.

We start collaborative problem-solving with design and continue through documentation, permitting, and construction. We aren’t finished until ribbon-cutting. Our in-depth analysis of each site’s opportunities and constraints reflects our team’s robust technical and design expertise, where careful and thoughtful solutions build opportunities and address challenges.

This approach results in functional, elegant, and regulatory-compliant design from the beginning, allowing more opportunity to focus on the goals and vision of the community.

We approach all our parks and public space projects with the goal of minimizing our impact on the environment. We are thrilled to share our knowledge with our clients and collaborators, and to educate them on the benefits of being light on the land.

Our experience has shown leveraging sustainable principles produces better results, for park visitors and the teams tasked with maintaining them. Wherever possible, we favor passive or low-impact strategies that mimic natural processes. This approach recognizes the value of ecosystem services for public health, the environment, and the bottom line.

Striving for a lasting impact, we look for ways to share knowledge about implemented sustainable practices by providing opportunities for visitors to learn long after a project is completed.

Permitting a park or other public space can be challenging. Complications from environmentally sensitive and critical areas, drainage, and building codes can derail a project. This means you need someone in your corner who has the experience and knowledge to help guide your project through the intricacies of the permitting process so the project can be delivered on schedule and on budget.

We can be that team for you. With experience on public park projects throughout the Puget Sound region, we are not only familiar with the local jurisdictional processes, but also the unique characteristics of our region that can sometimes present challenges for public projects.

We develop a strong understanding of each site’s constraints and demands early on, so there aren’t any surprises when it matters most. By building strong relationships with local archaeological, historic, and cultural groups, we’ve already laid the groundwork for aid and consultation by the groups most knowledgeable in their areas of expertise.

Parks, parklets, and other public spaces are important for the health and wellness of our communities. They’re special places where recreation, social connection, and education combine to create moments of joy and enjoyment for all who come to experience them.

Our team’s focus on both the technical complexities and the real-world experience of a project gives us the tools to create spaces of lasting beauty and function. Our passion for design and for healthy neighborhoods means we delight in helping communities shape their own public spaces.

By prioritizing strategies that emphasize sustainable practices, increase accessibility for all, and highlight local identity, the parks and public spaces we create are true reflections of not only our company ethos, but of the diverse needs of the communities we serve.