Synthetic turf has been gaining acceptance in a variety of sports facilities for over a decade. Incorporating synthetic turf in parks and recreational facilities is the next frontier for this alternative to natural grass.

But does it make sense for your park?

Kleingers will explore this topic at this weekend’s 2016 Ohio Parks and Recreation Association Conference and Trade Show.

Synthetic Turf Used in New and Interesting Ways

As synthetic turf improves in quality and becomes more and more popular for various sports fields, it has begun to become more popular for new and varied uses. Recently synthetic turf has been used for everything from dog parks, bocce ball and lawn bowling, golf courses, tennis courts, playgrounds, swimming pool surrounds, amphitheaters, and open lawn areas.

The benefits of synthetic turf are many. It is easy to create a level playing surface, it is durable, soft on bare feet or paws, adaptable to many surfaces, and prevents weed growth.

However, there can be drawbacks, potentially including cost and maintenance.

The OPRA session will explore the basics of synthetic turf including different types of turf, the maintenance and costs involved, the necessary subgrade and drainage, and safety considerations.

By the conclusion of the program, parks and recreation personnel should have a better understanding of the benefits of synthetic turf that outweigh the costs for their particular park.

As the Group Leader for Sportworks Field Design, a division of The Kleingers Group, Craig Honkomp, PE, PS, LEED AP has completed more than 100 synthetic turf projects sits on the Board of the National Synthetic Turf Council as a national turf expert.

Honkomp will be joined by Michael Pistiolas, RLA, LEED AP BD+C, CCCA, a senior landscape architect with more than 13 years of park and construction document and construction administration experience.

To learn more about synthetic turf and its uses for parks and recreation projects, contact Craig at (513) 779-7851 or Michael at (614) 882-4311.

This morning The Kleingers Group was pleased to attend the ULI-Columbus event with a panel on tackling the skilled trades shortage. Some key takaways:

1. Skilled trades shortage impacts us all including the design industry, municipalities, and owners on top of the construction industry.
2. We must work together as an industry to change the perception of the trades industry and help reintroduce it into our schools. College isn’t for everyone and the trades offer a promising career path with good salaries.
3. We are working with a large gap due to aging workforce (retiring baby boomers) and the fact that no one pushed kids into our industry during the economic downturn. Everyone wants their kids to go to college and not into the trades. We can’t let this happen again and need to look past the short term need and generate a pipeline of workforce.
4. Schools are working to reorganize learning environments to change the way education is delivered. We need to prepare some students for workforce and not just for college. This goes down to middle school.

At the Kleingers Group we believe promoting the trade industry is going to be crucial to the AEC industry and are excited to play a part.

The Kleingers Group is pleased to announce Josh Shaw will be joining the team as a new project manager.

Shaw joins the Kleingers Group after 7 years in geotechnical engineering where his experience overlapped closely with many of the same architects, developers and municipalities with whom the Kleingers Group regularly works.

“His experience managing projects and leading teams will dovetail nicely into his role as Project Manager at The Kleingers Group,” VP of Operations Steve Korte said. “He is well known in the industry and has already hit the ground running.”

Although his background has been in geotechnical engineering, Shaw said that since college he has always imagined himself eventually turning civil engineering into a career.

He decided to mention that passion to The Kleingers Group, which he knew to be the kind of firm where he wanted to work long-term, particularly because of its reputation as a family-oriented firm.

“I’ve always had a high regard for everyone at The Kleingers Group and I knew they had a strong reputation,” Shaw said. “I was looking for stability, for a firm I knew I could stay with for a long time.”

Shaw will join The Kleingers Group as a project manager in the Southwest Ohio Institutional Group, working under Korte. He will focus on a variety of site development projects in both Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky.

Shaw graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and is a registered engineer in Ohio.

For the second year in a row, The Kleingers Group was the proud recipient of a Cincinnati Design Award in the landscape architecture category.

This year, Kleingers won the honor award for its work on Miami’s western campus.

The goal of the Cincinnati Design Awards is to recognize high-quality design in the regional community and to educate the general public about the benefits of supporting quality design. Kleingers was honored to be listed among the top designers in the region.

“We really enjoyed working with Miami and the project team and are really pleased with how well it all came together,” said Lynne Nischwitz, Kleingers’ Landscape Architecture Studio Leader. “We were especially proud of how the hardscape and softscape weave together and thought it was really spectacular that we were able to expand the University’s Horticulture Walk.”

At the event, the judges thanked Kleingers for creating such a pleasing landscape.

The project began in 2014 when the University constructed three new residence halls, a dining hall, a geothermal energy plant, and two ponds.

The University’s vision for the Western campus landscape was to create a cohesive, naturalistic, and sustainable landscape that would immerse students into nature. Kleingers worked closely with the University to bring the vision to life.

The final design expanded the University’s horticulture walk, provided a central large gathering space, passive gathering spaces for each residence hall, pedestrian connections across campus, stream restoration, and the new 150’ long bridge that will look like the historic, iconic cobblestone bridges that have existed on this portion of Miami’s Western campus for many years.

The landscape and hardscape spaces ‘weave together’ such that colorful naturalistic plantings danced into plaza areas while these plaza areas disintegrated into beautiful swathes of planting colors and textures. The interplay of movement between the prairie-style landscape and the hardscape plazas and walks unifies the entire Western campus landscape and indulges students and visitors in nature’s beauty.

Each area of the design was carefully thought out and plays a part in fulfilling the University’s vision.

New Plantings

The extensive and unique plant list includes native trees, ornamental grasses, and perennials that provide seasonal bloom and sweeping, dramatic, and naturalistic views. These plantings were extremely important to the University as they allowed for the expansion of the University Horticulture Walk.

Plantings include over 50 types of trees and a vast array of perennials and grasses. Trees included many Oak varieties such as Bur Oak, Sawtooth Oak, White Oak, Overcup Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Willow Oak, and Shingle Oak, as well as Shagbark Hickory, Dawn Redwood, Sycamore, Hardy Rubber Tree, Katsuratree, Cottonwood, Gingko, Black Tupelo, Amur Corktree as well as multiple Maple varieties to name a few. Ornamental grasses included Little Bluestem, Ice Dance Carex, Northern Sea Oats, and Autumn Moor Grass and perennials included Coneflower, Blazing Star, Russian sage, and Salvia and Sedum varieties.

Stream Restoration

The detailed design of the stream restoration creates dramatic views from the new and historic pedestrian bridges by creating pools of water in-between stream riffles. The naturalistic plantings along the stream contribute to the overall low maintenance field of native prairie grasses with pops of color.  Boulders of varying colors were utilized at different points along the stream and positioned along strategic portions of the pond edge to further unify the western campus aesthetic and create rhythm with the architecture.

Large Gathering Spaces

The central large gathering space consists of a sunken lawn oval with amphitheater seating that diminishes into the ground, further enhancing the seamless transition of hardscape and softscape. This central gathering space provides the opportunity for organized concerts or casual use, allows for zero edge handicap accessible entry into the sunken ‘green’, and marries the hardscape and the residence hall architecture through rings of blue/black seeded aggregate that radiate out from the ‘central green’ oval and continue through the buildings and out into separate passive outdoor patio spaces.

Reviewed by a blind jury from all over the country, Kleingers was extremely honored to be recognized for its work creating a natural, cohesive and sustainable landscape.