The summit of Mount Pisgah east of Eugene is being loved to death. A landscape architecture class at the University of Oregon is looking at ways to accommodate more people while maintaining its integrity.
Professor Bart Johnson says visitation has gone from 40,000 to 400,000 people per year in two decades. Members of his Service Studio class each consider different future scenarios.
“Students are really profoundly good at imagining things that other people haven’t imagined," he says, "and pushing the envelope on those.”
Johnson says no one person’s work will likely be adopted, but trail design elements from several projects could be used.
Lexi Smaldone, a second year master’s student, says, “It’s hard. It’s a really hard project. I’m trying to create a design that can accommodate a lot of people but maybe not feel so vast and overwhelming if you’re the only one there.”
Several dozen community members evaluated initial landscape designs last week. Final proposals will be in mid March.
The studio review is open to the public. It will be Thursday, March 12 from 8:30-12:30 in Lawrence Hall on the UO campus.
