Faces of The Fargo Project: Landscape Designer Laura Bowles

Laura Bowles is a landscape designer at Land Elements in Fargo

Laura Bowles is a landscape designer at Land Elements. Her introduction to The Fargo Project was during the first WeDesign event in 2012, and she’s been working at it since. Her task at Land Elements is to translate ideas of artists and the community into construction drawings that serve as the project blueprints.

Currently Laura is busy taking the natural play ideas gathered by Westside Elementary fifth graders and organizing them into drawings for construction during summer 2017.

Laura and other organizers encouraged the fifth graders to think like animals, and the students used clay, twigs and grasses to express their ideas.

“Lucky for us, kids have a knack for creativity so we have plenty of ideas,” she says.

The Natural Play design emphasizes flexible space so children have the freedom to creatively imagine stories, games and experiences.

“It’s like going to get FroYo – you start with just plain old yogurt (the natural play area) but then you can put whatever toppings you want to get it exactly how you love it: invent your own games, discover bugs, lose a shoe in the mud,” Laura says. “That’s flexibility.”

Boulders were a common theme featured in student’s models as something they wanted to climb and explore, or use as a place to perch. Part of Laura’s job is looking for the perfect boulders to place on site.

Keep an eye on World Garden Commons in 2017 and watch the construction progress.

A boulder ideal for the World Garden Commons site can used to climb and explore, or as a place to perch