VMDO Architects

In 2021, VMDO and partner Brailsford & Dunlavey were engaged by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to assist in the development of a high-level strategic plan for the District of Columbia’s parks and recreation system, considered the “number one urban parks system in the United States” (The Trust for Public Land, 2023). The resulting Ready2Play Master Plan is based on months of DPR’s robust community engagement work, which sought to obtain grassroots data on the most pressing needs and gaps in public park space across DC’s eight Wards. One statistic was particularly enlightening – a life expectancy difference of over 15 years between Ward 3 and Ward 8, which directly correlated to access to park space between the two Wards.

DPR’s engagement process guided the development of the Master Plan by identifying four key goals for park space across the District, and helped to “chart a bold path forward for planning, design, programming, and operations over the next twenty years.” A Strategic Action Plan provided dozens of on-the-ground strategies that could be implemented on individual sites. These actions could then be monitored to measure how they were contributing to positive outcomes at a much larger scale, from sustainability goals to promoting social equity. A corresponding Equity Framework is intended to serve as a guiding document to help DPR identify and prioritize initiatives, capital projects, and programs to pursue in response to present and future District needs.

In addition to the development of the Master Plan, VMDO also advised on the design and development of a public web platform that provided a virtual exploration of Ready2Play’s goals, strategies, and actions tree structure. Widgets related to each action were programmed to visually show the progress being measured for goals, through associated graphs, maps, and point clouds. The site also allowed for exploration of DC’s park system and status of projects as outlined in DPR’s Capital Improvement Plan.

Ready2Play was released at the end of 2022 following review by the DC Mayor’s Office, and opened to public comment in order to continue to refine its initiatives in reflection of its various stakeholders. Community projects are not created in a vacuum – they exist at the intersection of many overlapping conditions that contribute to key decision making and affect related community patterns. The Ready2Play Plan will contribute to DC’s ever-changing urban fabric by expanding access to public space, demonstrating how actionable design strategies at a small scale can have a big impact for a city at a larger scale.