Montbello Open Space Park is a 5.5-acre dynamic shortgrass prairie serving a predominantly Hispanic, Multiracial, and African American community which traditionally lacked equitable access to public parks and outdoor experiences. MUNDUS BISHOP’s collaboration with Environmental Learning for Kids (ELK) students and staff, The Trust for Public Land (TPL), Denver Parks & Recreation (DPR), and the local community fulfills the Montbello community’s vision of working together to transform a degraded vacant site into a true community asset. The park is key as a place for students to improve academic science skills, become involved in their neighborhoods, and be exposed to fields of natural resources and landscape architecture.
In 1996, ELK was founded to provide opportunities to Denver’s underserved youth on the premise that “all young people deserve strong educational support, good role models and opportunities to become engaged, productive and successful members of society.” MUNDUS BISHOP facilitated the design process, working closely with ELK’s staff and students, TPL, DPR, and local residents over a multiple-year timeframe in hands-on work sessions and site visits. The result is a public natural open space and outdoor learning laboratory established to provide widespread environmental, educational, and community health benefits for many generations to come.
The park demonstrates how the inclusivity of underserved populations within metropolitan areas through engagement in park design and environmental and outdoor education programs create vibrant public space. As Denver’s first nature education park, this project provides a close-to-home natural space for environmental education, skills training, and youth engagement. Most importantly, it provides opportunities for youth to become Urban Rangers. This valuable role will continue through the efforts of the ELK and its partners who will continue to train and hire youth as emerging leaders and park stewards.
Sustainable materials, natural trails, boardwalks and skills courses, riparian gardens, a cohesive stormwater system, outdoor classroom, and natural play nodes create an intimate and memorable exploration of nature that inspires—and encourages— the exploring spirit in all ages. The open space park’s features a climbing boulder (funded through The North Face’s “Walls Are Meant for Climbing” initiative) and a stepped stone amphitheater that doubles as a skills course. Art is essential with stone carvings providing wayfinding and interpretive nodes. The Celestial Outdoor Classroom tells the story of the path of the sun in English and Spanish and includes a starry canopy with constellations. A central trail ensures equitable and universal access to all areas of the park.
Montbello Open Space Park has become essential for this community’s youth and families to experience Colorado’s natural world in their own backyard. For the summer of 2021, like much of the 2020 pandemic, Montbello Open Space Park became ELK’s primary educational and adventure facility, reaching more than 5,000 students and training dozens of Urban Rangers. Since early 2023, MUNDUS BISHOP is working with ELK to design the agency’s community garden, which will be yet another learning tool for students and an opportunity to deepen the connection of landscape architecture, the environment, and community.
Montbello Open Space Park
Location: Denver, Colorado, USA
Project Team
Landscape Architect: MUNDUS BISHOP
Public Art: Chevo Studios
Structural Engineer: JVA, Inc.
Civil Engineer: San Engineering
Irrigation Design: Avocet
Climbing structure: ID Sculpture
Clients
Environmental Learning for Kids The Trust for Public Land Denver Parks & Recreation
Photography by Scott Dressel-Martin