City of Layton

Charrette & Senior Capstone Studio

Last summer Todd Johnson and Dave Anderson met with alumnus Tim Watkins (MLA 1997) and Bill White of the Layton Economic Development and Planning Department. Pressure to develop the remaining 25% of open lands has created classic controversies involving density, uses and transportation/air quality problems for the students to tackle. Joined by Professor Carlos Licon in Spring 2019 for LAEP 4120, Charrette and Capstone focused on activity centers as a means of diversifying and intensifying the community. In addition, the students sought to connect the mountains of the Bear Range to the shore of the Great Salt Lake Basin, using open space and public lands to differentiate Layton from surrounding Kaysville and Farmington. Four activity centers identified “drivers for change”. They included West Davis Business Center (situated on the Shorelands Preserve), the South and East Gateways to Hill Air Force Base, the historic town center, and the Layton Hills Mall.

Students and professors gather around a large floor map to collaborate. LAEP senior Tommy Smith leads the group.

The specific learning opportunities that expand traditional roles in landscape architecture for our students included:

• Branding the West Davis Business Center by owning an environmentally responsible relationship with the Great Salt Lake Basin. The students recognized that no jurisdiction has taken claim to this frontage, adjacent to one of the top five bird refuges in the world.

• The future of the traditional enclosed shopping malls may be limited. Opportunities to intensify development of residential, office, and recreation uses immediate to the Layton Hills Mall may add to its resilience.

• The design of the public and private realms immediate to regional transit is essential to achieve benefit from the State’s investment in transit. Developers must be obligated to supporting walkable and intense development immediate to transit resources.

• The demand for a variety of specific uses follows the gateways to the nation’s military bases. These bases are the greatest economic drivers of the local economy and require a specific look at the needs of its population.

• Connectivity between large tracts of public lands (basins and ranges) with municipal open space and with public transportation allows the community to associate their identity and offerings with these irreplaceable assets.

Collaborations between students, faculty and professionals elicit new insights to learn and develop innovative ideas.

As a consequence of the Charrette’s complexity, upon graduation students look back on their original motives for seeking a degree in the profession of landscape architecture and wonder what its limits might be.

It’s a continuation of Charrette. So you get that excitement and long-term build-up for the project and it gives it additional weight and makes it a bit more exciting to work on.

-- Evan Tanasiuk, BLA 2019