CLH’s Zak Pierce and Alice Reese recently attended the Carolina Joint Recreation & Parks Conference and made the following presentation: plaYce making: designing beyond the catalogue. This session focused on shifting the paradigm from simply selecting pre-fabricated play elements for a park or playground from a catalogue to focusing on place making and developing an experience.  Zak and Alice discussed how sometimes it is not the objects themselves that create place, it is the experience between them and with them that makes a place special. Designing an exciting, multigenerational, open-ended play space is a collaborative process that succeeds when the right people are engaged.  Landscape Architects have the ability to facilitate the design process and transform a cookie cutter “playground in a park” to an ageless, unique plaYce. This session was very well attended and both Zak and Alice really enjoyed sharing their thoughts and experiences on play design.