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The Thunder Hill Speedway project marks the first semester-long collaboration between the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Tribal TAB and the Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ School of Design.

The visioning process emphasizes listening to community input, encouraging open idea sharing and translating ideas into sketches and images with expert support. Presenting various design options initiates dialogue and allows the community to influence the final plan. The process also enables community leaders to make informed decisions when collaborating with professionals on design and construction.

The SDSU team includes four faculty members and 11 students from landscape architecture, architecture, interior design, graphic design and studio art. This hybrid internship and interdisciplinary model is new for all participants.

Prior to visiting, students learn about the community’s history from tribal members, the background of TAB and Tribal TAB, and the importance of listening, learning, respect and translating spoken ideas into visual stories. Shifting students’ roles from experts to translators is essential, fostering a unique learning environment and respectful community engagement.

Students and faculty use hand-drawing techniques to sketch design ideas. These hand drawings, with their imperfections, encourage conversation and signal that ideas are still evolving, unlike the sense of finality from computer-generated images. Presenting multiple schematic options allows the community to visualize their ideas and supports deeper discussions about community goals. Student engagement with the community creates a collaborative atmosphere, where community members support student learning with openness and sincerity.

Rustic Event Center

The Rustic Event Center plan offers programming for rental spaces, education and camping. This scheme provides opportunities for people to learn about the land and the relationship between plants, animals and people.

Visitors enter from the north and park their car among the Three Sisters to celebrate both history and agriculture. This area provides opportunities for people to learn about the land, the relationship among the plants and the ways in which we can support new growth. A utility shed and display greenhouse provide both the support and celebration spaces to maintain the gardens. Trails connect these agricultural areas to cabins around the enlarged ponds. On the eastern edge of the property, those who maintain the land have cabin spaces.

For the bowl of the racetrack, we have regraded the topography to allow easy access into the central area. Once within the existing track, visitors can turn south to enjoy events in a small complex of rustic buildings or to the north to explore the animal enclosures. To the east, service deliveries can access the event space without disrupting the events on the site. The remaining hillsides are used for grazing animals, an evergreen privacy screen for the events and an orchard to the south providing a scenic backdrop for the events.

Rustic Event Center Proposal (PDF)

Sports and Housing

This theme brings together two concepts in a harmonious design: housing and sports. A small residential development with shared community space sits on the west side. To the entry to the north, residents can drive towards their homes to the west, while visitors drive east to the sports complex.

Utilizing the hills around the racetrack, the main building greets visitors at the upper level with a welcome area and gym, while a pool sits inside the building at the bottom of the racetrack. The lawn area is the first two multiuse sports fields. As the visitors park to the east side of the sports area, the hills on the other west side of the bowl allow for new prairie.

The residents can access the sports complex area through the main road trails. The residents also have a small lawn area and covered parking within their land, as well as a community building and playground. The community building could allow space for laundry and community rooms for social events.

Sports and Housing Proposal (PDF)

Ecological Tourism

The ecological tourism theme offers many ways to attract regional visitors, who can experience the site for a long day or an overnight stay. Classroom activities include learning about plants, equestrian training, and agriculture and livestock. Through on-site activities, groups and visitors have the opportunity to learn about the land and each other.

Visitors enter the site from the north and can immediately park. A drop-off, accessible pathway and inviting signage guides visitors up the hill west of the existing racetrack to the welcome center. Horse stables line the opposite side of the racetrack, with training and longer-distance trails. This area has a trailer and drop-off area for the stables. Within the central bowl of the track, the lawn offers space for rodeo games, animal education and other recreation opportunities.

A golf cart style pathway connects the buildings to a botanical garden near the welcome center and visitor yurts in the south. An additional trailway meanders from the botanical gardens to journey around the ponds, allowing visitors to admire a new stream connecting the ponds and the healing process near the scenic site. Along these trails, visitors can enjoy birding, resting near the ponds and even active forms of recreation like high ropes courses or ground obstacle courses.

Ecological Tourism Proposal (PDF)