Magical Mistakes: Embracing Unexpected Moments of Joy in the Urban Landscape - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)

Recorded On: 10/11/2025

Sometimes the best-laid plans and the most carefully articulated details go awry! Join three women leaders in practices at the forefront of urban park and playscape design in a vulnerable and productive conversation about embracing the learning that comes from seeing playful unexpected uses of the built environment.

Learning objectives:

Understand how embracing a “safe to fail” mentality, while covering all the bases on standards, can lead to the most playful outcomes by addressing the gray area of code interpretation.
Connect unexpected uses and surprising moments or “mistakes” in design to learning that can enrich the design of playful urban spaces and encourage repeat visits.
Recognize when to learn from mistakes while balancing risk. Participants will learn about play areas, public realm, and the need for pushing boundaries.
Learn techniques to lead clients through a creative process for innovative non-prescribed outcomes while leaving room for mistakes and necessary adjustments.

Gretchen Wilson, ASLA, PLA, LEED AP

Principal | Co-Founder

Dig Studio

Gretchen Wilson, PLA, ASLA, LEED AP, is a co-founder and Principal of Dig Studio with offices in Denver, Phoenix, and Spokane. Gretchen is dedicated to utilizing the power of public space to bring diverse communities together, improve health and well-being, connect people to healthy foods, create resilient habitats, and improve the environment. She is involved with CU Denver through scholarships, teaching, lecturing, jurying, and serves on the Master of Urban Design Advisory Council. Gretchen served as Colorado’s Trustee from 2021-2024. She is currently a Master of Science in Environmental Science candidate at CU Denver focusing on water and ecosystem science.

Kate Tooke, ASLA, PLA

Principal

Agency Landscape and Planning

Kate Tooke, a landscape architect and principal of Agency Landscape + Planning, has focused her career on the intersection of community and public space. She leverages a diverse background as an educator, an engineer and a landscape architect into a practice unabashedly passionate about connecting people to the urban environment. Kate’s listening-oriented approach to project leadership as well as her strategic thinking, design eye, and technical acumen have been instrumental in the success of diverse projects ranging from master-planning to site-scale work and extending coast-to-coast. She is a prominent national voice in the movement towards contextual adventure playgrounds.

Melissa Erikson, ASLA, PLA

Principal, Director of Community Design Services

MIG

Melissa is a landscape architect, coordinates MIG's landscape architectural practice, and a member of MIG's Play Studio. She is serious about play - we need more! Focusing on the public realm, she designs for people of all ages and abilities in a diverse range of outdoor spaces from parks and plazas to trails and streets—with the common purpose of connecting people to nature and fostering positive associations to story, memory, and place. A collaborative problem-solver, Melissa finds inspiration in bringing together multiple disciplines and perspectives to create designs that respond to the physical, environmental, and cultural characteristics of a site.