Costa Mesa-based David Volz Design (DVD) isn’t your usual architectural firm.
Instead of designing offices or other buildings, it builds parks of all types that can feature anything from a pirate ship to a jet to splash pads.
“We just like making parks,” DVD Principal Eric Sterling told the Business Journal during a visit to its office.
“We’re creating parks that are destination parks, not just for the community but for the city.”
DVD has designed more than 100 parks and playgrounds in the past 26 years.
The 18-employee firm is designing about 20 parks this year.
Its projects have included Lions Park in Costa Mesa, Primrose Park in Temple City and the Cypress Street Median. It redesigned the 52,000-square-foot lawn area in the Irvine Civic Center into a “California friendly landscape.”
It’s currently planning a 4-acre dog park in Santa Ana, which will be the largest in Orange County.
“For us, the opening day is a big deal,” Sterling said.
“Fun is a key element. We’re trying to get people out of their houses. We’re trying to get kids go outside and be active.”
Destination Parks
While in prior decades parks were homogenous, nowadays they have become “destination parks” with specific themes.
“People don’t want to see the same playground in each park,” Sterling said.
The company has gained a following on a Mom-focused blog group that wants to know where all the cool parks are located.
“‘Instagramable’ is becoming a word for us,” Sterling said.
In other words, people want moments in the park where they can take photos.
Sterling saw this firsthand when he worked as a landscape designer for Disneyland Resort, where he helped design the landscape and artscape on the Avengers campus, a detail-heavy land that opened in Disney California Adventure in 2021.
Disney often focuses on designs that become “Instagramable moments” where visitors pose in front of certain areas for photos, he said.
“Every aspect of that photo is set up,” Sterling said. “It’s very important because they’re selling experiences that they cannot get anywhere else.”
“What makes a destination park is pulling all these elements in a creative way,” said Kevin Volz, director of innovation and technology and son of founder David Volz.
Popular Amenities
The company conducts outreach in a variety of tech-savvy ways to find what residents want in their parks. It has set up QR codes and links where residents gain online access to the latest information about important projects.
Residents are urged to take online surveys and leave feedback about what is most important to them.
“We use technology and maps to push into new frontiers,” Volz said.
What do people want in parks?
“Tennis is still popular while pickleball is up and coming,” Sterling said. “Bocci ball saw its heyday three or four years ago. Cornhole has taken over.”
In pickleball, spectators want to be close to the action, so shade is necessary. The firm also designs reservation systems for pickleball.
Basketball was popular in the 1980s and ’90s until courts were removed because of misuse or lack of use. Nowadays, they’re coming back as half courts with different color surfaces, similar to what’s being seen in the NBA.
The trend for play equipment is “multi-generational.”
“It’s a play structure that grandma and grandpa can literally get on,” he said. “It’s trying to get grandma and grandpa involved so activities that can be done together.”
STEM Parks
Besides parks, DVD also designs the outside areas of commercial buildings.
“We’re everything that’s outside a facility,” Sterling said. “What we’re doing is tying the building to the environment.
“It’s a combination of art, engineering, math, biology and chemistry all in one. STEM is what we do.”
DVD recently completed landscape architectural services for the Acrisure Arena, which serves as the home venue for the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the AHL affiliate of the NHL Seattle Kraken Hockey Team. This 27-acre facility showcases resort-style entrances and tailgate plazas.
One of its bigger projects currently is the landscaping that will surround the new Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center in Glendale.
“It’s a world-class building, and we want to respect the look and feel of it by coordinating with their design team,” Sterling said.
The plans will include a 700-seat amphitheater, two playgrounds for specific age groups, outdoor café seating and umbrellas, pocket plazas, splash pads, concrete pillars and vegetation.
The designers like date trees.
“Date palms are essentially the beginning of civilization, going back to the Assyrians,” Sterling said.
The firm makes decisions on a wide variety of subjects such as providing lines of sight for security videos to using fake grass, which requires far less water, chemicals and maintenance.
“We need plant material that’s durable and maintainable. We want things that are attractive but meet water use,” Sterling said. “We have to work with a certain level of due diligence. We cannot overburden city on maintenance.”
A Home Run Park
DVD designed the Rick Gomez Park, which was on some leftover land near a freeway in Buena Park, to be like a baseball field.
Kids can run the bases and climb on a large glove and bats in the infield. Half-buried baseballs of all shapes are spread out in the dirt.
The city named the park after Rick Gomez, a beloved longtime coach and youth advocate whose favorite saying, “Get your mitts” adorns the sign behind the large baseball casting.
“There is so much cool stuff in that park,” Sterling said. “We have seats from Dodgers Stadium and Angel Stadium. Play equipment is located in outfield area.
“It’s very popular. The park became a living thing. It’s really cool to see.”
