The Chill Spot is a co-created outdoor art installation and community gathering space at San Lazaro Park Properties manufactured housing community (MHC). It evolved from EAC’s OASIS (Opportunities in the Arts, Science, Inspiration, and Sustainability) program, which offers a variety of activities co-developed with, by, and for participants.

It was initiated and later named by San Lazaro middle and elementary school youth. When we asked what they really wanted and needed, they said “a place to chill and hang out” and (for the younger kids) a new swing set too.

The Chill Spot was made possible through a collaboration between EAC; San Lazaro youth, parents, volunteers, and management; students and faculty from the University of Colorado Program in Environmental Design (CU ENVD); Airworks Studio artists Melanie Walker and George Peters; and retired landscape architect/planner Ann Moss; among many others.

Once completed, it will include shaded seating areas, a mini-performance platform, a playground, and a summer space for showing Spanish (and English) language movies selected by San Lazaro residents.

The full Chill Spot project was co-developed through an iterative back and forth process that included six phases.

First, we held three design workshops for 5^th to 9^th graders in the San Lazaro Community Room, led by award-winning retired landscape architect/planner Ann Moss with the assistance of CU ENVD students. Youth offered their Chill Spot ideas on illustrated “dream boards” that they then presented at a community dinner to San Lazaro parents, families, and other adults for more comments and additional input.

Second, the dream boards and other input were used to inform the CU ENVD students’ own designs, drawings, and architectural models for the Chill Spot, which they then presented to the San Lazaro community for suggested revisions.

Third, the CU students incorporated the suggested new revisions before presenting their work at the CU ENVD end-of-semester open house attended by the general public. During this phase we brought San Lazaro youth on three arts/design field trips, each including several destinations, among them CU ENVD, a net-zero home, the Denver Art Museum, and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.

Fourth, thanks to numerous San Lazaro volunteers, construction began in the fall of 2019 under the guidance of volunteer architect Matthew Maher and others including digging, pouring concrete, and building gabion (stone) walls.

In January of 2020, the recycled plastic lumber for the platforms was delivered by Green Tree Plastics in Indiana, just in time for a series of snowstorms – and then COVID and other challenges hit.

Fifth, during COVID, we were able to meet in simultaneously interpreted English/Spanish zoom meetings with members of the Mamás Leónas San Lazaro advisory group and artists Melanie Walker and George Peters of Airworks to tweak the Chill Spot design to make it more financially feasible.

Sixth, now that the revised design has been approved by all, we are in the last phase and final stretch. The courtyard walls are painted. In the spring, the pergola shading structures will be built, the movie screen mounts installed, and in June we plan to have our grand opening and celebratory thanks for all those who contributed so much.

Plus, the little kids not only have a new swing set, but also slides, a climbing wall, and a whole set of nearly new playground equipment thanks to the spotting of Matthew Maher and the in-kind donation of The Academy on Mapleton Hill.