Cottonwood Elementary School

Cottonwood Elementary is the prototype for a series of new elementary schools built in the Kennewick School District.  SPVV focused on providing a streamlined planting design that required minimal maintenance of shrub areas, and yet a dramatic vision of ornamental grasses, groundcovers, and trees that established Cottonwood as a new idea in K-12 landscape design. Challenged by a very windy site, extensive portions of the lawn areas adjacent to the building were irrigated with underground dripperline irrigation, minimizing overspray onto the glass and masonry surfaces of the building.  The playgrounds feature hard-surfaced play, soccer and softball areas, and inclusive play structures with fully accessible resilient-surfaced tiles.