Did you like write out the script?

Brian has not seen the PowerPoint presentation during the presentation.

Every slide is going to be a good thing.

All right, everybody, we'll go ahead and get started with the uh since it is 5 30.

We'll go ahead and get started with the city council study session for Tuesday, August 4th, 2026.

Welcome everybody that's here in person and uh watching or listening at home.

We have two items on the agenda.

The first one is a discussion with the University of Oklahoma School of Architecture Construction Science.

Um School of Architecture Construction Science regarding student projects in city parks.

And we have Parks Director here to lead us in that discussion.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council, for letting us present today.

Jason Olsen, Director of Parks and Recreation, and I got Brian Bloom with the University of Oklahoma School of Architecture here with uh with me.

We're gonna talk uh really quickly about a potential partnership between uh the School of Architecture and Norman Parks, uh very exciting thing that has a lot of possibilities, I think uh beyond just this year.

But uh we're gonna um try to hop into this as a possible partnership with um them um helping us with things like shelters, stages or future uh build projects that we can do inside parks.

So I um I'll let Brian talk a little bit about the the uh American School of Design that's at OU.

Cool.

Thanks, Jason.

Thank you everybody for the time today and tonight, I guess whatever time it is.

Um I teach in the construction science division and the school of architecture.

Uh I'm a professor and uh I teach several classes there.

One of which uh is a program that's called the American School Design Bill, which is sort of uh homage to Bruce Goff and some people that were doing some things in and around Norman several decades ago.

But we we run a program, this will be our 10th year now, um, where we um task fifth year architecture students to um work with a community partner as well as a handful of uh fourth year or senior construction science students to build a real project for um uh for a partner.

So we've worked for nonprofits, we've worked for uh tries, we've worked for schools, um, and so our our program is is parallel to uh the school calendar.

So our clients uh sort of come to us in the summer, uh, we meet directly uh with them, and then by the time we show up in the fall, the students are sort of ready to launch into some problem that we've created or some facility for them.

So this is uh a real uh project.

A lot of them have never realized one of their designs before or even built something physically with their hands, so it's it's it's certainly an educational model.

Uh not unique, like there's other schools that do this.

Uh Auburn probably had the flagship program with Rural Studio.

Um University of Colorado has a program, but we we've been doing this for nine years.

We kind of resurrected an old program that used to exist in our college.

Um but but we start in September.

Uh we work uh pretty quickly to come up with a design concept for our clients.

Uh, and then generally by September, beginning of October, we've settled in on what we're gonna do, and we're we're starting uh work.

And so we start foundation work in the fall, and then um by the end of December, we sort of got foundations and slab done, and then the spring we come back and finish uh finish the build up the build out.

Um we we exclude things that we like can't do from a licensing standpoint, like mechanical electrical plumbing.

Our projects are typically uh uh we scroll through scroll through some of these um kind of like foundation shell uh structure, so things like um um pergolas, greenhouses, outdoor classrooms.

Uh we've done fully enclosed projects as well.

But um, you know, our squeak we we kind of bite stuff off that's in the 600 to 1200 square feet scale, something that we know we can deliver in a semester's time.

Uh the model is that we uh donate the students labor uh 100%.

Uh there's no no labor cost to our clients.

Um the clients typically provide material and any heavy rental equipment that we would need to execute the work.

Um and and and generally it's it's really been overall positive process.

Our students are like super hyped and stoked to get to work on this.

You'll probably not find more motivated like builders coming fresh out of school and wanting to see something get done.

Um and then sometimes our clients will have things they want to add after, um, and we kind of accommodate things like that.

But generally, um we we've done a range of project scopes and scales, anything from like 10 or 15,000 the first year to uh 80 or 90,000.

That sort of that's kind of the range of projects that we've done.

We we typically like people come to us with bigger projects, but we can't generally get them done in two semesters.

So this definitely has to sort of start and finish during the school calendar year.

But um, one thing that Jason and I have talked a lot about is the um sort of the immersion that the students would get in the municipal process, which is something we're also trying to get our students more awareness about.

And so working with you guys and you guys is helping us educate what students need to know as they're kind of coming out and working on real projects that are going to go through permitting and all that stuff.

So that's kind of the quick um the quick we want to go into the project we talked about.

Yes, exactly.

Um Brian missed rehearsal today, so he doesn't know what slide is next.

Uh but as we started talking about uh the relationship with parks.

So the what's really cool about the possibility working with the school of architecture and having this is that we have 70 parks.

Uh we have a an abundance of projects that they'll probably never be able to catch up to, so that we know that the coming into a year um we'll always have something for them to do.

You either it's a shelter or a stage or or some minor adjustment that we look at as minor that um is big for them in the park system.

And so what we honed in to this year uh for their project is in conjunction with the TSEC Kids Space Playground Project is that uh we're gonna go over there and uh in that section where where the playground's going to get built, it's gonna be a complete clean slate.