Sustained Flight: Ecological Disc Golf Course Design, A Guide
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Date
2021-06-13
Authors
Greenwald, Hillary
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Abstract
Disc golf is a rapidly growing sport all over the world; it is played like
traditional golf, throwing a small frisbee, or disc, instead of hitting a ball,
and playing a course which weaves through forested and other natural areas
instead of across a manicured lawn. The attraction to the sport is attributed
to its accessibility, the low-impact exercise opportunity it offers, time spent
in nature, and its family friendly factor. During the last 10-15 years disc
golf has experienced exponential growth, and course installation has grown
alongside this increase in popularity. However, lack of official guidelines and
regulation have led to poor course design decisions in terms of ecological
preservation, leading to habitat degradation and other environmental
damage. This project explores disc golf course design through the lens
of environmental preservation. A merging of the fields of science and
design will be at the forefront of the methodology developed, with the
aim of demonstrating the importance and practicality of using scientific
data to inform design in ecologically sensitive areas, where disc golf
courses are often located. This project documents incidences of observed
environmental degradation occurring on disc golf courses and then uses a
landscape analysis methodology to develop a set of course design principles
which aim to mitigate said degradation. Those principles are then merged
with existing design principles to produce a new course plan in Oakridge,
Oregon.
Description
95 pages. Committee chair: Chris Enright
Keywords
Disc Golf, Landscape analysis, GIS analysis, Professional Disc Golf Association, Land degradation, Recreational land use, Land suitability, Disc golf course design, Raster analysis, Park design