At Richmond Elementary, a beloved but heavily used corner of the schoolyard had become little more than a muddy hill. Through a pro bono collaboration with the school community, Ground Workshop reimagined the compact site as a nature-based play and gathering landscape—one that could withstand daily use while creating new opportunities for climbing, exploration, gathering, and connection to nature.
Working within the constraints of an active school campus, the design transforms the existing topography through boulders, planting, informal paths, and an amphitheater-like gathering space. A turf reading circle, donor-supported paving, and a native pollinator garden expand the ways students can inhabit the landscape, while careful grading, drainage, and erosion control address the underlying conditions that had made the hill difficult to sustain.
But the project’s most meaningful transformation came through its students. The children named their new landscape “Mt. Mochi,” and began making their own signs encouraging others to protect the plants and pollinators taking hold there. What began as an effort to repair a worn piece of schoolyard became something the students recognized as their own—a small landscape where play led to discovery, discovery to ownership, and ownership to stewardship.
Ground Workshop team: Tommy Solomon