• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Features
  • Campus News
  • CSUDH.edu
  • Contact
  • People
    • Staff Spotlight
    • Faculty Highlights
    • Alumni
  • Magazine
  • For Journalists
    • CSUDH In The News
    • Press Releases
    • Facts and Figures
    • Find Media Experts
    • Gallery
    • News Reporting on Campus

CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

You are here: Home / Archive / News / Groundsmen Turn Erosion Problem into Tiny Village on Campus

Groundsmen Turn Erosion Problem into Tiny Village on Campus

April 21, 2014

Chris Evans, Peter Chance and Fernando Goncalves created the magical landscaping on campus
Chris Evans, Peter Chance and Fernando Goncalves created the magical landscaping on campus

The winding walkway between the University Theatre and the Student Health Center has always been a lush, calming spot on campus, a place where people stop to enjoy the shade and tranquility. Now the path offers one more reason to stop.

If you didn’t know any better, you might think that a group of elves had discovered the spot too and decided to call it home. Tiny houses have popped up, as standalone dwellings, or tree houses, signified by colorful little doors in the trees, or as Hobbit-style houses embedded in rock. They even have planted a garden, and a ‘Central Park’ with a gazebo and chairs.

As a matter of fact, the elves are actually the university’s grounds crew, who has been transforming the area’s rolling hillside abutting the health center into the tiny village.

The idea grew from a need to solve an erosion problem in the area that was causing silt to clog the draining pipes that take water runoff from the health center. Taking the lead on the project was groundsman Peter Chance, who has had a vision for the location ever since testing coordinator Terry Molano put a plastic playhouse on the top of the mound four years ago.

“I remember walking down here one day and thinking it would be awesome to put a miniature village or fairy garden or FernGully,” Chance said, referencing a film about the magical inhabitants of a rainforest. “I’ve seen it in the back of my mind for years. I just would stand here and imagine: a house could go here, that could go here, and I started seeing some of the little nooks.

“So when they told me that we were having this silt problem with the last heavy rains and so forth, I said I could do this [idea of his] on a relatively inexpensive budget.”

One of the houses, made from an electrical box
One of the houses, made from an electrical box

Using found materials at the university’s Physical Plant facility combined with miniature style plants—including bonsai trees—and a lot of imagination, Chance, who is a bonsai specialist, and fellow groundsmen Fernando Goncalves and Chris Evans, brought the village to life. A tree stump topped with a saucer from a plant pot topped with moss were used to create the ‘gnome house,’ a broken concrete electrical box formed the main house at the top of the hill, small pieces of redwood were turned into stairs up to a treehouse door, a leftover wood plank became a bridge, and infield clay from when the baseball diamond was renovated was reused for the small roads and pathways.

To improve water retention to the area and prevent silt from the mound traveling to the main drain at the bottom, the crew has planted baby’s tear moss as the main ground cover, with impatiens flowers to add color. A simulated dry river bed at the bottom of the village is filled with dead plant material, called duff, which will hold the silt back and allow water to percolate through.

Chance and Goncalves have said it’s been fun to break up their normal workday routines with this project. They’ve also enjoyed the feedback from passersby who have already been affected by the additions.

Treehouses“It allows people to imagine and it kind of relieves stress. People have been talking to me about that ‘When I come here, I see it and I imagine and I just kind of calm down,’” Chance said of the reactions.

The village will continue to be a work-in-progress, with little touches added here and there as time and budget allow.

“I have a lot more ideas. I’d love to be able to put rope bridges between the two trees and make little higher level apartments. That would be cool,” said Chance, trailing off to wherever his imagination takes him.

 

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Administration, Art and Design, Faculty, Human Services, Staff, Students

Primary Sidebar

Social Media

Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram
LinkedIn
SOCIALICON

Recent Campus News

student and advisor at the CHHSN Success Center

New Student Success Centers Open Their Doors

In Conversation with Lauren Halsey

Amber Riley onstage

Amber Riley Shares Struggles, Triumphs at Presidential Distinguished Lecture Series

2022 Division II Conference Commissioners Association West Region Player of the Year Sulaiman Bah

Sulaiman Bah Named West Region Player of the Year

CSUDH student at computer

CSUDH Receives $5.3 Million to Address Digital Divide in the South Bay

... see all Campus News

Recently In the News

Students using microscopes

Insight into Diversity: California Grant Expands Health Professions Access for Underrepresented Students

January 4, 2023

Video still: 2:24 CSUDH can boast about graduating 5 current mayors

NBC4: CSUDH Can Boast about Graduating 5 Current Mayors

December 16, 2022

Recent graduates holding certificates from the Small Business Growth Academy

Daily Breeze: Carson Celebrates 1st Graduates of Small Business Growth Academy

December 16, 2022

... see all In the News

Footer

California State University, Dominguez Hills Logo

1000 E. Victoria Street, Carson, CA 90747
1-310-243-2001 • Send Email

Related Sites

  • csudh.edu
  • magazine.csudh.edu
  • gotoros.com

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Get CSUDH News directly in your inbox

Copyright © 2023 · California State University, Dominguez Hills