We'll start by backtracking a whopping 6 weeks to get this thing started. I'm Colin, and this is my next door neighbor Katharine. Like many of Louisville's public schools, Highland Middle School was suffering for a little grounds keeping in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak and abrupt end to the in-person school year. After commuting past the overgrown field for several weeks, we hatched a plan over drinks one night to do a little guerilla landscaping. We were growing more stir crazy by the day trying to keep our kids amused without just plugging them into devices all day, so a lawn maze seemed as good an affordable and convenient outdoor amenity as we could bring to life in short order. We grabbed our two mowers, gas tanks, and water bottles early on Saturday, May 30th to mow that emerging prairie into a labyrinth that would hopefully serve us and our neighbors well.
Those poor mowers did their duty, barely, and after a few hours we had our first lawn maze, complete with frustrating dead ends, backtracking routes, and one circuitous winning path. We managed to make a few friends along the way, first our family friend Madison randomly appeared on riding mower to carve the #teamky graphic. After a lunch break we brought the families and some friends over to give it a try. Beyond the winning pace being set at about 6 minutes for a first time run (and she did run to get that time), we were visited by our new buddy Adam, who just happened to be flying his drone at Bellarmine University nearby. He graciously created the video included above, which was really fun to see this creation from the sky since it was deceptively inconspicuous from the ground.
The Highland maze had a great two week run, and now lives on only as the ghostly remains of the trails worn into the otherwise well trimmed lawn. However, Katharine and I were hooked, and already on the hunt for our next creation.
We'll be building this page up in the coming days and weeks, so if you'd like to know more in the short term please check out our MĀZ facebook page
If you'd like to know a little more about the work I do when I'm not mowing mazes, please check out my firm's website: www.jrarchitects.com
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