Dan Zen lives in Dundas (Hamilton), Ontario, Canada and is surrounded by ravines as Hamilton is the Waterfall Capital of the world. Zen is often in the woods thinking about how we could make use of the ravines for recreation. Let's see some of the many videos and view a few private sketches of ideas.▲ Recreational Ravine Sketch showing Zen's house at top center. The local neighborhood is encouraged to use the recreational ravine for exercise, ecological, social and artistic activities. They would get there via bike or walking. Recreational Ravines would be created primarily with hand tools and natural local products. Zen proposes a number of guidelines as well as guidelines on how to change guidelines. Please find more information here: Recreational Ravines Site▲ Sketch for Hamilton Escarpment. A whimsical look at exciting ideas for the 100m tall escarpment - a little larger than most ravines but still slope based activities such as slides and exercise tracks using gravity.
▲ Zen Vlog (2006) as seen on the Recreational Ravines site introducing the beauty of ravines and the concept of recreational ravines at the early stages of conceptualization: (requires Flash) View Vlog▲ Video of Dan Zen in woods (~2012) briefly discussing hammock nests in trees, scramblings, footprint, amphitheaters in ravines, pine needles, hose bead decorations, too much preservation, clay pits, rope ties, Ewok villages, tree climbing, net tubes, gurus, etc.
▲ Quick Video of Dan Zen at Ravine (2015) - Mud Sliding and Hanging Baskets. Dan Zen has dozens of videos about Recreational Ravines and many could do with some editing. The original ideas from this video come from other visits around 2012. This video is a shorted enactment of the earlier one. During the formative ravine times, Zen worked with an invention called Meta Editing where he would record shorter summaries one after the other and then present them in reverse. He will save some content for an exhibit on Meta Editing.
▲ Sketches showing some ideas for hanging environments, climbing activities with used soccer balls, Tree Chi - a form of Tai Chi to take on shapes of trees and river stilts to cross a stream. Zen tried the river stilts and did not quite get them to work.
▲ Sketches showing various activities and systems to use in Recreational Ravines.
▲ Video about Scrambling. Slopes are ideal for scrambling exercise. Go on all fours and move up, down and along. Zen encourages people to scramble with their head facing down the slope. Slopes are safer than walls or cliffs and slopes are all over the place! And there are many angles of ravines.
▲ Sketch of arm hooves for scrambling. These have old shoes on them - but after prototyping below, the shoe might not be needed. Once again, these are for your arms and hands - not feet.
▲ Prototype of arm hoof for scrambling.
Recreational Ravines
