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The purpose of this practicum is to evaluate current standards for Winnipeg’s high school athletic field development, and suggest alternatives to conventional methods. This document is structured to support the argument of developing athletic fields to not only satisfy the needs of the school, but the needs of the surrounding community as well. Using active transportation principles as a guide, this practicum provides the opportunity to improve connectivity and circulation within an established Winnipeg neighbourhood. Furthermore, active transportation provides the framework to support a greater variety of recreational activities on a site that currently receives limited use. The final design serves as a proposal to perceive high school athletic sites as more than fields, but as a community resource within the larger network of the city-wide active transportation system. / October 2015

The majority of outdoor sports are played on natural turf pitches. Throughout the playing season, a pitch has continual player interaction, which, during periods of sustained unfavourable conditions, can cause the turf to tear up (shear) under player contact. This is most evident in Rugby Union scrummages, which create deep divots in the turf and rootzone that reduce player safety and are criticised by the media. However, little is known of the turf/rootzone strength to depth, termed 'shear stability' in this thesis, and there is currently no appropriate means to test this property. In order to explore the shear stability of turf, a device was designed and developed. The prototype device, termed the 'Shear Tester', underwent trial, validation and several redesigns until it was deemed suitable to investigate turf shear stability. A range of natural and hybrid constructions and laboratory-controlled samples were investigated, and the key variables found to influence the shear stability were grass rooting, water content and rootzone density.