Archinect - News

New York's Central Park to become site for climate change research

2022-01-24T14:16:00-05:00

The Central Park Conservancy, the Yale School of the Environment, and the New York City-based Natural Areas Conservancy have teamed up to launch a new initiative and climate partnership to study the impacts of climate change on urban parks. Called the Central Park Climate Lab, the program’s mission is to work with cities across the United States to implement and advance urban park strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“With about 55% of the world’s population now living in urban areas, urbanization plays an increasingly important role in how we manage and mitigate the impact of global climate change,” said Professor Karen Seto, professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of the Environment. “This collaboration aims to use mapping and other tools to develop urban interventions to protect their urban parkland and use them to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”

Currently, there’s no national standard for characterizing and mapping urban parkland...

Oklahoma City’s Scissortail Park embraces a city-to-nature approach

2019-10-19T18:00:00-04:00

Opened in late September, [Scissortail Park] is a new civic front yard on the edge of downtown, framing views of the city’s skyline with its concert stage and broad lawn. “It’s an aspirational park, in that it’s the kind of amenity that people in Oklahoma City used to imagine only existing in other places,” says Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.

Regarding the park’s generous, publicly-oriented design, CityLab’s Zach Mortice writes, “As a gathering space in the heart of the city, Scissortail Park aims to find a large and diverse audience with a wide range of features and landscape types. Pedestrian and biking paths alternately curve or slice across it, though nearly everything orbits the park’s ovular great lawn and concert stage venue.“

The transformative park is designed by Hargreaves Associates with architectural assistance from Butzer Architects and Urbanism.

Pelli Clarke Pelli development will reshape Toronto skyline

2019-07-01T14:46:00-04:00

Pelli Clarke Pelli, Adamson Associates, OJB Landscape Architecture, and developers Oxford Properties Group have unveiled plans for Union Park, a 4.3 million-square-foot marquee development that could reshape the Toronto skyline.

View of the proposed rail yard cap park. Image courtesy of Oxford Properties Group.

The multi-towered development will bring 3.3 million square feet of offices, 800 residential units, and 200,000 square feet of "high quality retail" to a central site in downtown Toronto. The development is arranged into three towers, with the project's two office skyscrapers designed as near-mirror images of one another. A third tower will include housing, including units designed specifically for families, as well as a new 8,500-square-foot daycare facility, among other amenities. The exact height of each of the towers has not been released, but renderings for the project indicate that Toronto's CN Tower will continue to live on as the city's tallest structure.

The project...

Redevelopment plans for L.A.'s Pershing Square shift

2019-06-25T12:13:00-04:00

Plans for the much-touted Pershing Square Renew project in Los Angeles appear to be shifting.

Curbed reports that three years after being selected as the winning entry for an international competition to redesign the five-acre postmodern urban park, a team led by French landscape architects Agence Ter has shifted gears. Pershing Square is the oldest park in Los Angeles and its latest iteration was designed in 1996 by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. The team's winning "radical flatness"-focused proposal has instead given way to a phased approach that will focus demolishing an existing concessions stand at the park in order to replace the structure with a new set of elevators serving the below-ground parking garage located beneath the park.

Pershing Square's latest iteration was designed in 1994 by Ricardo Legorreta. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user jjron.

The remaining plans involve other small fixes that focus on “taking down as many barriers as we can,” Debra Girod, a partner...

Francisco Pardo Arquitecto designs urban parks to revitalize neglected suburban neighborhoods in Mexico

2018-08-30T15:18:00-04:00

In Mexico City, a set of urban parks have been built on the city's outskirts to revitalize the neglected suburban neighborhoods in which they reside.

Designed by Francisco Pardo Arquitecto, the Mexico City-based firm has replaced a once contaminated water stream and paved lots with basketball courts, skate ramps, pavilions for public events, children’s playgrounds, and spots for a more general meditation.

Parque Héroes. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

Parque Colinas del Sol. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

"It is important to change not only the physical condition but also the perception of the space" said Francisco Pardo, who leads the eponymous firm behind the transformations. "As a designer, I believe that supporting local communities to achieve better public spaces for their families helps the greater community."

Parque Colinas del Sol. Photo by Jaime Navarro.

Using low-cost materials such as concrete, steel and cement blocks, the architects have created flexible space layouts that foster sponta...

National Geographic takes a closer look at the world's great urban parks

2016-04-04T15:01:00-04:00

This is the urban park of today. Unlike the neatly drawn public spaces of an earlier age, these parks are reclaimed from the discarded parcels of our cities: Stranded patches of woods, abandoned military bases and airports, storm-water systems, rail lines and bridges, places where scraps of land are pieced together like quilts or strung together like beads. The experimentation is global.

A critical look at Downtown L.A.'s ambitious plans for two new public parks

2016-02-26T21:24:00-05:00

One thing, though, is different this time around. These days the city and county are busy investing money and lavishing attention on public spaces across L.A. — and even producing some from scratch...In a range of ways, Southern California is beginning to make up for neglecting its public realm for the bulk of the postwar era.

With two park design competitions currently underway (linked below), Downtown L.A. is eager to boost its amount of green space. But will those ambitious plans pan out in a tricky cityscape? Christopher Hawthorne gives his two cents on the potential of each park.

Previously on Archinect:

Take a look at these bold visions for Downtown LA's next park

Pershing Square Renew competition narrows down to four finalist teams

The "Park Over the Highway" is now underway

2013-08-14T09:55:00-04:00

Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the start of the aptly named "Park Over the Highway" plan in St. Louis, Missouri earlier this month. The plan's objective is to connect the iconic Gateway Arch grounds and Downtown St. Louis by building a park over the Interstate-70, which has divided the city from the Mississippi waterfront for the past 50 years. Last month, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) awarded KCI Construction Company $26.4 million to begin construction. The project is expected to be done by Fall 2015.

As depicted in the rendering above, the extensive renovation project also involves re-routing roads, laying groundwork pedestrian and bike paths, and general enhancement of the landscape.

Funds for the entire $380 million plan came from public sources like federal grants and a voter-approved local sales tax as well as private contributions from major supporters like the CityArchRiver foundation.

U.S. Transportation ...

Copenhagen’s Superkilen Urban Park by BIG + Topotek1 + Superflex

2013-01-16T14:00:00-05:00

Earlier this week, we published the winners of the 2013 AIA Institute Honor Awards with eight projects from around the world being recognized in the category "Regional and Urban Design." One of the lucky award winners is Superkilen, an urban park master plan in Copenhagen designed by BIG in collaboration with landscape architects Topotek1 and artists' group Superflex.