Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Los Angeles is in for a lot of (proposed) change, especially in its downtown core. Yesterday, the City of L.A. announced Mia Lehrer + Associates and OMA as the winners of a competition to design a new public park called the FAB Park...Proposed for the well-trafficked streets of First and Broadway in downtown L.A., the 1.96-acre FAB Park will integrate “the themes of food, art, and land.” — Bustler
Find out more on Bustler.Previously on Archinect:Take a look at these bold visions for Downtown LA's next parkA critical look at Downtown L.A.'s ambitious plans for two new public parksAgence Ter and Team wins Pershing Square Renew with “radically flat“ proposal View full entry
“Shady,” “unethical,” “secretive,” “robbed of our due process” — these were just a few of the choice terms used by angry residents this past week at a packed City Council meeting about the selling of Pine Tree Park [in Kent, outside of Seattle, WA].
Longtime Seattle land-use attorney Rick Aramburu has another term for what happened: illegal. It’s also a growing trend in the swath of cities around Seattle, places that no longer receive much scrutiny from the press.
“It’s becoming a cancer"
— seattletimes.com
More on recent (legal) park development:A critical look at Downtown L.A.'s ambitious plans for two new public parksTalking parks with Adrian Benepe, senior vice president of The Trust for Public LandTransforming a garbage heap into a public parkAmbitious L.A. Parks Plan Will Require Coordination... View full entry
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. — L.A. Times
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... View full entry
The Hills on Governors Island will welcome visitors this summer — nearly a year ahead of schedule, it was announced last week — and add 10 acres of green space to the city, largely in the form of four artificial hills. Made of recycled construction debris and clean fill, the hills rise as high as 70 feet above the island...An unseasonably warm fall contributed to faster-than-expected construction times. — NextCity
You can find more photos and renderings from the Governors Island's Flickr here and here.Scroll down for a drone video of the park under construction.More about public parks on Archinect:Pershing Square Renew competition narrows down to four finalist teamsBIG unveils 28-acre master plan for... View full entry
Before becoming senior vice president for The Trust for Public Land in 2012, Adrian Benepe spent 11 years working as New York City Park Commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, overseeing such projects as the High Line, Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Central Park's renovation... View full entry
Since the capping and closure of Fresh Kills’ five mounds, this 2,200-acre expanse of wetlands, marshlands, dry lowlands, forests, and grasslands has evolved into an unusual combination of natural and engineered beauty. — urbanomnibus.net
Originally a patch of creeks and marshland on the western shore of Staten Island, the area now known as Fresh Kills became a major landfill for New York City in 1948, once Robert Moses bought the land for housing development. His plan was to solidify the marshland with waste for a few years, and... View full entry
