Description: SWA and John Kaliski Architects are providing landscape architectural and urban design services and advice to the Park 101 Phase 3 study, led by ELP Advisors. The study’s goal is to advance the project from the planning phase to the project implementation phase. SWA is an advisor on programming, design options, development, density, and managing the park’s interaction with pedestrians and vehicles on surrounding streets.
This project has been a truly collaborative and multi-disciplinary effort. Cap parks are increasingly seen as the future of green space in urban areas. SWA’s experience with on-structure parks in Asia has imparted important lessons for the future of urban parks and density in Los Angeles.
Perk Park
Originally completed in 1972, Perk Park is a vestige of IM Pei’s urban renewal plan. It was built in an era when the street was seen as a menace so parks turned inward. Rolling berms around the edges and sunken areas in the middle, filled with concrete retaining walls, reflected that era. Not surprisingly, the park fell into decline; abandoned by the neighborh...
Aitken Place Park
Aitken Place Park will be at the heart of Toronto’s East Bayfront Community – currently being transformed from an underutilized industrial brownfield into a vibrant waterfront neighborhood. Flanked by the residential development to the west and the commercial buildings to the north, the park’s water’s edge location presents a unique opportunity to create...
Skyline Park
After an extensive public dialogue on its original design and performance, the City of Denver decided on a redesign of Skyline Park, downtown Denver’s only public open spaces. The three-block-long, three-acre, linear park is at the center of downtown Denver and is bisected by the 16th Street Mall, a lively pedestrian space that connects many of Denver’s attrac...
Balsley Park
Located on Manhattan’s West Side, Balsley Park, formerly known as Sheffield Plaza, has been transformed from a barren, lifeless plaza into the community’s most cherished common ground.
Following public outcry and many failed attempts to redesign the plaza, Thomas Balsley Associates was hired to build community consensus around a new park-like image and ...