Award Winning Park: "Wade Oval"

Cleveland’s Wade Oval is just seven acres, but it is uniquely-situated amid many of the most important cultural institutions in the city, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Garden, and Cleveland Art Museum. Located in the University Circle neighborhood that is home to Case Western Reserve University, the Oval is at the center of a neighborhood that draws tens of thousands of students, patients and visitors daily.
At the request of University Circle, Inc., a local nonprofit planning and development organization, PPS worked with citizens in University Circle, institutional stakeholders and internationally renowned architects and designers hired to expand several of these institutions, to help the Oval’s adjacent uses benefit from their unique location on the Oval, and transform the Oval itself – and the boulevard around it – to become more welcoming to both visitors and the local community, and enlivened by events and activities programmed by the rich array of partners around it.

PPS recommended a plan to connect the institutions to one another and to the park, partly through small changes to building facades and outdoor areas that reveal more information about what's going on inside these buildings. Using PPS’s conceptual plan, University Circle, Inc initiated a $1.4 million renovation of the Oval, which was completed in October of 2003, revealing such improvements as new walkways, pathway lighting, benches, lampposts, drinking fountains, and a performance stage that blends in with the surrounding landscape. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s architecture critic, Steve Litt, wrote of the revitalized Oval “The transformation though modest in cost is astonishing. UCI has turned the park into a postcard-perfect amenity worthy of any city in the world.”

Return of the Occidental Tourist

excerpts from Seattlest

Yesterday Seattlest broke out of the office at noon, grabbed a Tats'trami and headed to Occidental Square. There's nothing like passing a short hour with a book and a gut bomb in a square... Actually, had a book along, but it was only cover for our real mission which was to watch all the little people go about their little lives and they happily obliged by showing up and staring back at us. What? Just eating a sandwich and reading over here. Nosy freak.

Earlier this week Seattlest got an email from the Project for Public Spaces who'd recently found a post of ours from last fall about the newly renovated Occidental Square, a renovation they had a hand in. They wondered if we had any updates to our first reactions. A bunch of trees were removed during the park's renovation--seventeen of them, exactly--which, in light of the P-I's article on Monday about the declining fortunes of the tree in Seattle, is pretty tragic.

Generally we're not in favor of the removal of urban trees, but it did help the square. Yesterday the sun came out just as we were arriving and it was leafy and bright at the same time. We had our book and the Tats'trami and when the couple at the table next to us started speaking Polish we thought for just a second that we might be back in the greatest square on the face of the Earth. But no.

It's not really the square's fault, though. You can mess with the leafy to sunny ratio for ever, but you're not going to change the fact that the businesses that surround the square are designed to be used once a month. If there were a few boutiques that opened directly into Occidental Square and maybe another cafe or four there would be a reason for people to meander around on a lunch hour. As things stand, it still seems like a really nice square that most people haul ass through en route to catching the first pitch. We're going head back for some more lunches, though, and maybe we'll grab a few coworkers on the way next time. It should be the best spot in or near Downtown for people watching and we're going to start doing our part by showing up.

A Trainspotter's Paradise

Birmingham Railroad Reservation Park
Forum for Urban Design

Some cities have a river; others have a harbor. In Birmingham Alabama, residents cozy up to an 11-track railroad corridor. Still very active, the railroad serves as a vital emblem of local history and character but also, by running through the heart of downtown, splits the city in half. To help stitch the downtown back together, Tom Leader Studio’s masterplan re-envisions the area as a park that puts Birmingham’s train infrastructure in the spotlight.

Tom Leader’s design concept for the park was apparent from the get-go. As principal of Tom Leader Studio, he explained that “rather than sticking a park next to a rail viaduct and calling it a day, the idea was to put primary park circulation up at the level of the train because they love trains. [Birmingham residents] actually go on weekends and trainspot on some of these overpasses.” Using this quirky hobby as a cue, the firm aimed to provide greater access to the trains by designing a catwalk structure that runs parallel to the rail corridor. The park, which will cover a total of 21 acres, is organized into different zones with themes of rail, community, and nature. Besides the rail catwalk, the plan features a community-oriented segment at the eastern end that includes an amphitheater with a whimsical rain curtain, an arts plaza and a stage platform for regional events such as Birmingham’s celebrated “Crawfish Boil.” The middle and western edge fulfill the “nature” piece of the vision through a zone of open space with several knolls that Leader describe as waves that “rise up and down against the railroad track.” Though filled with intimate and unique details such as the wave-like hills and the rain curtain, the park’s strongest asset still remains its dynamic rail-oriented circulation.

For the Railroad Reservation Park, Tom Leader Studio collaborated with ConsultEcon, and Tom Martin economic planners for the client, the City of Birmingham Mayor’s Office. Currently, the plan is being further developed through schematic designs, and construction is projected to begin later in 2007.