The Green Effort
|When people think of a park, their first thoughts are usually drawn to a space with a children’s playground and a few benches. However, they can become so much more than that. It can be a place of restoration, peace, or gatherings. This park is going to reflect that. My hope is for it to become a place that will impact the community. In 2012, Bayonne built its first wind turbine in an effort to help promote “going green”. Since then, there hasn’t been much progression towards that idea. I hope to change that. I want to continue the idea of sustainability by creating a space where the community can be encouraged to do so. I only plan to use the rectangular space in the front of the lot, mainly for a community garden. This will help promote healthy living as well. There will be an ample amount of excess space behind this pocket park and hopefully it could eventually be used as Bayonne’s farmer’s market. There will be shaded seating inside of a small greenhouse. The greenhouse will allow the gardening to continue into the winter season. Another hope of this garden will be to strengthen the surrounding community by creating a place where the people can connect and share experiences. If someone is not interested in gardening, they will be able to sit and relax in the sun while being enveloped in a calm, natural environment.
Comments
Overall, the design of the park really reflected what was stated in the overview. The park demonstrated the integration of a garden to benefit the environment, and the design provided space for people to come and relasx!
Thanks for all your work to create a strong and thoughtful design scheme. It was easy to see the connection between your overview/concept phase and the final design. I would encourage you to dig a bit deeper into the possibilities that vegetation, grade change (topography), and seating can bring to your space. Your design aims to bring people together around food commerce - consider ways they can spend time together through added seating, etc. While I know you didn't want to focus on children as your key audience are there ways you could engage them in the space without typical "play structures" etc. Great work!