Green Space: Pocket Park Design | 2015 National High School Architecture Competition: Recent activity

Walls are usually unfavorable in park design- as they segregate an area which is created for open space, create costs and in some cases harbor safety and security concerns. Your walls however are tasteful and represent the green initiative this project sought to attain.

Schools, like parks, are usually always built for function and forum with a budget. Borrowing ideas from a neighborhood school is useful in both feeling the vibe of an area, connecting the new to the old, and achieving design which the residents will be more likely to accept and enjoy.

Municipalities use what's called a comprehensive strategic plan to develop parks which are cohesive to one another. As important as it is to find what works in other places for a pocket park, its even more desirable to create a space which fits into its surrounding environment and community as a whole. Are there other pocket parks in Las Vegas that could loan inspiration or a theme to yours? Are there goals the city wishes to attain when designing parks? Make sure to find inspiration and information locally and not just from cities in other regions.

Thank you for your comment arch_crossen and to respond to your questions the existing site is just an empty lot of dirt and some weeds an bushes, if you would look at my collecting info. tab there is an overview of the existing site. In the aerial view of the site you can see that it is mostly empty except for some overgrowing grass and tress that are growing without maintenance. I chose this site because it was an empty lot that was in the center of an area of law offices and I thought by adding a feature such as a pocket park it could make the area more pleasing to not only the lawyers themselves but their clients. Due to the environment that this site was in I did choose to create a more passive park as I understand that working inside an office might be very stressing for many people, the other factor was that it was a place of professionals and although there is no problem with having kids in parks i believe that sometimes it is better to just have sometime to relax and smell the air then sit at a bench and possibly have to deal with the noise of children. I understand that most people want to see the overall floor plan of the park and do apologize for not including that detail, i thought of uploading an overview of the park however by that time the due date had passed and i did not know whether i would be able to and didn't wan to be unfair by uploading images after the due date.

Thank you for your thoughtful design. I can see aspects of your research connecting through into your final idea. I would like to know more about the site - what does it look like now? how do people use it? what are the existing conditions?. Understanding more about the existing site would help the observer to evaluate your design decisions with more specificity. Your presentation demonstrates strong technical skills and creates a park that one can imagine visiting. An overall floor-plan would be very helpful to help understand the entire park design and the flow of the features that you show so effectively in your digital model. Good work.

I like how you have several seating areas that provide a sense of privacy. The shading (both the artificial and natural) are placed properly and cover the seating areas. One can tell that the placement of these trees and structures were really thought out. Additionally, the plants you decided to use are great, it kept a common theme.

Overall, the design is great! It has enough shading to keep people cool, it's aesthetically pleasing, and so on.

I noticed you had a lot of pigeons in your park. I think if you had done the same thing, but with humans it really would have shown how the park would have been used.

This is definitely one of the better designs I've seen. The layers of greenery sort of create a beautiful escape from the outside world. Awesome design.

I really like the concept of a pseudo natural barrier, not only does it provide the privacy that the park required based on your design, but it is a great natural and sustainable barrier.