Urban Open Space Awards Announced
Annual Competition of Urban Land Institute
Reclaimed industrial land in Foshan, China was developed into Thousand Lantern Lake Park, a recreation destination that connects new city blocks to a series of lakes, canals and water alleys.
Two urban parks, Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City, and Thousand Lantern Lake Park in Foshan, China, have been selected as winners in the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) global 2015 Urban Open Space Award competition.
Thousand Lantern Lake Park
Location: Foshan, GuangDong, China
Owner: Nanhai District Government
Designer: SWA Group, et al.
Size: 286-acre
Thousand Lantern Lake Park is a defining infrastructural success that's integral to Nanhai's strategic approach to urban renewal. The design embodies creative solutions for attracting people to the newly constructed Guangdong financial high-tech industrial zone. The development epitomizes one of the greatest challenges similar third-tier Chinese cities face: how to retain a community's vitality when the city upgrades its industrial structure to modern functionality.
Sited on land reclaimed from old industrial uses, the park connects the new city blocks with a series of lakes, canals and water alleys for development properties, and drainage infrastructure. As the core piece of this public open space, Thousand Lantern Lake has become the primary destination for recreation, events and retail in the region, which should contribute significantly to the city's growth.
Myriad Botanical Gardens
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Owner: Myriad Gardens Foundation
Designers: OJB-Office of James Burnett, Murase Associates, et al.
Size: 15 acres www.myriadgardens.org
Between 2009-2011, Oklahoma City, in coordination with the Myriad Gardens Foundation and Alliance for Economic Development, invested over $42 million to transform the Myriad Botanical Gardens. The goals of the project were to take the highly-underused yet prime 15-acre urban downtown garden and park site that had fallen into disrepair, and completely redesign all outdoor areas into a beautiful, green and highly-active destination. The project is all about improving the quality of life in Oklahoma City and continuing the renaissance of the downtown.
Myriad Botanical Gardens, an underused yet prime 15-acre Oklahoma City downtown garden and park site that had fallen into disrepair, has been redesigned into a beautiful, green and highly popular destination.
The gardens offer a children's garden and playground, performance stages, a great lawn, interactive water features, restaurants, seasonal ice rink, multiple outdoor seating and tables and beautiful native plant and ornamental gardens. With year-round activities and events for all ages and diverse audiences the site now attracts over a million people a year. To maximize funding potential, a private/public partnership was formed, allowing the nonprofit Myriad Gardens Foundation to manage and direct revenue and fundraise to ensure financial stability and maintenance throughout the year.
The competition was whittled down to six finalists from an impressive collection of entries representing urban areas across the globe. While landscape architecture and urban design were factors in the judging, the jury selected finalists based on a broader set of criteria, including overall project performance and the impact of the sites on the neighboring communities. For an open space project to be eligible, it had to be open to the public for at least one year and no more than 15 years; be predominantly outdoors and inviting to the public; provide abundant and varied seating, sun and shade, trees and plantings with attractions; be intensively used throughout the year by a wide range of people; have a positive economic impact on its surroundings; promote physical, social, and economic health of the larger community; and provide lessons, strategies and techniques that can be used or adapted in other communities.
The other finalists:
- Marina Bay, Singapore
Owner/Designer: Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority
(Published as "Gardens by the Bay, Singapore," Landscape Architecture by Grant Associates, LASN, March 2014
www.landscapearchitect.com/research/article.php/19040)
- Millennium Park, Chicago
Owner: City of Chicago, Designer: Edward Uhlir, FAIA, et al.
(Published as "Chicago's Crown Fountain Is King of the Park," LASN July 2005
www.landscapearchitect.com/research/article.php/5410)
- Tongva Park and Ken Genser Square in Santa Monica, Calif.
Owner: City of Santa Monica. Designer: James Corner Field Operations
(This project received a 2014 Design Merit Award from the New York ASLA Chapter.) www.landscapearchitect.com/research/article.php/19001
- Washington Canal Park in Washington, D.C.
Owner: Canal Park Development Association, Inc. Designers: OLIN and STUDIOS Architecture, dcpc
The Urban Open Space Award award was created through the generosity of Amanda Burden, New York City planning commissioner and 2009 laureate of the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. In 2011, the Kresge Foundation, MetLife Foundation and the ULI Foundation joined forces to continue the ULI Urban Open Space Award.
The jury chairman was Michael Covarrubias, chairman and CEO of TMG Partners. Jury vice chair: M. Leanne Lachman, president, Lachman Associates, NYC. The other jurors were: Amanda Burden, principal, Bloomberg Associates, New York; Terrall Vern Budge, principal, Loci, Salt Lake City; Dr. Sujata Govada, managing director, UDP International; Wan Chai, Hong Kong; Jason Hellendrung, principal, Sasaki Associates, Watertown, Mass.; Sophie Henley-Price, managing director, STUDIOS, Paris; Lance Josal, CEO, Callison RTKL; Dallas; Jeff Kingsbury, managing principal, Greenstreet Ltd., Indianapolis; Jacinta McCann, executive vp, AECOM, San Francisco; Steve Navarro, executive vp, CBRE; Greenville, S.C.; and Trini Rodriguez, principal, Parker Rodriguez, Inc., Alexandria, Va.
