Photo Credit: David Williams
Parks are open opportunities—whether small or large, they host a range of human experiences. Park programs can be specific or open-ended or a combination of both. It then falls to the design team to realize these goals, giving them material, shape, and form. The designer’s highest purpose is to bring value to a community-shared landscape. Sometimes that may take a minimal hand—the preservation of natural areas and open space—and sometimes it involves more complexity and intervention. What are different ways to build up value in a park project, particularly in an urban setting, so that it has more meaning to more people for a long time?
In John Gaines Park in central Austin, Texas, Stanley Studio and its team of collaborators found an opportunity to build layers of value by designing a project whose parts serve multiple purposes, actively and passively. A new, 3.6-acre neighborhood amenity completed in 2016, forged from the turf of an old airport runway field, the park provides general and specific programs—open greens, swim center, community garden, playground, and picnic groves—for residents of the Mueller development and surrounding Austin population.
With initial program requirements met, architects Lars Stanley and I worked along with Pharis Design (Landscape Architect) to select special sub-consultants for custom concrete work, photovoltaics, green roof design, and rainwater-system design; incorporating additional elements to the project effectively added “stealth” programming. Stanley Studio looked to a variety of precedents to inform the design, from the site’s urban history as the city’s original municipal airport to the sustainability zeitgeist of Austin’s modern age. The final result showcases deep-green strategies, echoes of its land use past, and a high level of building craft and materiality, all of which produce a unique park aesthetic and experience. It achieved a 4-star rating from the Austin Energy Green Building program and almost net-zero energy capacity.