“The vision for Martin Luther King Jr. Square leverages site design to demonstrate a different future for storm water management in Conway. The park will transform a brownfield site plagued by flooding into a lively storm water park and cultural asset for the city.”
– City of Conway, Arkansas
The City of Conway received local and federal grants to create a water quality demonstration park in a flood-prone, one-block area of its downtown to educate the public about Low Impact Development (LID) and Green Infrastructure (GI) methods and how they can enhance water quality. The project transformed a remediated brownfield site, subject to seasonal flooding, into a 300-square-foot urban public space that showcases how LID/GI techniques work with nature to manage rainwater as close to its source as possible, using a variety of measures to slow, filter, infiltrate, and evaporate the runoff in this low-lying area. Martin Luther King Jr. Square is artfully engineered to be a unique demonstration of an urban setting functioning in an environmentally responsible way, reducing nonpoint source pollution in the Lake Conway-Point Remove watershed and delivering ecosystem services such as air quality regulation, water regulation, water infiltration, erosion control, nutrient cycling, and recreation. LID/GI methods that were implemented include permeable hardscapes, vegetated living walls, bioswales, and rain gardens. The project also includes workshops, videos, and informational graphics to help educate the public about water quality.
Milton Street Park
Milton Street Park is a 1.2-acre linear urban park alongside the Ballona Creek Bike Trail in Los Angeles, California. The plan incorporates numerous green-design elements, including the use of recycled materials, native planting, flow-through planters and treatment alongside the 1,000-foot-long, 45-foot-wide stretch of land. A variety of special elements such...
King Salman Park
The largest urban public park ever built, King Salman Park is a defining element of Saudi Vision 2030—an ambitious effort to transform Riyadh into a more livable, sustainable, and globally competitive city. Envisioned as the “Green Lung of Riyadh,” the 16.6-square-kilometer park spans seven times the size of London’s Hyde Park and five times that of New York’s...
Evelyn’s Park
In honor of their late matriarch Evelyn, the Rubenstein family donated a historically and geographically prominent five-acre tract on the busy Bellaire Boulevard and created a conservancy to fund a public park with primarily private funds, while engaging the public in its design and development. This park seeks to be reflective and adaptive to the local cultur...
Gantry Plaza State Park
Once a working waterfront teeming with barges, tugboats, and rail cars, the Hunter’s Point shoreline slowly succumbed to the realities of the Post-Industrial Age and this spectacular site was left to deteriorate. Thomas Balsley Associates, together with Weintraub di Domenico, envisioned Gantry Plaza State Park as a place that celebrates its past, future, skyli...