Plants as Preservation 
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationSanta Monica, California, United States
ClientCity of Santa Monica
Size1/4 acre

Santa Monica’s famous pier area draws visitors who often disregard pavement boundaries and compact the landscape soil. Palisades Park, adjacent to the iconic pier, is a particularly active site for cyclists and tourists that has long been in need of a planting strategy to discourage pedestrian overflow into the landscape. SWA’s defensive planting strategy tackles this perpetual headache for the City of Santa Monica. Three parcels of land are planted with agave, aloe, and other hardy, drought-tolerant species. The spikey shape of the plants discourages users from treading through the planting area, thereby alleviating the issue of compacting the soil. An existing ficus tree border frames the park, while fencing is strategically employed to keep users off of particularly sensitive areas.

Related Projects

Ricardo Lara Park

Ricardo Lara Park is a vibrant city park and a case study in landscape infrastructure.  It demonstrates how a small investment and creative thinking about landscape can transform the very infrastructure that has long divided and isolated a community into an amenity that unites it, offering much-needed environmental and recreational benefits.

Here, more ...

Homecrest Playground

Part of the larger Shore Parkway, an 816.1-acre collection of parks that stretches across Brooklyn and Queens, Homecrest Playground originally opened in 1942 with a baseball field, basketball courts, handball courts, and benches for community use. This park redesign focuses on providing different playground and recreation amenities for surrounding residents.

Guthrie Green Park

Guthrie Green transforms a 2.6-acre truck yard into a lively urban park in the heart of downtown Tulsa’s emerging arts district. Opened in September 2012, Guthrie Green has become the area’s leading destination, drawing 3,000 plus people weekly to activities that have enriched the urban experience and spurred district-wide revitalization. The high-performance ...

Bayou Greenways

As one of the largest U.S. cities, Houston’s sprawling, car-centric infrastructure is underpinned by a vast arterial system of over 2,500 miles of bayous—an untapped ecological feature that could redefine urban life.

Recognizing this potential, the Houston Parks Board worked alongside SWA to develop a visionary plan for nine central bayous as an i...

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

In the early 1970s, the National Park Service began the enormous task of creating a new national recreation area in the midst of an urban center—the San Francisco Bay Area, home to 4.5 million people at the time. Riding the wake of the environmental revolution of the late 1960s, the Park Service would need to find consensus among a wide range of constituents, ...

Guiyang Hot Springs

Guiyang Hot Springs, located in Guiyang City, China, brings together the rhythm of the Nanming River, and surrounding trails and trees to create a new urban ‘living room’ in the interstitial space created by new development and roadway infrastructure. Nestled into a mountainous site, the master planning addressed elevation changes of up to 100 meters and the e...

Lin'an High Tech Park

Lin’an Qingshan Lake Forest Technology Park offers a premier destination for high-tech and green-tech businesses. Designed in harmony with nature, this mixed-use community will foster productivity and connections to its physical and cultural setting, providing a vibrant mix of uses and a business culture appealing to a wide range of international enterprises. ...

Naftzger Park

Naftzger Park offers a contemporary and communal gathering space in downtown Wichita with enough variety to appeal to everyone.  Designed to activate an area of town between Old Town and a burgeoning new entertainment district, the park is at once an urban foyer and outdoor recreation room.  A contemporary pavilion can accommodate picnic tables by day and perf...

2019-09-04T18:04:08+00:00