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.
SWA/Balsley created a master plan for the redesign of the north end of the park and final design and construction documents for the first phase of construction. The redesign of this beloved community space offers a fresh approach to today’s urban recreation needs, including separate spaces for 2-5 and 5-12-year-old play, spray play, and passive seating. The new playground embraces and exhibits NYC’s “Parks without Borders” initiative by creating welcoming entrance plazas in where 12-foot fences previously stood.
The design is very cognizant of the existing London plane trees that encircle the site, helping to define its character and offering welcoming shade for recreation and rest. Low-impact design strategies were implemented to preserve trees wherever possible.
Stormwater management strategies are incorporated throughout the site. Native plant material was used to reduce maintenance.
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston’s great civic resources containing a significant urban forest and many public venues. It is the flagship of the Houston Park system, serving the recreation needs of the City’s diverse population of some four million and welcoming over six million visitors a year. However, like many urban parks in America, much of Hermann Park has...
Bend of the River Botanic Garden
The Bend of the River Botanic Garden Master Plan reimagines an 88-acre site in Temple, Texas, into a regional attraction. Situated at the intersection of I-35 and the Leon River, the site comprises two donated parcels, consolidated to serve Temple’s growing population of over 96,000.
SWA led a comprehensive public engagement process, facilitating conver...
Resonant Memory: One October Memorial
Inspired by the shared love of country music that brought people from all over the world together for the Route 91 Music Festival, Resonant Memory is based on the shape of an acoustic guitar. The design makes particular use of the instrument’s sound hole as a recurring motif to represent absence, honoring the lives lost on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada...
Park 101
The ambitious Park 101 aims to cover part of downtown Los Angeles’ 101 Freeway with a multi-purpose park that will include playgrounds, seating, festival areas, and a plaza. The approximately four-block cap park will reconnect the two sections of Downtown that have long been separated by the freeway, greatly enhancing the currently noisy, with much-needed shad...