Hawthorne Park
The first new park built in Philadelphia in 20 years.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Client: Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Fairmount Park Conservancy
Size: .75 acre
Project status: Complete 2012.
Project team: Ground Reconsidered (Project Prime), The Lighting Practice, Klein and Hoffmann, Inc., AKF Group, Green Estates, Becker & Frondorf.
Functional, safe and visually engaging green spaces greatly contribute to the quality of urban life. For the Hawthorne Park project, Ground Reconsidered led a design team selected to create the first totally new park built in Philadelphia in over 20 years. A long-promised neighborhood amenity, the park’s design needed to embrace the vision and ideals of the constituent community as well as best practices in green stormwater infrastructure dictated by the Philadelphia Water Department’s pioneering runoff regulations.
The firm’s comprehensive design approach incorporated input from the surrounding community and agency stakeholders. The park’s sustainable and visually dynamic design features topographic changes to create distinct use areas, a raised plaza/performance space, a multi-purpose open lawn, new trees and tough low-maintenance plants, a high efficiency irrigation system and permeable paving with planting areas that disconnect the park from the City’s aging stormwater sewer system. Additionally, during the design process and in close collaboration with the artist, a site-specific sculpture was integrated into the plan.
