December 20, 2004

Click images to see them larger Image Courtesy Gustafson Guthrie Nichol LTD

On December 10, Washington, DC Mayor Anthony Williams announced that Seattle landscape architecture firm Gustafson, Guthrie & Nichols had won the Washington Canal Park design competition. The Mayor explained that the park will jump-start implementation of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Plan, which will expand Washington eastward toward the Anacostia River and bring life to neglected neighborhoods.

The design divides into three parcels. In the northern parcel are open space, a boardwalk, a retaining wall, a water feature, and shallow pools. From there storm water flows to the middle section, where it's collected and cleansed in the beds (bioretention cells) of horticultural displays. To the south there is an amphitheater and a plaza, beneath which treated site water is collected for irrigation and recirculation.

The park is the focal element in a new mixed-use neighborhood, now an area of rundown former industrial buildings. In the immediate neighborhood, TortiGallas and Partners of Washington, DC, working with HUD's Hope 6 program, is replacing 700 low-income units with an equal number of new units while adding 800 market-rate apartments, and construction is underway for a new US DOT building, designed by Michael Graves.

ADVERTISEMENT

A baseball stadium for the new Washington Nationals is planned for a site two blocks south of the park, although it may be nixed because of funding disputes between the city and Major League Baseball. Bing Thom of Vancouver has designed an addition for Arena Stage, about six blocks to the south. The Navy, meanwhile, has relocated 5,000 employees in the neighborhood in rehabbed, former industrial space. The park will be edged by two new residential buildings, two new office structures, mixed-income housing, and a hotel. "I can't think of a park that will have as diverse users," said Toni Griffin, deputy director of the office of planning.

Griffin said the jury sought "an appealing, simple design for the 21st century." Storm-water management is integral to the winning scheme. "The design talks about how ecology and building work hand-in-hand," said Rodrigo Abela, AIA, of Gustafson, Guthrie & Nichols. The city has more than $5 million in hand for the park's construction. A few days after the announcement, the City Council confirmed the nomination of Stephen Goldsmith, former mayor of Indianapolis, to head the Anacostia Waterfront Development Corporation, another sign the city means business.

Andrea Oppenheimer Dean