Our Influence, Our Solution

As urban and suburban areas densify, and humans’ desire for nature grows, the demands on the public landscape require us to become stewards of an evolving and thoughtfully balanced environment. Ultimately, the negative consequences of our occupation of the landscape are reversible. INTERSTICE Architects’ strategy for Bernal Central Park is to approach the reclamation of the land as just such an opportunity. The design proposal suggests that the park and its users have an active role to play in its creation: the landscape is meant to change and evolve in a gradual and orderly way. Confluence Park represents a place of rejuvenation where diminished plant and animal habitat is restored with communal cultural rituals and environmental responsibilities as the focal point of the project.

Bringing the Water Back

The design strategy for Confluence Park is meant to undo a century of water diversion practices to reestablish a viable water table and create a self-sustaining park. Water can then be naturally collected and managed so it can provide plant and animal habitat opportunities, human amenity, and educational resources. Phasing these changes into the development of Confluence Park embraces the numerous commercial, social, recreational, and educational pressures of contemporary civic place-making.

Sun Power

Ecological connectivity and renewable energy were universally applied to the overall 500-acre hydrological system, conceived in collaboration with Arup Engineers, as a giant water purification and redistribution mechanism powered passively by the sun. Components of the final park included a Visual and Performing Arts Center and other community-serving institutions, a plant nursery, a freshwater wetland, oak savannas and woodlands, and an extensive path system for visitors to wander through and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

• Innovations
• Landscape