With the Neighborhood in Mind

The Palo Alto Public Safety Building landscape and site design privileges the public pedestrian realm. Each of the four frontages are treated somewhat uniquely, yet they are designed to create a unified streetscape that enhances the pedestrian experience for the California Avenue neighbors and residents. The civic perimeter of the Public Safety Building provides broad walking areas and amenities to the surrounding Palo Alto community members that pass by each day on their way to and from their homes, office, and California Avenue. The new landscape of the site is meant to reinforce the police force’s role in the lively neighborhood as good neighbors and important guardians of the community.

Palette of Plantings

A diverse palette of habitat-producing understory plantings has been developed to include rain gardens, native and adapted grasses, flowering perennials, and courtyard plantings. On Birch Street, the emphasis is on ornamental and native grasses, flowering and ground-covering perennials, and low shrubs. On Sherman Avenue, species include open shrubs such as Western Redbud, native and ornamental grasses, sedges, rushes, and California natives. Opportunities for rain gardens and native plantings occur in several areas throughout the plaza. The plantings at the Park Boulevard frontage will include an alternating rhythm of rain gardens, meadow grasses, and shade-tolerant understory plants. At Jacaranda Lane, trailing shrubs will grace the walls and planters. Diverse street tree plantings line three of the frontages and help us to meet the City of Palo Alto’s urban forestry plan goals through the selection of native species and the use of pavement support systems to provide significant rooting area for successful street trees.

 

Street by Street

INTERSTICE Architects has made each streetscape on the project a priority for the overall importance and presence of the Public Safety Building to this neighborhood of Palo Alto. The Birch Street frontage is a generous tree-framed sidewalk completed by the streetscape in front of the garage across Birch. The broad stair and welcoming ramp lead from the intersection of Birch Street and Sherman Avenue to the Public Safety Building entry. Seating opportunities are integrated into the plantings that face this wide sidewalk at the Birch Plaza and turn the corner along Sherman Avenue where a row of ginkgo trees define the plaza’s edge, providing shade and seasonality to the entry experience. The streetscape design down Sherman Avenue creates a sheltered building-level paseo and a street-level walkway with a ribbon of rain gardens, raised planters, and seating that invite pedestrians to linger for conversation or meet at lunch time. Along Park Boulevard, the sidewalk is broadened. Raised rain gardens with seating amenities create an active and broad pedestrian zone, and a bike-focused mini-plaza nearest California Avenue is replete with a bicycle repair station and bicycle racks. Meanwhile, a lovely walled courtyard offers staff and employees a space for relaxation outdoors along Jacaranda Lane. This walled garden includes smaller-scape tree plantings of Arbutus and olive trees with bench seating for staff to meet and take breaks in this modest oasis.

• CAMPUS/CULTURAL
• Landscape