Peabody, Massachusetts – Weston & Sampson recently announced that the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) recently honored our landscape architectural work at Grimmons Park in Somerville, Massachusetts with a Merit Award for Design. For this award-winning project, Weston & Sampson provided community outreach, park design and construction administration services for the refurbishment of an underused neighborhood park. The project designs maximized the number of recreational opportunities within the relatively small site, facilitated multi-generational use, improved park access and internal circulation, honored local history, and employed sustainable design/construction practices.
As the only city-owned park in the Ten Hills neighborhood of Somerville, Grimmons Park had to support a wide range of passive and active recreational programming options. Encouraging a new generation of urban neighborhood parks/playgrounds, Weston & Sampson placed significant emphasis on developing successful program distribution and maximized the utilization of space, including vertical surfaces, for recreation. With the addition of a secondary park entrance through the integration of a stair case, the design team increased circulation through the site and neighborhood access to the park and thereby improved site safety by decreasing the site’s appeal as a location for inappropriate behavior. The sustainability aspects of our design included the use of permeable surfaces to encourage stormwater drainage as well as native planting materials and species diversity. With a small footprint and a diverse group of park users, Weston & Sampson met the exciting design challenge of balancing spaces for play and rest along the newly established spine of circulation while meaningfully integrating the Grimmons School arch – a local historic relic.
The Grimmons Park project started with a hands-on community process, continued through the collaborative landscape architecture, design, and construction process, and concluded with a park that exceeded the expectations of all project participants. Grimmons Park has proven to be wildly popular with both neighborhood residents and residents of the city as a whole.
Contact our Landscape Architecture team member Cheri Ruane by phone at 978-977-0110, ext. 7473, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Visit us online at www.westonandsampson.com.
