Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Baywatch

This is a project by PEG office of landscape + architecture and it is located at Massachusetts, United States. There are twelve images for Baywatch.

: © PEG office of landscape + architecture

Project images

Designer's statement

The competition asked for proposals for a 26-acre park situated between the town of Bourne’s Main Street and the Cape Cod Canal.

The demand for Cape Cod’s resources is apparent in its radical growth over the past twenty years. However, the increase in recreational use, commercial and residential development, and the resultant pollution threaten the delicate coastal ecology and disrupt the open, visual character, which is crucial for the tourist economy. This watery region not only attracts visitors for its natural resources and recreational opportunities, but also has the highest visitation for agro-tourism in Massachusetts; therefore, the interdependence of the economy and the environment must be delicately structured.

We propose a “wet” park; a mutable working ground for the enjoyment and awareness of the connectivity of hydrological functions. Our strategy bridges the high maintenance, relatively low diversity of recreational land, and the low maintenance, high diversity of wetlands through the appropriation of an agricultural framework to organize variable habitats and programmatic zones. Gradients of moisture and soil types, salt, frequency and extent of flooding determine plant and animal species. The varied aims and management strategies imposed on these landscapes determine where in the spectrum of productivity they fall, from human-dominated zones to more biologically diverse lands.

The use of agricultural ordering, through a series of orthogonal ridges, furrows, and hedgerows, allows us to frame these variants in a legible way while maintaining the simplicity of the area’s rural character. Our agro-scape strategy simply heightens contrast, thereby providing a frame of reference for understanding the biotic structure of the bay.

While structured, our proposal is crafted to remain open to growth patterns over time to enable economic flexibility and responsiveness to the ever-shifting needs and opportunities of the town of Bourne in an ecology of cooperative, yet competing, Cape Cod communities.

Project: Bridge: Park, an open park competition sponsored by Buzzard’s Bay Village Association; Honorable Mention
Location: Town of Bourne, Massachusetts, USA
Date: April, 2005
Size: 26 acres
Principals: Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys (PEG)
Team: Jason O’Mara, Patricia Gruitts