Quote:
Originally Posted by keg92101
San Diego needs to learn from East Coast Parks / Squares. SD landscape architects DO NOT understand how to create spaces that encourage gathering. Too often, they design a space that looks great, and that's it...
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We do have Balboa Park which is one of the best parks in the country in my opinion and it a true asset to the city, but other than that the smaller urban parks are pretty bad, discourage people from gathering and look like shit
I don't agree with the earlier post of getting away from "palm trees" and trying to reproduce East Coast parks, our climate is completely different.
Our weather zone gives us great variety in the use of plants and trees that many other areas of the country can't use. I think our new parks should focus on using meditteranean-climate firendly trees such as palms, but do so in a more natural way that encourages gathering and strolling but makes the parks look like they belong here.
Something seems odd about parks that try too look too East-Coastish out of their respective climate zones
Horton plaza broadway entrance is a perfect example of a fake-looking concrete nightmare with palms thrown in to somehow soften the mess, which obviously is very unappealing.
Parks that use warmer-weather plants like palms, bamboo, flowering shrubs like hybiscus, larger bird of paradise/bannana trees/other large-leafed plants, etc generally look better in a more informal Japanese-style landscape that mimics nature with water elements (natural as opposed to fountains), whereas temperate plants like evergreens, maples, cherry trees etc. tend to look better in the more structured and equally-balanced European-style landscapes (take Washhington DC)that are common of public squares back East that include lots of concrete and man-made touches such as fences, fountains, etc.
It seems like downtown projects in the East Village have stopped using palms, as all the new developments are using more temperate looking trees such as the maples engineered to grow here along with the brick buildings to try and make the developments seem more East Coast, but alot of them just don't seem to fit-in here. We can have urban greenery that uses local plants if done right
I think the bayfront area provides a perfect spot to create parkland that will be both appealing, useful and look nothing like the East Coast. Using palms and other sub-tropical plants to create a NATURAL looking and lush pathway for the area that calls for a narrow but long park would be good. I envision it being more of a "strolling' park that people walk through as opposed to a park where people actually stop and gather due to the lack of civic space. As far as use, once projects are built up in that area I think it would get tons of use.
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