Three firms selected as finalists for the former El Toro Marine
Corps Air Station
The field of seven firms selected from the original thirty-eight has now been narrowed to three finalists for the design of what would be one of California's largest urban parks. The finalists are EMBT from Barcelona, Spain, Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey from Mill Valley, California, and Ken Smith Landscape Architect from New York, New York.
Closed in 1999, El Toro was originally slated to be the site for a new international airport. After voters killed the highly contentious airport proposal in favor of parkland, the City of Irvine spearheaded the effort to create "one of the finest metropolitan parks in America."
The Navy recently sold the property to Miami based Lennar Communities who will develop 10% of the seven square mile property and contribute money towards the development and maintenance of the Great Park.
Larry Agran, Chair of the Orange County Great Park Corporation:
Fredrick Law Olmstead designed New York’s Central Park in the mid 19th Century and inspired the creation of great metropolitan parks throughout the United States. We are conducting an international search for the Fredrick Law Olmstead of the 21st Century, and are confident that we will find a designer of his caliber for the Great Park.Link: Orange County Great Park
Link: EMBT Arquitectes Presentation (pdf)
Link: Ken Smith Presentation Doc 1 Doc 2 (pdf)
Link: RHAA Presentation (pdf)
Link: Video of public presentations
Via: Archinect
Great Park Master Plan (pdf)
EMBT Arquitectes Associats
Team: Catherine Spellman of Arizona State University, Architecture; Grant McInnes of ARUP-San Francisco, Engineering
Excerpts from the EMBT Arquitectes Associats presentation:
Great Park is planned to be developed in a sustainable, environmentally responsive manner. The Park’s development will seek to minimize its impact on the environment, restore natural systems and ecology to the area, contribute to the health and well-being of the local community, support responsible economic growth, and serve as a role model for sustainable development.
The Great Park is the link between the green resort of Orange County. It is the key element to connect, summarize and inform about the natural resource of Orange County. We propose to incorporate this variety of landscape with their specific vegetation and wildlife as parts of the Great Park, as the part of an educative and ecological concept.
We took different moments of the history of the site as references for the development and structuring of the park.
The current site is characterized by the airfield. This landmark and its history should be part of the development of the future of this area – they are imprint of history of the site. To relate the stamp of airfields to the human scale it needs to be transformed into a new element.
Sketches for inhabitation of the site.
The main entrance gate take reference to historic Sample and local materials of the area.
Ken Smith Landscape Architect
Team: Enrique Norton of TEN Arquitectos; artist Mary Miss; Buro Happold Engineers; Mia Lehrer + Associates; ecologist Steve Handel.
Excerpts from the Ken Smith Landscape Architect presentation:
We approach the design of the park as a collaborative design, bringing together the talents of landscape architect, artist, architect, ecologist and environmental engineers. Water, environmental sustainability, shade and the enduring idea of the oasis are all central themes of this park design. The Canyon, the Habitat Park, and the Fields and Military Memorial add up to a Great Park—a public place of renewal and community
Late morning the visitors are starting to stroll on the Canyon Terrace and visit the museums and jacaranda alee.
Sunday noon, El Toro vet shows a historic fighter plane to his grandson.
The architectural position for the park is to not compete with the natural landscape for attention but rather use the new structure of the Park to locate and orient itself within the larger context. The landscape, conversely, serves as a "skin" for the architecture allowing only for strategic moments of reveal and only when necessary for entry, service and natural light to enter the building.
Royston Hanamoto Alley & Alley (RHAA)
Team: Jean-Paul Viguier of S.A. d’Architecture; Peter Latz of Latz + Partner Landscape Architects; Ned Kahn of Ned Kahn Studios, Environmental Art; Jean Rogers of ARUP-San Francisco, Engineering
Excerpts from the RHAA presentation:
Our vision for the Orange County Great Park creates a contemporary model for park design that embraces mind, body, ecology and culture — and links the past, present and future — in a physical, living environment… The central organizing element of the design is a landform created by sculpting the earth within the boundaries of the two intersecting runways and utilizing the soil to create a sculptural high point.
Terrace Gardens: Beautiful gardens line the slopes of the landform, breathing new life and energy into the site.
Art Icons: (clockwise from top left) Solar Grove, Smoke Signal, Tour habiter les nuages, Veterans Memorial Fog Forest, Geyser.
Water Mirror: A long shallow canal reflects the summer sky and creates unique places for everyone to enjoy.
RHAA rocks
Landscape Architect