News

With more than 3 million visitors a year, the city of Nashville realized it was losing an opportunity in regard to the Cumberland Riverfront. With the help of Hargreaves Associates, the government, many specialists, and a considerable private and public investment, the project went from paper to rock.

Water has always been the source of life, whether it is the ocean, a river or a lake. All great cities in history have been founded around or along a body of water: the River Thames in London, the Seine in Paris, New York Harbor and the Hudson river in New York City, Lake Michigan in Chicago, and the world-famous Nile River in Egypt. Read more.

The Hargreaves Associates-designed Crescent Park opened on 2 July 2015. The 1.4-mile long New Orleans park is the culmination of the New Orleans Building Corporation’s 2006 Reinventing the Crescent effort. Hargreaves led the design effort, collaborating with executive architect Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, and architects David Adjaye Associates and Michael Maltzan Architecture, to transform 20 acres of former port lands into a connective riverfront. The new park re-establishes pedestrian connections between the Bywater and Marginy neighborhoods, and the Mississippi River, while enticing French Quarter visitors to explore more of the Crescent City.

“It’s spectacular,” (Mayor) Landrieu said. “Most people don’t see the city from this view. I mean it’s the most spectacular view of the city, and if you think about the long term growth of the city of New Orleans, most cities in America are going back to their water.” Video link

“#1 A morning in Crescent Park”

Dreamed up post-Katrina and finally opened this past year, this waterfront park hugging the Mississippi in the city’s Bywater neighborhood isn’t just much-needed green space where you can catch the rare breeze off the river during the sultry summer months, Crescent Park is a fierce work of post-industrial art too, from the soaring, arched back of a bridge leading from the foot of Piety Street and over the railroad tracks (giving you a workout before you even arrive) to the Instagram-ready ruins of the old wharf at the river’s edge. Pleasant pathways, native plantings and skyline views complete the picture within the 1.4 mile linear park, providing a true escape from the city without going very far at all.” Full article

For a different view of Crescent Park, see the fly through by clicking here.

The Urban Land Institute named Denver Union Station as a winner of its 2015 Global Awards for Excellence. The annual program recognizes projects worldwide that achieve a high standard in design, construction, economics, planning, and management. The jury announced the ten winners at ULI’s 2015 Fall Meeting on October 6, 2015.

Since its initial phases opened in 2014, the Denver Union Station project has succeeded in revitalizing 19.5 acres in downtown Denver. New office, retail, and residential development surround the renovated Union Station, where multiple modes of transportation converge, including new bus, light rail, and passenger rail facilities. The public realm further facilitates connectivity, including promenades and streetscapes, plazas, urban gardens, and expanded bike facilities. Significant new destination public spaces include Wynkoop Plaza, the 17th Street Promenade and Gardens, and the Light Rail Plaza. This substantial public investment has catalyzed an unprecedented wave of private-sector activity, with over $1 billion in new projects shaping a transit-oriented precinct and new urban neighborhood. As the prime public realm designer, Hargreaves Associates worked together with AECOM and SOM to design this transformative project. Read more

Penn’s Landing Redevelopment Study has earned a National Recognition Award in the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) 2015 Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) competition – the “Academy Awards of the engineering industry”. The National Recognition Award is a prestigious distinction honoring projects that demonstrate exceptional achievement in engineering. Read more

The City of New Orleans opened the Bywater portion of the 20-acre Crescent Park on 24 February. Crescent Park is the first built project of the 2007 Reinventing the Crescent master plan that detailed the reclaiming of the larger 6 mile long New Orleans riverfront, post-Katrina.

The linear park threads a narrow 1.4-mile band downriver of the French Quarter, between the Mississippi River, active rail tracks and floodwall. The park provides crucial public access to the river that has been the exclusive domain of thriving commercial wharves and accelerating industrial decay. Hargreaves Associates was lead designer of the park, collaborating with architects Adjaye Associates, and Michael Maltzan Architecture, in addition to local executive architect and long-time collaborator, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple.

In an article for the The Times-Picayune, Doug MacCash writes, “The long awaited Crescent Park that hugs the riverfront in the Bywater neighborhood is a landscape design masterpiece…The shadows and architectural severity lend the park a certain existential quality. The monumental burned skeleton of an adjacent wharf remains picturesquely in place at the waterline. Some of the running paths enigmatically dead end into the river.? Read more

Hargreaves Associates, as part of the Ennead Architects team, received Honorable Mention in the Urban Design Concept Category of the 2014 Re-Thinking the Future Sustainability Awards. The ideas competition project F.R.E.D. (Fostering Resilient Ecological Development) proposed an integrated system of dunes, piers, and housing clusters, offering a solution that is not only practical given the economic and physical constraints of the Rockaways, but also replicable for low-lying coastal communities up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Re-thinking the Future is about envisioning a future that aims to meet human ‘needs’ while preserving the environment so that these ‘needs’ can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations. Read more

Denver Union Station Transit Improvements has been awarded a National Award of Merit for Transportation from the Design-Build Institute of America, and is a nominee for a National Award of Excellence in that category. Hargreaves Associates was recognized as a key team member on this project. This award celebrates the important role of effective team performance as a best practice in design-build project delivery. All players, including the owner, engaged collaboratively, interacting throughout the design and construction phases. This team effort has resulted in the hugely successful transformation of former railyards in downtown Denver into a vibrant multi-modal, mixed-use destination. Read more

The design team for the United States Courthouse in Austin, Texas has been recognized for Outstanding Contribution to Excellence in Federal Design. The General Services Administration Awards celebrate accomplishments of professional designers who create and safeguard the nation’s landmarks. The Design Excellence Program is conducted on a biennial basis with the mission to attract top-quality design talent for Federal clients.

The Foundation for Landscape Studies is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize for recently published books that have made significant contributions to the study and understanding of garden history and landscape studies.

In Unearthed Karen M’Closkey uses Hargreaves Associates portfolio to illustrate the challenges and opportunities of designing public spaces. Founded by George Hargreaves in 1983, this landscape architectural firm has transformed numerous abandoned sites into topographically and functionally diverse parks. Its body of work reflects the socioeconomic and legislative changes that have impacted landscape architecture over the past three decades. The firm’s longstanding interest in transforming industrial sites has necessitated frequent contact with communities and local authorities. As political, social, and economic terrains, these landscapes offer the opportunity to reflect on larger issues in urban redevelopment. Read more

To purchase a copy of Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates please follow this link for further details.

Chattanooga Renaissance Park was selected by the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) for the 2014 Case Study Investigation (CSI) program. CSI is a unique research collaboration that matches LAF-funded faculty-student research teams with leading practitioners to document the benefits of exemplary high-performing landscape projects. Hargreaves Associate will be working with the CSI Research Fellow team from the University of Tennessee. Read more