Completed in 2022

Grand Junction overlays strategic infrastructure with communal amenity to create a socially-purposeful, environmentally-resilient, and inclusive park focused on human engagement. Two weeks following DAVID RUBIN Land Collective’s selection to design the city’s new 7.8-acre downtown park, a 500-year storm event flooded the burgeoning hamlet. What was to be a civic park for citizens to gather suddenly required a stormwater infrastructure solution. To resolve the threat of flooding, Grassy Branch Creek, which bifurcates the park site in downtown Westfield, required stabilization and repair of its channelized profile. Today, the creek is once again a feature of the City as it once was celebrated in documents pre-1850, which described a town where citizens could engage with the creeks, streams, and each other in a verdant setting. With this unique approach, a new park was created for the citizens of Westfield and their friends around which downtown development will grow. Built where five trails converge alongside Grassy Branch Creek, it is home to a café and winter skate rental facility, an ice rink, children’s playground, and in due course, an eye-catching outdoor stage and trailhead pavilion. Redefining an infrastructure project needed for the mitigation of flooding, Grand Junction has come to embrace its new mission: a lively town center park with social overlay.

Team Members: HWKN, Bruce Mau Design, RATIO Architects, FlatLand Resources, VS Engineering

https://land-collective.com/projects/grand-junction-park/