Washington Canal Park Project Statement
From the outset, Canal Park was imagined to be a great spacein a city of iconic spaces – one that would give individual identity to theSoutheast District of Washington, D.C., but also be a draw to this newlyrevitalized community at a regional and national level. It needed to be aflexible and adaptable social space for a neighborhood whose residents were yetto be completely defined – a park that could offer amenities to residents ofmarket-rate and worker housing equally, to allow people a place of their own,whether a single urban dweller seeking a quiet destination or a family of manymembers enjoying opportunities for recreation, Canal Park offers amenities tocelebrate life together.
The three-black long park, once a depot of idling buses, isdesigned to be the leader in urbanenvironmental strategies: stormwater management at a scale that works with theneighborhood, not just the park itself; energy efficiency in its programmingand structures – 28 geo-thermal wells supply energy for park pavilions; soilremediation for this former brownfield; and an urban and urbane plant palette thatrecognizes both ecological sensitivity and that this park will be used 365-daysa year. And the design needed to be deferential to the history of the site – a southernbranch of the historic C&O Canal. Canal Park is a pilot project for theSustainable Sites Initiative (SITE™) and is a candidate for LEED® Goldcertification.
The design of Canal Park was led by David Rubin whilepartner at OLIN, now of David Rubin|Land Collective, in collaboration withSTUDIOS Architecture, whose park pavilions are inspired by the barges that usedto float through the canal, and the creative engineering concepts of Nitsch Engineering. Together, the team and their consultants have created a park thatis forward thinking in energy and resource management, design, and socialpurpose.
Canal Park has been designed to receive a broad spectrum of peopleand adapt to a neighborhood that is not yet completely defined. Not knowing whothe final users will be requires a flexible design – a park that is capable ofadapting to its future users, today, tomorrow, and for years to come. The northernblock is the most flexible of the three, with a large lawn plat for crowds togather for evening movies, concerts and performances throughout the year. Thepavilion on this block will contain lawn chairs for rent, so that people candistribute themselves in the most democratic of fashions, anywhere they like.
The middle block allows for the set-up of markets and fairs,depending upon the programming schedule, and caters to flexible play andobservation – a small lawn area is surrounded on three sides by generouslyproportioned fixed seating made from sustainably harvested American BlackLocust – allowing parents to watch their children in the comfort of a limited accessspace. The pavilion opposite is a storage unit for play items that can bedistributed on the adjacent lawn, as well as container for fountain equipment. Butthe park-goers see it as an impromptu stage for puppet theater performances orother attractions.
The first block along M Street is the most urban, with aniconic open-joint fountain in which people can play, or when turned off, it canbe transformed into a flexible program space. The café along Second Placehouses a restaurant, with an accessible green roof which acts as a belvederefor the park, and the bleacher stairs which ascend to it, are focused on thefountain area, to allow people to gather and observe. In the winter months,these stairs allow people to watch their family and friends skate on thenation’s second linear ice skating rink, reminiscent of the tradition ofskating on canals in the winter months. A Black Locust “ribbon bench” anchorsthe fountain and rink on the southeast corner.
The historic canal is also referenced in the rain gardenwhich runs along the east side of the park. Here, Canal Park’s surface stormwateris collected as a visible reminder of the working nature of the urban park. Therain garden spans the length of the Park and represents the succession of theAnacostia; the plant palette is a transect of nature, from the open- andedge-water areas of the southern block (sedges and cattails), to the woodlandspecies of the north block (Redbuds and Sweetgums).
But the real beauty of Canal Park is in the extraordinaryinfrastructure of the park itself. Conceptualized by Nitsch Engineering, thevisionary approach to stormwater management demonstrates a unique partnershipbetween public and private entities to implement green infrastructure at a neighborhoodscale. Rainwater is collected from the park pavilions and the site in two undergroundcisterns capable for holding 80,000 gallons for reuse within the park asirrigation, toilet flushing and the replenishment of the ice skating rink andthe fountains, satisfying up to 95% of the park’s needs. Because the waterdemands of the park will exceed the amount of rainwater that can be collectedon-site, the engineers proposed extending the system to the as-yet un-builtparcels adjacent to the park – piping has been extended beyond the parkproperty to create a neighborhood-scale stormwater management system – a modelfor future development across the country.
By capturing, cleansing, and reusing stormwater within the site, the projectaims to not only reduce the amount of water this is withdrawn from City waterinfrastructure, but also reduce the amount of stormwater discharged to Citydrainage infrastructure. Nitsch estimates that once the adjacent building roofdrains have been tied into the Canal Park stormwater collection system, thedesign could save approximately 1.5 million gallons of potable water on averageeach year and minimize the region’s development impact on combined seweroverflows polluting the Anacostia River during large storm events.
