After a months long design competition, which was narrowed down to four final designs in September, a winner has been selected for the 11th Street Bridge Park. And it features waterfalls. And an amphitheater. And a hammock grove.
This morning, the 11th Street Bridge Park Project announced the winning design for the $40 million park that aims to rival New York City’s famed High Line. The winning design was created as a collaboration between two design firms, OMA from the Netherlands and OLIN Studio from Philadelphia. Their winning design, which is called “Anacostia Crossing,” was selected over three other designs that were finalists from a pool of proposals submitted from more than 80 design firms. The design was unanimously selected from Bridge Park’s design competition jury, which features seven “noted experts in the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, urban design, community, engagement, and public health.”
So what can we expect in the new 11th Street Bridge Park? Well, the design, which has a distinct “X” shape and will be built on concrete piers used to support an old freeway bridge, is divided up into sections, each with their own specific attractions. There will be rain gardens, and amphitheater, a picnic garden, a hammock grove, a plaza, a cafe, urban agriculture, interactive art (including a tribute to Frederick Douglass), waterfalls, lawn space, a boat launch port, an environmental education center, and a modern playground for children.
“The OMA + OLIN concept is simply brilliant in the way they captured ideas we heard from residents on both sides of the river and from across the city” 11th Street Bridge Park Director Scott Kratz said in a statement. “These thoughtful designers—some of the best architects and landscape architects in the world—have taken community driven ideas and created a compelling new space that will connect two historically divided parts of the city while adding a new shape to the capital’s iconic monuments.”
The ambitious project, which is a collaboration between the city and Ward 8 non-profit “Building Bridges Across the River at THEARC,” will cost approximately $40 million, with the D.C. government putting forth $14.5 million towards the project (after a $1 million pre-capital campaign from public and private donors) and the rest being raised through a capital campaign.
Though it’s too far off to know exactly when we’ll all be lounging in the hammock grove next to the 11th Street Bridge, the park won’t open before the spring/summer of 2018.
