heritage square park

The City of Walla Walla worked with HEWITT to develop a new concept for Heritage Square Park, transforming an underused downtown park into an accessible, multifunctional urban plaza that would accommodate year-round programming and civic celebrations.

Location

Walla Walla, WA

TYPOLOGY

Civic Space

Client

City of Walla Walla

design PARTNERS

Graham Baba Architects

SIZE

0.5 Acre

Providing a strong connection to Mill Creek, the park aspires to be a place visitors and the community go out of their way to walk through. Heritage Square Park would serve as a welcoming centerpiece that would create a lasting, positive impact to the downtown area and furthermore aspires to plant the seeds for improvements that spread beyond the site – Mill Creek Walk, water management showcase, street tree system improvements.

Placemaking Recipe

Expand the physical park beyond the small street frontage the community currently imagines as ‘the park.’
Relocate parking offsite and open connections to the creek and adjacent retail.
Create a central gathering space, visible from all street frontages.
Entice the community to linger with an interactive water feature, an open lawn and a covered stage.
Unify the park, referencing forms and patterns apparent in the local pivot irrigation systems and soft mounded landforms of the Palouse.
Activate the edges providing locations where adjacent retail can spill out.
Overlay a canopy of trees to balance clear views in and through the site with a little mystery, while adding green relief.

Technology spotlight

A Concept in Motion

To communicate design ideas with the community, HEWITT modeled the park concept in Lumion, a 3D visualization software. The flythrough below was a valuable tool in helping the residents visualize the proposed ideas and gain a better understanding of the spatial qualities of Heritage Park.