Railroad Park

Project Name:

Railroad Park

Location:

Birmingham, Alabama 

Size:

19 acres 

Budget:

$17.5 million 

Client:

City of Birmingham/ Railroad Park Foundation 

Completion:

2010 

TLS Team Credits:

Akiko Ono, Gabe Meil, Ivan Valin, Kathryn Drinkhouse, Paul Burgin, Roman Chiu, Sarah Cowels, Sara Peschel & Tom McMillan

Background:

     TLS spent five years working extensively with a public / private partnership to build this downtown central park and master plan the rail corridor. 

    The park site is a former warehouse and brick-making site and much of the park is formed with materials recovered from historic uses. The park is four blocks long by one block wide and was historically, the lowest point in town.

    The “Rail Trail”, located atop this little mountain range is a series of on-grade and bridge connections which allow train-spotting up close, views over downtown and of the frequent large music events and parties within the park. The park contains performance venues of varying scales from small to extra large such as the annual “Crawfish Boil” attracting 30,000 music fans. Noisy or quiet, day or night, the park is only completed by the industrial ballet of freight cars slowly rolling in both directions.( online resources)

     For me, I think this park looks so beautiful, if I have chance I'd like to go  and see this park. From the picture we can see this park combine the nature and urban city in a good way. It looks harmonious and balance. Also, the designs in this park was very delicate, no matter the curve lines,the straight lines or some entertainment facilities. Moreover, we can see people like this park, because they have a lot of activities in this park. A good urban park need to have this function to invite people come and enjoy their life . I think this park did this in a very good way. It makes people think even they lived in a urban city, but they can still enjoy the green scene and beautiful environment. For a landscape designer, this is what we need to study and solve. We need to provide a healthier living environment for people and help them close to the nature.