WRT's design for Mariposa Park in San Francisco, California was unanimously approved and adopted by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (RDA). For Mission Bay Development Group (formerly Catellus Urban Construction) and the RDA, the firm completed schematic design for this new 2.5-acre neighborhood park within the Mission Bay redevelopment area. The sloping site lies at the seam of the highly contemporary public realm of Mission Bay and the historic industrial waterfront, with its established mixed-use neighborhoods of Dog Patch and Potrero Hill. Other major site influences to which the design responds are a major freeway-rail corridor and a new University of California San Francisco hospital campus. Interesting and verdant views to promote healing as well as accommodation of family gathering space were identified as crucial uses the project could promote. The park site lies at one of the primary entries to the Mission Bay redevelopment area. Our design challenge was to create a meaningful park that responds in a unifying manner to the unique set of constraints and opportunities each surrounding use presents.
The WRT design, born out of extensive community dialogue, creates a distinctive landscape of forms and elements that celebrate the heritage of the industrial waterfront and local ecology. The story of early uses of the site as a railroad track yard is told through the design of the plaza, circulation paths, and shade structures. A trellis made of locally salvaged I-beams and rough timbers replicate the roundhouse tracks and turntable. Where spur lines once radiated, gabion segments—filled with brick, concrete, and asphalt ruble collected from nearby building demolition—trace their paths. The gabions create a unifying language of perimeter markers, field game viewing platforms, and habitat for small fauna. Trimmed in wood, gabions in the plaza become impromptu stages and seats.
Park ecology is both meaningful and character-defining. Planting promotes biodiversity through use of extensive native species that attract bird and beneficial insects. Butterflies—an inspiration for the park's biomorphic forms and the park's namesake—are particularly supported. Plant species associated with the endemic and endangered Mission Blue butterfly are included. Stormwater is detained and treated on site through ponds, permeable paving, gravel reservoirs, and other LID techniques.
Children's play features serving neighborhood and child visitors to the hospital continue the theme of butterflies. The four stages of metamorphosis—itself a metaphor for healing—are expressed in the features: colored egg spheres, caterpillar balance beam, web cocoon climber swing, and flight lift off mounds.
