Civic, Landscape Architecture
WASLA Award of Merit 2023
We’re honored to be recognized by WASLA with an Award of Merit for Lake City Park.
Board & Vellum is thrilled to be a recipient of WASLA’s 2023 Award of Merit in the category of General Design, Public Ownership, alongside our partners, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Sitewise Design, Swenson Say Faget, Elizabeth Gahan, and Ohno Construction Company.
Lake City Park brings usable green space to Seattle’s diverse Lake City neighborhood. The project highlights our passion for creating uplifting spaces that reflect community values and improve the wellbeing of residents. We held several community meetings, each in multiple languages, to gather feedback about the neighborhood’s hopes and wishes for the park. The result is a highly-programmed recreation space in a tiny footprint.
A formerly under-developed and unused urban lot, the park’s central location is easily accessible by foot, bike, and transit. A cairn-inspired sculpture designed with community input marks the park’s entrance and embodies a spirit of resilience and diversity. Other community-requested features include a pea-patch and garden, half-basketball court, and ropes-course play structure and climbing wall. The park is full of edible plants, established trees, grass, and other plantings to keep visitors comfortable and combat the heat-island effect.
Honored projects were selected from projects completed by landscape architects registered in Washington State, but the work itself could be located anywhere. WASLA considered the quality and execution of the design, design context, environmental sustainability and sensitivity, and design value to the client and other designers when jurying projects. The General Design, Public Ownership category includes many project types, including plazas, campuses, streetscapes, stormwater management, transportation and infrastructure, and parks, like Lake City Park.
We are deeply honored to be recognized by other landscape architects for our work, especially on a project so near and dear to our hearts. Next time you’re in the area, we invite you to join the fun at Lake City Park to discover first-hand what makes this project so special.
