Boss Park

Boss Park was an exciting project expanding an existing park into vacant land, creating new connections between the park, the neighboring school, and the greater community. KGK and community stakeholders came together in a series of meetings to determine the best use of a vacant city block that had been demolished years ago as a part of the neighboring school’s construction. A design was developed to restore the wasteland into an area of learning opportunities, incorporating the many needs and ideas from the community and connecting new and existing elements with wide, accessible walkways.

A major component of the design was the crushed limestone plaza, providing the park with a central location with plenty of room for visitors to gather under the shade sails. Seating and tables were added surrounding the plaza to create an informal outdoor classroom for the neighboring school. A nature play space was integrated, utilizing salvaged and natural materials to provide the community’s children with an inviting place to learn, imagine, and enjoy nature.

The most important feature of Boss Park is the natural sandstone boulder amphitheater, which was created to replace the failing gabion wall that had been added as a prototype years earlier. The new arrangement provides a smoother, more permanent transition between the new and old park greenspaces, with the added benefit of serving as a “natural amphitheater”, allowing for gatherings, outdoor lectures, or whatever visitors can imagine. Plantings throughout the park were selected for their beneficial properties, and the open green spaces were seeded with native meadow mix to create an edible habitat for the local birds that used to gather in the vacant lot.