Temporary park in the heart of Brooklyn livens downtown area on a minimal budget and tight design timeline

Willoughby Pop-Up Park

The quarter acre downtown Brooklyn lot for Willoughby Pop-Up Park had been sitting vacant for years when the City responded to a growing community desire for park space. Our landscape architecture team was engaged to develop a cost-effective design that would be constructed quickly using a design-build method and removed within a year.   

We designed the Pop-Up Park in coordination with the local business improvement district (BID) that would program and maintain the park until its closure, when construction of a permanent park would begin. Completed in four months from initiation of design to ribbon cutting, the park was intended to activate and provide transitional open space for a dense neighborhood experiencing intensive development. Our team specified simple, durable materials that could be quickly installed for instant impact and easily removed such as gabion retaining walls, plantings in large pots, movable chairs, and synthetic turf. As the short timeline precluded normal site investigations, a two-foot fill cover was used to protect against potential soil contaminants, capping the site and creating a long seat wall facing the busy streets of downtown Brooklyn.

From opening day, the Pop-Up Park has been well used for events, activities, and casual use, providing much-needed community space in a fast-growing neighborhood.