Greenacre Park, New York
Introduction
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In 1969, Abby Rockefeller Mauze founded the Greenacre Foundation. Two years later, the foundation built Greenacre Park, a "vest-pocket" park following the model of nearby Paley Park. These small, efficiently-planned parks became popular because they could fit into tiny, dense urban spaces where a larger park might not be affordable. Designed by Hideo Sasaki, former chairman of Harvard's Landscape Architecture Department, Greenacre is only 60 feet by 120 feet.
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Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The design maximizes use of the small space through a series of terraces, seating walls, trellises, and lush plantings. The canopy of honey locust trees allows sunlight in, but provides a sheltered feeling. An overlook terrace is topped with acrylic domes and provides lighting and radiant heating for the garden below. One wall of the park is a granite relief sculpture and water feature, and the focal point of the park is a 25-foot waterfall, which mutes the noise of traffic.
Sources
GreenAcre Park. The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Accessed Web, 5/6/17. https://tclf.org/landscapes/greenacre-park.
Greenacre Park. Sasaki. Accessed Web, 5/6/17. http://www.sasaki.com/project/111/greenacre-park/.