Horton Plaza Park

Project Title: Horton Plaza Park
Landscape Architect: Walker Macy
Category: General Design, Public Ownership
Location: San Diego, CA
Description: 
This project transformed a vacant retail site and dilapidated historic park into a highly programmed, iconic heart for downtown San Diego. Hosting more than 200 civic and cultural events each year, Horton Plaza has become a successful, energetic community space, revitalizing downtown San Diego and restoring the historic park to its original design intent and character.

The Landscape Architect led a process to create a strongly place-based, contextually-sensitive design response. With no dedicated gathering space in downtown, and the existing historic park in a damaged condition, the stakes were high to establish a positive and equitable open space that brings the community together, is forward-looking in form, and conceptually responsive to the historic texture of the district. The resulting iconic quality and elegantly executed details of Horton Plaza make it a memorable, authentic icon for community identity, and a high-capacity, high-tech events venue that serves a diverse city-wide audience. This project demonstrates a thoughtful approach to unifying contemporary and historic public open spaces and devising a platform for year-round events programmed by a public-private partnership.

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