Luuwit View Park

Skylab Architecture alongside 2.ink Studio, worked in close collaboration with Portland Parks to create a 16-acre park in a neighborhood of NE Portland. The design team developed the park around an integrated strategy that creates both passive native meadow areas that require limited maintenance as well as intensively used spaces that provide active program elements for park users. The neighborhood is home to many longstanding residences as well as an increasingly diverse range of new incoming ethnic groups. The park’s program elements were developed in coordination with area residents through a series of public open houses and ongoing meetings with the project’s Design Advisory Group.  
 
The park’s development introduced a wide range of new activities onto the site including a community amphitheater, picnic shelter and restroom, off leash dog area, a large community playground, interactive water feature, parking areas, walking paths, and community garden. Active uses include a skate spot, climbing wall, basketball, ping pong and soccer. The park’s design takes advantage of clear views to the Columbia River and Mt. St. Helens beyond and will bring in a strong sense of the area’s native habitat to tie all of the elements of the park together.  
 
The shelter structure is made up of variations of a basic equilateral triangle module. The folded angular forms are influenced by the triangulated peaks of the surrounding mountains, Native American plank houses, and river fishing platforms. A simple steel pipe frame supports the shelter with graceful economy creating a flexible space for picnic gatherings or summer concerts. A focus on the Tectonic making where the construction techniques are displayed for economy and beauty honors the native structures of the original inhabitants of this area. Axial connections enhance user awareness of the world beyond the park. Park program elements and trees manipulate view corridors to Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens organize the other site elements. At the highest point on the site a conical mound recalls the volcanic cinder cones on the horizon. Visual connection between key park elements articulates the experience along and across the axis.