Queens Borough Municipal Parking Field, Queens, NY

When a failing parking structure adjacent to the Queens Borough Hall and the Queens Courts complex was demolished, the designers, sassafras55 and WXY Architects, replaced it with a surface parking lot and used the opportunity to experiment with green infrastructure and recycled materials for a new City prototype. The team filled the upland surrounding the 300-space trapezoidal asphalt parking field with all native plant species instead of lawn grass, and relieved the interior with two planted areas – one a narrow swale, the other a rain garden with varied topography, to add visual interest.

The parking field will become a laboratory for future installations: its sidewalks and parking surfaces include a variety of concrete or asphalt mixtures that will test materials for the NYC Department of Transportation; the dense plantings of graminoids and forbs began with small plugs of plants native to the five boroughs of New York City, grown from seeds collected by Greenbelt Native Plant Center in Staten Island.

Construction was completed Spring 2018.

Clients: NYC Department of Design and Construction
NYC Department of Transportation
Landscape Architect: sassafras55
Architect: WXY Architects
Engineer: Langan