Golden Gate Park’s Middle Lake
Middle Lake is Rising!
Spring is here and Middle Lake is almost complete and the water level is rising. Now home to aquatic plants, nesting birds and some 12,000 new plants including over 80 native species of trees and understory plants. Soon San Franciscans will be able to stroll around the lake’s edge, over two bridges and along a new cascade within a flowering pacific dogwood grove.
Come visit this summer to enjoy a stroll on the mile long loop trail, a contemplative vista from one of the numerous benches along the lake’s edge, or unroll your picnic blanket on a nearby lawn and listen to the chatter of the birds.
Golden Gate Park’s Middle Lake – Breaks Ground
INTERSTICE is proud and excited to be part of the team that is undertaking the restoration of a critical piece of green infrastructure in Golden Gate Park; we are re-building Middle Lake. This freshwater lake is one in a series of three lakes called the Chain of Lakes, which flow north from South Lake, to Middle Lake, and into North Lake at the western end of the park. The original design & construction of these lakes dates back to 1898 and all required a clay liner to hold water over the ancient sand dunes that underlie the park.
Following a year plus long design process, construction of the project began in the early months of 2023 with the selective removal of certain trees and the protection of many other existing mature trees in preparation to rehabilitate the lake.
INTERSTICE, as the landscape architect, is working with Civil Engineers AGS and Woodard & Curran, overseeing the new lake design installation to achieve improved accessibility and enjoyment for park visitors, and a diverse plant and aquatic ecology that will provide improved habitat for insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals that constitute the spectrum of the wildlife that inhabits and moves through Golden Gate Park. Bauman Construction is the General Contractor leading the construction effort working with the SF Recreation & Parks Department and SF Department of Public Works.
This significant undertaking includes replacing the clay liner lake bottom and increasing the water depth, clearing the pipes connecting Middle Lake to South and North Lakes, and rehabilitating the rock cascade that connects to the Fly Casting Pools.
The new design includes a perimeter loop trail that bridges the cascade, significant and diverse native and aquatic plantings surrounding the lake, furnished seating areas with lookouts along the new pathway which encircles the lake and climbs the slope beside the cascade. The future plantings include over a dozen native tree species, over50 species of native understory plants, including shrubs, groundcovers, grasses, rushes and aquatic and riparian species located at the lakes edge.
The establishment of the clay liner and lake edge are the first phase and significant part of the work.
Boulder mock-ups for the lake edge perimeter.
New furnishings being crafted from salvaged trees that were planned for removal or came down in this winter’s storms.
We look forward to sharing more progress as the liner is completed and the lake starts to take shape this Spring.
ASLA NCC 2014 Professional Awards
IA wins 3 Merit Awards at 2013 ASLA NCC Awards
We’re pleased to share that IA received 3 awards in this year’s ASLA Northern California Chapter Design Awards! We were awarded 3 Merit Awards for our work on the 555 Bartlett Courtyard, Bay Area Remediation Site: 1, and the San Francisco Botanical Garden Pathway Improvements. You can see our award winning projects on the ASLA NCC website.
Bay Remediation Site: 1 Published in Landscape Architecture Magazine
We’re pleased to share that our project “Bay Remediation Site: 1” has been published in on page 38 of this month’s issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine! The article features an interview with IA’s Andrew Dunbar and Zoee Astrakhan, and illustrates how the project investigates our office’s critical interest in blurring the lines between landscape, architecture, and infrastructure in order to create smarter systems that both rehabilitate our environment and create positive public spaces.
As discussed in the article, we believe there could be potential for projects such as BRS:1 to transition from the realm of theory to reality by gaining traction with local and state governments After the introduction of New York’s High Line, the collective interest of cities across the country to invest in green, urban, public spaces has been piqued. San Francisco is no stranger to this phenomenon – with the renovation of the SF/Oakland Bay Bridge being the city’s primary focus of a plethora of design proposals. As interesting as many of these ideas are, we believe that the project of “Green-Space-as-Destination-Infrastructure” could move beyond purely reclaiming derelict infrastructure for the purposes of tourism and urban revitalization.
Spanning hundreds of miles of coast line, “The Bay” is easily San Francisco’s most significant geographical characteristic – one that is deteriorating due to factors such as water pollution, environmental loss, and global climate change. We hope that BRS:1 can function as an in-road to discussing the potential benefit landscape infrastructure can have to creating destination green spaces that not only draw people and prestige to the city, but rebuild our coastal environment and foster community involvement and educational opportunities as well.
IA Wins AIACC Merit Award
We’re pleased to share that IA has received a Urban Design Merit Award from the AIA California Chapter for its project “Bay Remediation Site: 1” sited in Horseshoe Cove. This honor comes on the heels of the project’s recent AIASF award for Unbuilt Design earlier this year. The project will be published in ArcCA and AIArchitect later this fall, so keep an eye out!
We would also like to extend a heartfelt congratulations to all of our fellow Urban Design and Architecture award winners!