Town Branch Park Design Competition
SCAPE Studio won an international design competition for the Town Branch Commons project in 2012. SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design studio based in New York City that works to create positive change in communities. Kate Orff, SCAPE’s founder and lead designer, was named a 2017 MacArthur Fellow (“Genius Award”) in large part due to her work in Lexington. She is the first landscape architect to win this prestigious award. Inspired by the karst topography of the region, SCAPE’s concept for Town Branch weaves a linear network of open spaces through Lexington to reconnect the city with its Bluegrass identity and build a legacy public space network for the 21st century. Rather than introducing a single daylit stream channel into the city fabric, the design uses the local limestone (karst) geology as inspiration for a series of pools, pockets, water windows, and stream channels that brings water into the public realm. A hybrid park network, multi-modal trail system, and water filtration landscape, Town Branch Commons connects Lexington’s rural and urban communities and reinvigorates the downtown. This system is anchored by the future Town Branch Park.
SCAPE understood the cultural and ecological significance Town Branch Creek held for our city and the design they proposed both honored and reflected that history. Lexington was founded along the banks of Town Branch, which was once described as a "magnificent stream . . .whose green banks were hemmed with the brightest flowers." Today, Town Branch is a hidden waterway buried deep beneath roadways and parking lots through most of the city. By peeling away these layers of concrete and blacktop in what is today Manchester Street parking lot, Town Branch Park will expose and restore the stream bed and a piece of our history. Building upon SCAPE’s award winning design concept with a thoughtful programming plan and governance structure, Town Branch Park will enhance the quality of life in Lexington and nurture the health and well-being of our people, the entire community, the environment, and our economy.
Following a unanimous choice of the selection committee and the full board in 2020, Boston-based Sasaki was chosen as the lead Park designer, supported by a team of local firms. With its expertise and celebrated interdisciplinary approach, Sasaki is best positioned to build off of the foundational Town Branch Park master plan and concept design from SCAPE to craft a design that will serve all of Lexington.
Initial concept design by SCAPE / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
