User:Cobychambliss/sandbox

Van Valkenburgh approaches his designs in such a way that the spirit of place is at the forefront and the center of the design. To create a space that reflects the desired future for an area and give it a spirit of hope and progress requires a lot of foresight to the desired effect. Van Valkenburgh designs his projects in a way that reflect the desired future of the area in the spirit of the place they are striving for. His projects often begin with ordinary places that he is able to rejuvenate into a place that cause people to look past what it was and instead look to the future of the park as well as the surrounding city because of the spirit of the place Michael Van Valkenburgh has instilled in the space with his adaptive reuse of this post industrial wasteland and his intentional intertwining of it with nature. Corktown Common exemplifies the continuity and integration of nature and the man-made to create a memorable space. The variety of programs and unique, native plants combined with the built environment and the amazing topographic changes implemented create a new form of urban park that encourages and showcases the beauty of nature and the man-made. MMVA's use of nature and its controlled yet unaltered beauty with the man-made and modern built environment in a way that merges it into and throughout this park exemplifies what designing a successful and well utilized park should look like. Its success is not only defined by its frequent use by the public, but more so defined by its ability to attract people to it due to its integration of the known and the unknown, of the man-made built environment with nature.