Escape to Pomona - a park in the midst of urban concrete is much needed to escape the city stress.
My project in the Urban Spatial Experimentation atelier focus on the theme of escapism, preserving nature and sustainability. Used to be an abandoned site, Pomona's location is strategic as it is has the characteristic of an island, surrounded by River Irwell and Bridgewater Canal making it isolated from the city with few access to the site. The project focus on designing a park for various programmes, reaching out to everyone by providing physical connectivity for the visitors to make the park become the heart of the city. This project also aims to celebrate Pomona’s nature by preserving the mosaic habitat on the site. This will create sustainable opportunities for visitors to experience the landscape.
This project requires a detail study on the landscape, with the help of several park typology precedents. The site is a vast green space, which need to be carefully designed to avoid any space from being left out. By incorporating small interventions on the site, it help creating different programmes without changing the landscape too much. A building is designed as a visitor centre, which consists of restaurant and gallery.
From this project, it had sparked an interest in me to explore landscape design. Besides, this project also inspire me to focus more on building the community engagement through architecture. I believe the right architecture can bring out people together.
