2015 Awards
Design: General
Merit Award
Buhl Community Park at Allegheny Square
Pittsburgh, PA
Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
Principal in Charge: Andrea Cochran
Project Manager/Landscape Architect: Jennifer Knott
Landscape Design Team: Landscape Designer: Amir Kunin
Susan Hughes, Emily Rylander, Shanti Levy
Client: Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
In June 2012, the revitalized Buhl Community Park at Allegheny Square opened to the public in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood. Spearheaded by the adjacent Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, the project transformed an underused, 1960s concrete plaza into a vital community space. The park design emerged through a highly collaborative process, beginning with
a national, invited competition and evolving through a series of meetings with the community. Today, the park breathes new life into the site and neighborhood, with flexible spaces for a variety of activities, an inviting “community green,” and accessible pathways linking adjacent uses. The planting design is composed exclusively of species native to the region and includes a bioswale to process the plaza’s stormwater, connecting visitors with the experiential qualities of local ecosystems. Cloud Arbor, a stunning interactive mist sculpture by artist Ned Kahn, integrates seamlessly with the park landscape and fosters a connection with the nearby museum.