Long Bridge Park

Last Saturday, the National Building Museum arranged for a tour through the construction site of what will become Long Bridge Park.  The park is in Arlington County and is a brownfield site (for years this site was strictly industrial, serving as a whitegoods dump as well as a site for other industrial uses).  Today the 30-acre site is being converted to parkland, with three sports fields being developed and eventually (during phase II) the construction of a large aquatic sports and recreation center. 

The site represents a terrific grading challenge.  Above, to the far left, you see the ground rises up from the existing grade.  This is the site of an asphalt cap, which seals various metals and pollutants.  The asphalt cap will be topped with soil and be used as a playfield and the finished elevation of that field sets the upper baseline for the site as a whole.  Essentially, all the sports fields are meeting that elevation and parking is being placed beneath one of the fields.  The parking area you see above is a Phase I parking.  In Phase II, a fourth field will be built above the parking deck in this location.  In the foreground of this picture the grade stays the same -- this is the site of a rain garden which will collect runoff from much of the site.

The top photo was taken from the esplanade - a large wall that meets the top-of-field elevation and connects the length of the whole site.  It also buffers the noise from the immediately adjacent train rails (right). 

Above, one looks up to the esplanade from the rain garden.   The project is being led by Hughes Group Architects with Hargreaves Associates being the lead landscape architect and LSG Landscape Architecture functioning as project landscape architect. 

The photo above tells an interesting story.  In addition to the CSX train line, the park is in the shadow of Reagan Airport (you can see a plane ascending in the background).  This relationship posed a special challenge in designing the photometrics for lights in the sports fields.  The posts had to meet a maximum height limitation that was much lower than normal and as a result, the lamps were specially arranged to flood light on the field and avoid shadows.