RAILYARD PARK Santa Fe, NM: 2002 This project, for the revitalization and adaptive reuse of the 13-acre Santa Fe Pacific Railyard in Santa Fe, NM, treats the historic property as a living, vital, working public place rather than as an artifact belonging to the past. The design ties the railyard in with both its physical and social context by working with the existing strands of infrastructure that run through the site, literally intertwining it with the surrounding urban fabric. These elements include not only the railroad right-of-way, but an equally historic acequia (irrigation channel) that is the centerpiece of a new stormwater and greywater collection/storage network. In addition, extensions to the current bike and pedestrian path systems are joined together with a new 40-foot wide, actively-programmed linear park (community gardens, apricot/apple/peach orchards, playgrounds), which lines the northwest edge of the site, both buffering the community from the more urban railyard activities and at the same time addressing the local neighborhood’s needs. The plan, however, proposes not one, but 2 parks on the site: the other is the Railyard itself, which is cast as a constantly changing, event-based cultural and social center. It enhances the role and visibility of the organizations that occupy the warehouses that edge the Railyard by introducing 8 smaller, differentiated “front yards” which provide a public space for each group to display its artifacts and stage various activities outside of its own building. At the same time, these yards become venues for Santa Fe’s frequent festivals and events. A mobile system of reconditioned railcars may be wheeled into a variety of unique formations and used as “sets” or “props” for the staging of activities in the vicinity of each yard. (The reconditioning process itself becomes a self-organized process of revitalization-in-microcosm as the decommissioned railcars are each “adopted” by one of Santa Fe’s many diverse cultural constituencies). Railyard events include: pottery sales, opera performances, the annual July 4 breakfast, and the weekly farmer’s market, among many others. This event-based urbanism is a natural fit with the diverse programmatic makeup of the Railyards at present, and the mobility and flexibility still afforded by its rail network, which would continue to be overseen by a stationmaster. When not in use, the cars are stored in an open train shed at the northeast end of the yard. Its galvanized metal canopies are part of a series of railroad-related structures that act as fixed site amenities, which also include station platforms fabricated out of asphaltum-stained timber. Emblazoned with the number of the track alongside which they sit, the latter also serve on their underside as commercial vending and storage space. Total project cost: $5,300,000.
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