Designing Parks for the 21st Century

The New York City Parks Department and the the Design Trust for Public Space are embarking on a project that will build upon the Design Trust's groundbreaking work in sustainable design and construction. Park Design for the 21st Century will provide the Parks Department with research and instruction in methodologies for the creation of high-performance park design, and will help the City bring its 29,000 acres of parkland into the new millennium.

Park Design for the 21st Century will culminate in the publication of the High Performance Landscape Guidelines - the third in our trilogy of sustainable design manuals. The Design Trust's previous publications, High Performance Building Guidelines (1999) and High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines (2005) set the stage for a paradigm shift in the way New York City is constructed. These two publications led directly to the enactment of local laws that encourage high performance construction, and also paved the way for Mayor Bloomberg's recent sustainability initiatives.

The Design Trust is just beginning the process of defining the scope of this project, and working to determine the best course of action to achieve the Parks Department's goals. As the project progresses, this page will be updated, so please check back.