"The fact that it's still there, intact, is important. It’s one of the best uses of space in our country. . . When it was completed, what it did for the people in the financial district was it allowed them to get out of their offices and experience nature in an urban environment. It created a whole new world" - 2014 Awards Jury

“事實上，它仍然在那里，完好無損，這是很重要的。這是我國最好的空間利用之一。當它完成后，對于人們而言，在金融區(qū)可以允許他們離開他們的辦公室，在城市環(huán)境中體驗自然。它創(chuàng)造了一個全新的世界”. - 2014評審團

20141ASLA
Norman B. Leventhal Park at Post Office Square by Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc.

郵局廣場的Norman B. Leventhal公園說明夢幻般的創(chuàng)意是如何通過優(yōu)秀的設計實現(xiàn)的。這個1.7英畝的公園自開業(yè)起就非常受歡迎，是波士頓市中心復興計劃的一部分。擁有7層地下車庫，仍然是公私合作典范，是當代設計與城市環(huán)境和諧相處的典范。郵局廣場的公園已成為21世紀城市公園的典范，受到設計師、公共倡導者、市政官員和教育者的推崇。

Norman B. Leventhal Park at Post Office Square illustrates what can happen when a visionary idea is realized through excellent design. Enormously popular from the day it opened, this 1.7-acre park is often credited with jump-starting Boston’s downtown revival. Built on the roof of a 7-level underground garage, it continues to be a model of public-private cooperation and stands as an exemplar of contemporary design in harmony with its urban surroundings. The Park at Post Office Square has become a model for center city parks in the 21st century, cited by designers, public advocates, municipal officials and educators, alike.

↑ “還有什么比波士頓郵局廣場新公園更貼近我們，能獲得公眾和專業(yè)設計師更多的贊許呢？”
“Was anything built in Boston, ever, more embraceably ours, more instantly loved by both the public and the professional designers, than the new park in Post Office Square?”
Image Credit: Ed Wonsek. Robert Campbell, Boston Globe architecture critic.

“郵局廣場公園永遠改變了波士頓,……為城市提供深不可測的錯綜復雜的街道和建筑。在它周圍，仿佛有著磁性或魔法，整個市中心都聚集在一個有序的陣列中。仿佛建筑物被拉到公園周圍，就像露營者圍繞著營火一樣。”- Robert Campbell，波士頓環(huán)球報建筑評論家

郵局廣場首次出現(xiàn)在1887年，是波士頓的新主要郵局的公有化場所。在過去的幾十年里，“廣場”進行了重鋪，直到1954年才進一步改善。那一年，郵局已經(jīng)搬遷，這座城市將廣場租給了當?shù)爻鲎廛嚧蠛啵谠摰亟ㄔ觳⑦\營了一個停車場，租約長達40年。不久以后，“停車場單元 3”缺乏維護并且滿是垃圾，出現(xiàn)了顯著惡化。建筑物建立在車庫后方。許多觀察家都認為該車庫為整個市區(qū)蒙上了一層陰影。景觀建筑雜志稱其為“可怕的結構，在波士頓金融區(qū)鑄造了一個邪惡之眼?！?

該狀況在20世紀30年代早期出現(xiàn)變化。波士頓知名開發(fā)商Norman B. Leventhal，成為停車場單元3的鄰居，為了波士頓聯(lián)邦儲備銀行，他在附近1922個建筑旁邊開發(fā)了一個豪華酒店。不久之后，Leventhal決心消除金融區(qū)中難看的污點。他開始聚集一些波士頓最有創(chuàng)意的商業(yè)人才。他們一起想出了一個創(chuàng)新的融資方式，并且決定開發(fā)一個公園，公園將在停車場上建立。通過技術和法律分析的支持，該集團成立于1983年，叫做“郵局廣場友人有限公司”，并且立即承諾要找到一種方式在年底前租約到期前獲得車庫。同時，他們著手籌集私募基金來進行車庫和公園的設計和施工。到了1987年，公司實現(xiàn)了這些目標。

在早期的時候，公司有三個關鍵步驟:(1)他們前往其他城市獲得第一手資料，觀察什么樣的公園設計元素是成功的(和其他)；(2)他們在SOM與主要的城市設計師一起工作，制定一個精密的、簡潔的定義用戶和公園用途的公園程序語句，闡述設計目標和需求；(3)他們用一個廣泛的國際競爭來挑選設計師。

設計

“我們設計的郵局廣場公園是波士頓市區(qū)的一個表現(xiàn)，其具有獨特的文化，價值和生命力。因為我們認為波士頓是一個特殊的城市，所以這個公園也必須成為一個有著特殊藝術價值的獨特的和引人注目的空間。” -來自景觀建筑事務所提交的方案贏得了這競爭。

該公園的設計方案力圖創(chuàng)造一個向公共開放的新市區(qū)綠地，它有著豐富的細節(jié)和視覺興趣，承認該地區(qū)的建筑遺產(chǎn)，與密集的城市結構周圍的公園相比提供了一個很好的理念。設計團隊的理念認真遵循客戶的詳細規(guī)劃，如要求公園50%應該有硬景觀的特征，有著郁郁蔥蔥的樹木。

公園被設計成一個花園。其最突出的特性是一個開放的草坪被大型落葉樹的上層林冠環(huán)繞著。從公園中可以清晰地看到周圍的街道，公園入口的焦點軸引起了人們的好奇心并吸引了許多人。矮墻是為公園內部而設計的，作為道路的邊緣和休息的座位，而路邊和草坪外圍有一個廣闊的視野，允許路人來享受公園的美景。這些可透邊緣也對公園內部的強大安全感的提供產(chǎn)生了影響。

在公園里的廣場兩端提供了主要的焦點元素的設置。北廣場設有雕塑家Howard Ben Tré建造的主要噴泉/雕塑。一個花園網(wǎng)格連接了兩個廣場，提供了一個蔭遮長廊。這種綠廊形成了中央草坪面積的背景并且兼顧作為一個舞臺和表現(xiàn)空間。公園內的主要特色建筑設立在南廣場:雙玻璃和銅質結構，風格花園館，全年開放的咖啡館和地下行人通道。這些位于公園的南部邊緣的建筑可以接納很多游客，那里往返廣場的上班族人群最多。

與這個公園的原始設計表達相關的元素仍然可以看到和感受到。除了一些恢復活力的植被，那些生長過大的植物材料被移除，取而代之的是在內部改建一個咖啡館和一個新的地圖亭，在23年后所有設計的公園元素仍保留在此處。

意義

這個公園的許多方面都非常重要。這是一個早期的、成功的“密集屋頂綠化”項目。哈佛大學的一項郵局廣場附近性能的研究表明在公園開放后，周圍的房地產(chǎn)價格大幅增加。這可以說明，當遵循設計原則時，“公園計劃”將產(chǎn)生強有力的影響。

對Norman B. Leventhal公園的贊譽從施工開始一直持續(xù)到今天。贊譽包括Harleston Parker 獎，這個獎每年給一個新的建筑，它必須是波士頓的“最美”建筑，這是歷史上唯一一次授予景觀建筑的帕克獎，所有是如此地榮幸。它被授予一個美國紀念獎章并且它在《福布斯》雜志網(wǎng)站上是美國最好的城市公園之一。它在yelp.com網(wǎng)站上不斷得到五星。許多出版物和城市公園規(guī)劃調查以及公園特色的設計和宣傳，如公共場所的合作伙伴和ULI/TPL登記的“城市公園和開放空間”，其特征都覆蓋在郵局廣場的鳥瞰圖中。

“郵局廣場的美麗并不簡單，它是一個目的地，是一個人尋找陰涼的吃午餐的地方，這也是一個十字路口，是進入廣場的人民聚集路徑的地方。你可能因為你的業(yè)務而四處走動，然后突然發(fā)生在這個美妙的休息處。找個機會花一點時間來休息和靜靜地坐著，或看你周圍的人類，這些都是公共場所提供的最好的東西。” -美國建筑師協(xié)會會員Alex Krieger，NBBJ建筑設計事務所Chan Krieger，負責人；哈佛大學，城市規(guī)劃與設計學院，前主席

“郵局廣場公園是一個真實的地方，有自己的鮮明特色的集中領域。草坪上有自己的形狀:他聲稱自己那樣做的原因是因為當你在那里時，你會覺得你是在中心，而不是兩個更重要場所間的通道。因此，你可以感受到在休息?！@就是好的設計?！?/span>- Robert Campbell，波士頓環(huán)球報建筑評論家，2004

郵局廣場友人公司的總經(jīng)理Pamela Messenger經(jīng)常提到“城市需要標志性的地方。在郵寄廣場上的Norman B. Leventhal公園必定是這樣的一個地方：它是一個設計能經(jīng)受時間考驗的很好地例子。

↑ 停車場單元3(1954 - 1989)。
Parking Garage Unit 3 (1954 - 1989).
Photo Credit: Friends of Post Office Square

↑ 公園是一個非常受歡迎的目的地,吸引了各行各業(yè)的人。它在消費者評級網(wǎng)站比如yelp.com不斷獲得最高分。
The park is a remarkably popular destination, attracting people from all walks of life. It continually receives top scores on consumer-rating websites like yelp.com.
Photo Credit: Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc.

↑ 咖啡館的建筑通過精心設計，盡可能地被透明化，在公園內不是壓倒性的存在。
The café building was carefully designed to be as transparent as possible—a recognizable, but not overpowering presence in the park.
Photo Credit: Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc./Ben E. Watkins

↑ 該設計仔細研究分析了周圍高樓大廈的影子，在陽光最強烈的地方定位了大草坪。
The design carefully analyzed shadow studies for the surrounding tall buildings to locate the Great Lawn in the sunniest portion of the site.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ 免費的草坪靠墊從來沒有丟失過?！叭藗冇X得它們屬于公園。這就是為什么他們能夠很好地對待它。如果你呼吁了人民更好的本能，他們就能相應地回應。”
- Alan Leventhal，公園創(chuàng)建者之子
The free lawn cushions are always returned. “People feel the park belongs to them. That’s why they treat it so well. If you appeal to people’s better instincts, they respond accordingly.”
- Alan Leventhal, son of the park’s “founder”
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ 143英尺長的藤架在晴天下提供了斑斕的樹蔭，有著面臨草坪的柚木長椅。這個特色連同其后方的植物完全遮蔽了珍珠街的車道。
The 143-foot-long pergola provides dappled shade on sunny days, with teak benches facing the lawn. Together with the planting behind it, this feature completely screens the Pearl Street garage ramps.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ 作為公園的管理人員，郵局廣場友人有限公司為公園游客提供了許多額外便利設施，如在草坪上使用的免費墊、免費清晨健身器材、借閱圖書館車和免費午餐時間音樂會。
As the park’s manager, Friends of Post Office Square, Inc. provides many added amenities for park visitors, such as free cushions to use on the lawn, free early morning fitness classes, a lending library cart and free lunchtime concerts.
Photo Credit: Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc./Ben E. Watkins

↑ Howard Ben Tré的壓鑄玻璃，青銅和花崗巖噴泉堅定地(和可易接近地)立在地面上并且進行噴灑，環(huán)水通過路面消失，坐落在不銹鋼絲網(wǎng)隱藏的下水道中。
Howard Ben Tré’s cast glass, bronze and granite fountain stands firmly (and accessibly) at ground level—and the splashing, recirculating water disappears through the pavement, which sits on stainless wire mesh over the hidden drains.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ 游客可以選擇公園中的不同位置的板凳—草坪，木板凳，花崗巖墻，鋼管和咖啡桌，陽光，斑點影和深影。
Visitors can choose from many different seating options threaded and clustered throughout the park—lawn and wooden bench, granite wall, tubular steel and cafe table, sunshine, dappled shadows and deep shade.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ 從公園內部幾乎看不到兩組地下車庫的進口/出口坡道。
Two sets of access/egress ramps for the underground garage are almost invisible from inside the park.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ （左）在公園里的許多功能都接通了周圍的城市形態(tài)。在這里，老電話建筑為南廣場和Howard Ben Tré的兩個小噴泉雕塑提供了一個軸線。
(left) Many of the features in the park key on surrounding urban form. Here, the fa?ade of the old Telephone Building provides an axis for the South Plaza and the smaller of Howard Ben Tré’s two fountain sculptures.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek
（右）該設計的親密和更遠的視圖序列及其各種材質不斷發(fā)展，材料和焦點的結合給了Norman B. Leventhal公園一個引人注目的和獨特的“位置感”。
(right) The design’s continuously evolving sequence of intimate and more distant views and its variety of textures, materials and focal points combine to give Norman B. Leventhal Park a compelling and unique “sense of place.”
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek

↑ （左）綠廊的“屋頂”的中點上樹立了一個高圓頂并且在兩端上升到較低的金字塔中。
(left) The “roof” of the pergola is surmounted by a high dome at the mid-point and rises into low pyramids at either end.
Photo Credit: Ed Wonsek
（右）“它仿佛有磁性或魔法,整個市中心都聚集在一個有序的陣列中。仿佛建筑物被拉到公園周圍，就像露營者圍繞著營火一樣?！?/span>
-Robert Campbell，波士頓環(huán)球報建筑評論家。
(right)  "As if by magnetism or magic, the whole downtown seems gathered in an orderly array. It's as if buildings were pulling up to the park like campers around a campfire."
- Robert Campbell, Boston Globe architecture critic.
Photo Credit: Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc./Ben E. Watkins

↑ 總平面 Site Plan
Photo Credit: Halvorson Design Partnership

"Post Office Square Park has changed Boston forever, ... (providing) a center for the city's unfathomable maze of streets and buildings. All around it, as if by magnetism or magic, the whole downtown seems gathered in an orderly array. It's as if buildings were pulling up to the park like campers around a campfire."
- Robert Campbell, Boston Globe architecture critic

Post Office Square first emerged in 1887 as the publicly-owned forecourt for Boston’s new Main Post Office. Over the decades, the “square” was repaved but otherwise not improved until 1954. In that year, after the Post Office had relocated, the City made a deal with a local taxi magnate to build and operate a parking garage on the site, under a 40-year lease. Before long, “Parking Garage Unit 3,” poorly maintained and strewn with trash, had deteriorated significantly. Surrounding buildings turned their backs to the site. To many observers, the garage was a blight on the entire downtown area. Landscape Architecture Magazine called it a “hideous structure, casting an evil eye on Boston’s Financial District.”

Things began to change in the early 1980s. Norman B. Leventhal, a prominent Boston developer, became a neighbor of Garage Unit 3, when he developed a luxury hotel in an adjacent 1922 building originally built for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Soon thereafter, Leventhal resolved to rid the financial district of its unsightly blemish. He started by gathering some of Boston’s most creative business minds. Together they came up with an innovative approach to financing and developing a park that would be supported by a new parking facility to be built beneath it. Encouraged by technical and legal analyses, the group incorporated in 1983 as “Friends of Post Office Square, Inc.”—and promptly undertook to find a way acquire the site before the end of the lease. Simultaneously, they set about raising private funds to cover design and construction of the garage and the park. By 1987, the Friends achieved both of these goals.

Early on, the Friends took three more critical steps: (1) they traveled to other cities to see, first-hand, what park design elements were successful (and otherwise); (2) they worked with leading urban designers at SOM to craft a well-thought-out, succinct Park Program Statement, that defined users and uses for the park, spelled out design objectives and requirements; and (3) they administered an extensive national competition to select a designer.

The Design

"We have designed Post Office Square Park to be an expression of downtown Boston, its unique culture, its values and its vitality. Because we believe Boston is a special city, we believe this park must also be a distinctive and compelling space, of exceptional artistic merit."
- from the submission of the landscape architecture firm that won the competition.

The design scheme for the park sought to create new downtown green space open to the public—one that was rich in detail and visual interest, that recognized the area’s architectural heritage, and that provided welcome relief and contrast to the dense urban fabric surrounding the park. The design team’s concept meticulously followed the client’s detailed program, such as the requirement that 50% of the park should be hardscape—a characteristic that users of the leafy park are usually astonished to learn.

The park was designed to be a garden for all seasons. Its most prominent feature is an open lawn on surrounded by an over-story of large deciduous trees. Clear sight lines were established into the park from surrounding streets, with focal points on axis with park entrances to arouse curiosity and draw people in. Low walls were designed for the park’s interior, serving as path edges and seating, while curbs and lawn around the periphery permit broad views in and allow the park to be enjoyed by passersby. These permeable edges also have the effect of providing a strong feeling of security within the park.

Plazas inside the park at each end provide the setting for major focal elements. The North Plaza features sculptor Howard Ben Tré’s major fountain/sculpture. A garden trellis connects the two plazas, providing a shaded promenade. This pergola forms a backdrop to the central lawn area and doubles as a stage and performance space. The primary architectural features within the park are in the South Plaza: two glass-and-copper structures, styled as garden pavilions, which house a year-round café and pedestrian access to the underground garage. These buildings are well located to receive patrons at the park’s southern edge, where the greatest numbers of office workers travel to and from the Square.

The relevance of this park’s original design expression continues to be seen and felt. With the exception of rejuvenation of vegetation, removal of some plant material that had grown too big, internal remodeling of the café and a new map in the map kiosk, the park design in all its elements is still in place after 23 years.

Significance

Many aspects of this park are significant. It was an early, successful “intensive green roof” project, years ahead of its time. A Harvard study of properties in the vicinity of the Post Office Square documented significant increases in real estate values after the park opened. And it is a demonstration of how powerful a carefully considered “Park Program” can be when followed faithfully by a strong design effort.

Accolades for Norman B. Leventhal Park began while it was under construction and continue to this day. Its recognition includes the Harleston Parker Award, given each year to one new building that is Boston’s “most beautiful”—the only time in the history of the Parker Award that a work of landscape architecture has been so honored. It received an ASLA Centennial Medal and is listed one of America’s Best Urban Parks on the Forbes magazine website. It continually gets 5 stars on yelp.com. Many publications and surveys of urban park planning, design and advocacy feature the park, such as the Partners for Public Spaces, and the ULI/TPL book “Urban Parks and Open Space,” which features an aerial view of Post Office Square for its cover.

"The beauty of Post Office Square isn't simply that it's a destination, a place for people seeking a shady spot to eat lunch: It's also a crossroads -- a welcoming, accessible concourse where people's paths converge. You could be going about your business, and suddenly you happen on this wonderful refuge. The opportunity to take a moment to rest and to sit quietly in nature, or to watch the human theater around you -- those are the things that the best public spaces provide.”- Alex Krieger FAIA, Principal, Chan Krieger NBBJ; former Chair, Harvard University, Department of Urban Planning and Design.

“Post Office Square Park is a real place—a centered domain with its own definite character. The lawn has a shape of its own: it asserts itself, so that when you are there, you feel you are somehow at a center, rather than a passage between two more important places. You can feel, therefore, at rest. … This is what good design is all about. "- Robert Campbell, Boston Globe architecture critic, 2004

Pamela Messenger, General Manager for the Friends of Post Office Square, often remarks that “cities need iconic places.” Norman B. Leventhal Park at Post Office Square is assuredly such a place: an excellent example of design that stands the test of time.

MORE:  Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc.