California Park & Recreation Society recently awarded
Colony Water Court Park in Anaheim, California an
Excellence in Design Award in Park Planning.
The Water Court, part of the award winning park, was completed in 2010, and is a collaboration between site artists
Haddad|Drugan and GGLO.
The Water Court is a portion of the one acre park, located within a newly developed area of Anaheim. Though not a spray park, the Water Court showcases water and encourages interaction with the various water elements of the park. The design team was inspired by on-site orange groves as well as by the historic irrigation map of Anaheim. This map is represented on the Water Court with colored concrete streets, fields, and irrigation lines that sometimes occur as water runnels, shallow pools or water sheet. Colony Park has a large play area for multiple age groups, an informal grassy play field area and picnic shelters to complement the Water Court.
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| Image Credit: Laura Haddad |
The 'Colony Park Water Court', located in Anaheim, CA, next to Disneyland, opened on November 9th. The Water Court design was a collaboration between site artists Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan (Tom is a former GGLO-er) of HaddadDrugan and GGLO Landscape Architect Marieke Lacasse.
Image courtesy of HaddadDrugan
The design team was inspired by on-site orange groves as well as by the historic town plat of Anaheim. Laura and Tom found references to historic irrigation maps of the town, and reinterpreted them to create the design for the plaza.
The Water Court is a portion of the one acre park, located within a newly developed area of Anaheim. Though not a spray park, the Water Court showcases water and encourages interaction with the various water elements of the park. Colony Park has two play areas with water runnel, a large grass area and shelters designed by HaddadDrugan.
Historic Irrigation Map
Illustration Courtesy of The Collaborative West
On design inspiration, Marieke says, "The map of Anaheim is represented by the main streets, in dark charcoal concrete, green concrete and plantings are for fields, blue bands and actual water runnels symbolize the irrigation lines of Anaheim, coming from the Santa Ana river.” Historically, she says, “Each farmer was given a plot of land to farm, and a town lot block to develop – these 'city blocks' are represented by precast concrete blocks of various heights, which make a fun feature.” For variety, the team also added a shallow pool of water at the end of a runnel.
Image courtesy of HaddadDrugan
Marieke Lacasse of GGLO, the Landscape Architect of Record for this project, collaborated with Artists HaddadDrugan during Construction documents and Construction Observation. Other Watercourt collaborators include HoldenWater, Shaw & Sons, Atomic Fabrications, and Western Metal Arts. Colony Park was built by Brookfield Homes, working with the City of Anaheim. See the project on HaddadDrugan website.
