Tanner Springs Park, Portland - pt. 2

Back again. So, you might be wondering: What the hell is all that?!
Well, it is in fact not some space-age Stone Henge, but rather a rainwater-culling apparatus. And the images are in chronological sequence. When rain falls, it hits the glass panels, it flows down the downspout/support, runs through the trench drain to the stairs, down the stairway runnel, and finally into the pond. A pump takes the pond water up through a UV filter, to the bubbler, where it trickles down the re-created spring, and returns to the pond. Lovely. =)

Tanner Springs Park, Portland - pt. 1

Wow, this park is pretty awesome. It's not too big, just the right intimate. Child friendly, sitting friendly, nature friendly. And what is really awesome - and you can see it in the last image here - how up close and personal one can get to water. Heck, you can touch the water, in the bubbler, in the recreated spring, or even in the murky-ish pond.

The one drawback of the place - from a planner's point of view, of course - is how vanilla, how whitebread the neighborhood feels. If you've ever walked around the neighborhood surrounding UIC in Chicago, you know the feeling I'm getting at. The whole place just feels too whitewashed. If you've read Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, you'd see the potential issues with having a neighborhood in which all the buildings are pretty much of the same age, same design, and same quality. In a nutshell, how do high-margin and low-margin enterprises co-exist peaceably when rents will be relatively constant? All in all, I do love Tanner Springs Park. Wish we had something comparable here in SF.

Enjoy.