Last week, GreenWorks Landscape Architect and Project Manager Ben Johnson traveled to Orcas Island in Washington to attend the dedication of the Village Green Nature Play space. It’s located in the town of Eastsound, the largest community on Orcas Island, at the mid-point of the 57-square-mile island.

GreenWorks was hired by San Juan County Parks to design the playground in the Village Green, at the heart of Eastsound Village. It’s a civic open space home to a weekly farmers market and community events. The nature play areas will be the first for San Juan County’s park system.

GreenWorks attended the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Tamarack Park at Reed’s Crossing on Friday, June 30. The event was hosted by the City of Hillsboro and Brookfield, formerly Newland Communities, a public/private partnership responsible for the project. GreenWorks worked with both entities on the design for the park from concept through construction documentation.

Each year in East Portland, more than 65 million people whiz right by Portland’s newest urban bike park in cars and trains. It’s a thin, 25-acre island of trees and meadows that undulates in the center of eleven lanes of traffic, four entrance and exit ramps, the TriMet Red line, Union Pacific freight train tracks, and the I-205 multi-use path. With so much transit happening around it, you’d think the land that’s now known as Gateway Green would be useless.

But visit the park and you’ll immediately realize it’s a treasure. This is because the site was reimagined with the help of a nearly twenty-year effort that began with two community members who saw the opportunity to reuse a piece of the "right-of-way" land to make East Portland better. Interest in the site touched so many different agencies that the Oregon Governor's office got involved to help smooth the way for the project's success.