![\"Playground](\"https:\/\/sandiegodowntownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Playground-with-view-of-New-Central-Librarywebtop.jpg\")
<\/a>The smaller area expresses what a place might look like after being slammed by a forcefully moving tectonic plate. Everything\u2019s jumbled, there\u2019s rolling topography, contorted paths, and no order.<\/p>\n
Situated on one of Downtown\u2019s rare, doublewide superblocks (480 feet by 300 feet), the 1.5-acre park is bordered to the west and east by 14th and 15th streets, and Island Avenue and J Street to the north and south.<\/p>\n
A public\/private partnership between Civic San Diego and Pinnacle International Development of Vancouver, B.C., the park was jointly designed with an adjacent 45-story high-rise called Pinnacle Tower 1 \u2014 the first of two residential towers planned nearby \u2014 with an expected 956 units.<\/p>\n
The private outdoor spaces of Pinnacle Tower 1 were designed at the same time as the park, with a goal of integrating and making them appear as one, contiguous open space.<\/p>\n
When the project started 10 years ago, Spurlock Poirier held design charrettes with neighborhood residents to find out what they would like in the park.<\/p>\n
Even though the area\u2019s demographics have changed over the years and the number of residents has grown, the new residents want similar things: a big, flexible open area for pick-up play, picnics, parties, inflatables, movies and more; basically children\u2019s playgrounds and places for people to get outside to exercise. Most importantly, they wanted a public restroom.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot for a little kid to explore and enjoy. The playground area includes individualized play areas for children 2\u20135 and 5\u201312 years old with swings, spinners, chinning bars, and climbing structures, all with rubberized play surfaces.<\/p>\n Other creative elements include sand, rock, grassy mounds and water play areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea was a path for little kids with a two-foot eye level, sunk inside a field of soft, grassy mounds, designed so it would be fun on three wheelers, scooters and strollers \u2014 an enjoyable circuitous path they could follow, jump off to roll in the grass, or gyrate on a spinner,\u201d said Poirier, referring to the winding paths found in the park. \u201cJust a fun path like the Yellow Brick Road.\u201d<\/p>\n On the northwest corner of the block, Texas-based\u00a0Stella Public House<\/a>\u00a0y\u00a0Halcyon<\/a>\u00a0Coffee share the 3,000-square-foot restaurant space, with a large patio overlooking the new park, the Coronado Bridge and the Downtown Central Library. It\u2019s also a great perch for watchful parents to keep an eye on their kids.<\/p>\n Collaboratively designed by Perkins and Company, Architecture & Urban Planning of Vancouver and San Diego, and Spurlock Poirier, the caf\u00e9 building and property is owned and maintained by the developer.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really happy about the synergy of the caf\u00e9 and the park,\u201d Poirier said. \u201cThe caf\u00e9 is going to thrive there because it\u2019s a great setting and a lot of people can walk to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Two public restrooms are available to park visitors and caf\u00e9 patrons, and are maintained by the restaurant lessee.<\/p>\n This project had a \u201cpercent-for-the-arts\u201d contribution from the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, which means that a percent of the construction cost would be used to commission an artist to create a work of art for the park.<\/p>\n The Bay Area-based artist team, Living Lenses (Po Shu Wang and Louise Bertelsen), fascinated by the fault-line location, developed \u201cFault Whisper,\u201d a multi-media interactive sculpture designed to engage public awareness of what \u201cmother earth\u201d is up to at the park site in real time.<\/p>\n Two 6-foot polished mirror spherical sculptures are sited on opposite sides of the rupture\/path.<\/p>\n From the viewing cone of the west sphere, visitors can see the east sphere, which was center-framed at the time of the sculptural installation. Over time, one will be able to see how much the land has slipped, by noticing how much the framing of east sphere is offset.<\/p>\n Underneath a plaque in front of the west sphere is an accelerometer that goes into the fault rupture, 14 feet below. It gathers ground movements in real time and sends them to a control computer, where the data stream is processed into musical notes. An ongoing musical composition is output gently through sound holes inside the sphere\u2019s viewing cone.<\/p>\n A remote eavesdropping function is also available in the form of a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone and opened to a page where one could click and eavesdrop on the earth at the park, anytime, anywhere.<\/p>\n In addition, a variety of native and drought-tolerant trees, shrubs and succulents will provide shade, color and texture to the park. Three types of grass are used: on the large open area is Bull\u2019s-eye Bermuda, the grassy mounds are fescue, and along the sidewalk, artificial; which, hopefully, dog owners will use instead of the play areas.<\/p>\n Fault Line Park is scheduled to open in mid-August.<\/p>\n<\/a>
(Foto por Delle Willett)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>