Articles by Matt Hutchins

Sunset Substation Park

Our park idea has been featured in a couple of resources for green design:

Inhabitat

Daily Journal of Commerce

Solar canopy and parkscape

We’ve completed the Feasibility Study and Community Design Report.  You can download the full report here (careful, it is a big file):

Download report as pdf

For a quick synopsis of the design:

Download design synopsis as pdf

PLAN:

SUNSET SUBSTATION PARK PLAN

The design features:

–Overhead, lightweight steel canopy provides support for 189 solar panels.

–Canopy partially shades site without providing full weather protection

–Sculpted landscape provides unique gathering and recreation spaces while screening park from rear of adjacent business

–Walls provide space for interpretive materials and community information

–Paths criss-cross site, providing multiple access points and shortcuts for neighbors

–Play area for kids/exercise and stretching for adults

–Small paved gathering area for a variety of uses including educational seminars

–Terrain sloped evenly up to alley at south side, encouraging access from 32nd

–Solar energy for charging station and lighting allows park to also function as center of community emergency response

–Designed to meet the LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE, the most progressive and demanding sustainable building standard in the world.  One of 5 projects locally, and 70 worldwide to attempt to built a carbon neutral, net zero energy, net zero water use project.

VIEWS OF PARKSCAPE:

path to parkscape from 65th

The solar canopy soars over the park space.  The east and west edges of the park would be planted with a mix of vegetation, both to screen neighboring properties, and provide year round color.

Behind the orange barn door lies the equipment room which can be opened to supplement teaching opportunities about solar technology.

Along the wedge’s wall, there would be educational information and an opportunity for art.

Under the canopy, the wedge is covered with shade tolerant ferns and plants.

A stair up to a lookout provides a prospect to see downtown.

Along the stairs, a water feature using collected rainwater, feeds a fountain along the pathway.

The park has a resilient surfaced play area for kids.

view from alley

The view from the alley is open and welcoming.

To the east, a deeper planting bed with a hedge screens the back of the neighboring restaurant.

We want to thank the community for their input and the steering committee for their diligence and commitment!

view from path

We’ve done a lot of work since the last posting, mainly with the landscape architect, structural engineer, and the Steering Committee with regards to the funding and legal structure of the community solar, but I wanted to share some of the latest design ideas.

Sunset Substation Park plan

The main design element, after the canopy itself, is the Wedge–a tilted section of topography that creates an artificial valley that the path slides through.  At the high side of the wedge, the gathering space  has access to the equipment room–which can be opened up so that the working of the system can be part of educational seminars about solar technology.  The emergency relief center and storage are also housed inside.

On the top surface of the wedge, we have a shade garden with a mix of species that you’d find in the understory of a mature Northwest forest, with a little stair path up to a lookout.

To the south, under the canopy, there is a area for kids’ play, parkour, and adult stretching and exercise, mixed in with seat walls for parents to hang out while the kids have free reign.

The east and west edges are conceived as more traditional planting areas with dogwoods, stewartias, burning bushes, rhododendrons, hydrangeas and a mix of other species to fill out the park with color year round.  In the next round of renderings, we’ll include the plantings to give a better idea of the character of the park.

Here are some other views:

view from the alley into the park

View under the canopy

We took in all the feedback from the prior meeting, the steering committee, the blog, and comments from other neighborhood blogs and put together two variations on the theme.  As much as possible, we combined the three prior schemes, since each had fairly strong support, and tried to eliminate the negatives that came out in the comments.

The first underlying theme of the redesign was to increase the solar power potential.  In the new schemes we have the same canopy design.  It is made up of 188 panels and should produce about 35,000 kWh per year.  In terms of household use, the average US consumption is 11040 kWh per year (U.S.Dept of Energy), meaning our canopy would generate enough power for 3.2 households.

In the prior schemes, we had 117, 131, and 160 panels, so we’ve added 17 percent of over the largest solar array we’ve seen in the design thus far (and the array covers 2981 sq. ft.  of the 6300 sq.ft. lot–less than half).

The second main theme was to keep the dramatic form of the Wedge, but eliminate the blind spots for public safety, and overall reduce the amount of structure (no need for an indoor community space with the Association building a block away).  To accomplish this,  we’ve changed the canopy so that it is independent of the parkscape.  The canopy steps east as it slopes up.

Aerial view from 65th Street

The result is that the panels aren’t shaded by the apartment building to the east, and we maintain the dramatic view from 65th to help attract visitors to the park.

path from 65th entrance

Both the options deal with different parkscapes under a similar canopy. The first variation we’ve nicknamed ‘double wedge’, sculpts the land to make a valley through which the path from 65th to the alley runs.  Each wedge slopes up from the path: on the north side it raises up to about 6 ft (above the old substation’s slab), on the south it slopes more steeply to create a space underneath where we’d house the equipment/emergency center. Read the rest of this entry »

path from 65th entrance

The second option flips the equipment/storage/emergency center to the northeast in the corner between the restaurant and soon to be finished tent, then grades the southern portion of the lot more gently to meet the alley.  The highest point on the single wedge is about 12′ above the existing slab.  The edge of the wedge would provide a wall for community posting as well as information about the solar park (the little orange window is the electric meter running backwards).  Read the rest of this entry »

For those night owls, who attended this evening’s meeting, and would like to comment, please post your comments.  Otherwise I will put up images and a summary of the two design variations tomorrow.