Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners

Could Atlanta build a High Line over this highway?

City planners hope to bring this linear park to a newly built space above a busy city freeway

A decade ago, the creators of New York’s High Line took advantage of an abandoned stretch of elevated railway to begin building their linear park.

Today, that project has proved so successful, Atlanta’s city planners want to create an entirely new elevated structure to support the city’s proposed 2,500-ft-long raised park, and they’re considering constructing it right on top of a major highway.

 

Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners
Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners

The city’s Buckhead Community Improvement District has commissioned the New York firm Roger Partners to come up with a park concept over the GA400 freeway and the platform and tracks of the accompanying MARTA regional light railway network.

Robert Rogers’ 40-strong firm, which has brought in Nelson Byrd Woltz on some of the landscape design, envisages a meandering path with three different activity zones for this well-to-do business and residential district of the city: “the Commons for picnics and casual gatherings, a grand Plaza with vibrant edges and a large public display at the train stop, lush and intimate Gardens for immersive nature and art walks”.

 

Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners
Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners

Along the entire stretch of the park Rogers Partners intends a allée of high-canopied pine trees to give “a defining structural element to the sequence of spaces”. The hope is that all this foliage would offer some respite to those who dwell and work in the car-choked city, at the same time as easing pollution and bringing down the temperature.

 

Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners
Buckhead Park Over GA400 by Rogers Partners

If the $150m Buckhead Park Over GA400 scheme gets the thumbs up, it would be in good company. In the wake of The High Line by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations, numerous other conurbations are looking at similar options. To discover more about that hugely successful park, order a copy of our High Line book, authored by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations. And for more on landscape architecture check out 30:30 Landscape Architecture in the store now.