SAVE THE TIDAL BASIN IDEAS LAB

Washington, D.C., USA
Reed Hilderbrand, GGN, DLANDstudio, Hood Design Studio, James Corner Field Operations

The National Mall, between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, is the territory of the Piscataway tribe. In the nineteenth century, it was occupied by large Maryland plantations where enslaved Africans cultivated tobacco. Today, the basin is the primarily viewshed for the Jefferson memorial, and is part of West Potomac Park. As a cultural landscape, the National Mall and tidal basin are multi-layered historical sites with significant meaning for different populations. The National Mall Tidal Basin Ideas Lab is a collaborative platform to develop an integrated vision for the future of the tidal basin, which has cultural significance as an iconic United States landscape. The initiative was put forth by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) and the Trust for the National Mall. Five landscape firms, Reed Hilderband, GGN, DLANDstudio, James Corner Field Operations and Hood Design Studio, were selected to participate in the Ideas Lab based on their past design performance. While landscape firms typically compete for work in competitions, the Ideas Lab set out to combine the visions of each firm into a manual and display, both online and in Washington, D.C. The landscape challenges that were addressed were broken into a variety of categories, including circulation, security, visitor experience, civic stage, cultural landscape, connectivity, conservation, resilience and infrastructure. The existing infrastructure, including a degraded sea wall, regularly floods and impedes access, and has been estimated to require $500 million to protect the basin from rising sea levels. In 2020, the basin regularly floods twice a day at high tide, and unprecedented numbers of visitors trample the roots of the cherry trees planted across the Tidal Basin.

2019 - 2020
107 acres
0 feet above sea level

References:

Links: