DESOTO PARK
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2012 Louisiana ASLA Student Merit Award
Lying outside the protection of the levee, the Desoto batture has a unique function and character in a drastically altered watershed. The course and history of the Mississippi River has shaped Baton Rouge, a industrial city that has acted as a transportation hub for barge and rail. A team of three proposed a series of grounded, floating, and suspended interventions designed to operate within this dynamic landscape to reconnect the downtown area to the systems upon which it was built.
Access to Desoto is currently very limited. Both physical and implied boundaries keep people separated from the park area. Barriers to usage include River Road, visitor parking, the railroad. The only path through Desoto currently is a straight dirt road that is used by maintenance vechicles. When the river rises, the batture is competely submerged, so the land is only useable during parts of the year.
Desoto has the potential to be a key recreational space for the Baton Rouge community to draw in both tourists and locals. It is within walking distance of Spanish Town, and is adjacent to the visitor parking for tourists in the downtown.
Mappings of accessibility, vegetation, and sensitivity to disturbances informed path layouts and the location of “program hubs.” Due to the highly sensitive nature and flooding of the batture, an elevated path system was developed in order to maximize access through the year and to encourage the establishment of batture habitat, particularly for birds using the flyway. This design would response to river conditions and provide an experience unique to the site.
The industrial infrastructure of the Mississippi waterfront is translated into the site in the form of catwalks and barges which act as elevated programmed areas. These structures provide consistent access and provide new spaces for people to engage with the river.
Planting choices were based off of annual inundation. Trees, shrubs, and groundcover were selected to provide critical bird food and habitat.
The various pieces of infrastructure are used as observatory decks, social gathering spaces, outdoor classrooms and provide downtown Baton Rouge with a venue for passive recreation that pays homage to the industry of the city that sprung from the Mississippi River.
