The 1.6 acre Pier Six Upland celebrates play and landscape discovery as a community-building activity. Combined with Pier One in the first phase of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 6 provides vital new social spaces and urban program, including volleyball courts and a dog run, while also laying the foundation for a continuous waterfront park to stretch between them.

Children are the main audience for Pier 6, which features integrated play elements throughout a landscape of small hills, climbing surfaces, natural textures, and native plants. Four sub areas within playground are aligned on either side of a central walkway. Together, these play areas create a narrative of landscape engagement: Swing Valley is a rolling landscape that amplifies the joy of swinging high in the air and offers a range of swing options for different abilities, including rope swings; Slide Mountain features hill slides, and climbing structures; Sand Village incorporates play structures, a toddler-sized train, sand platforms, and riding animals into the largest sandbox play area in New York City, while the Water Lab includes in-ground spray jets, splashing areas, water chutes, and an Archimedes Screw,

Designed in conjunction with experts in childhood development and play, the Pier Six upland provides program that will attract families and individuals on a daily and year-round basis, including picnic tables, benches, areas of accessible natural plantings, bikeway connections, a dog run with water, and a park concession building with restrooms. The salt marsh landscape proposed for Pier Six, sports fields and courts on Piers 2, and 5, a community lawn space on Pier 3, a habitat island, a beach, and other park program will come with future phases of park construction.

Video:
Video: Van Valkenburgh Tours Brooklyn Bridge Park
Video: Van Valkenburgh Looks Out at the Water and...

Links:
Brooklyn Bridge Park
The New Yorker's 2010 Architectural Events of the Year
Urban Omnibus - "Park as Process: Brooklyn Bridge Park"
ASLA - "Reinventing Public Place in NYC: Brooklyn Bridge Park"