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Initially envisioned by Rotarian Julie Matsushima, who recognized the disparity of play spaces often isolates children with special needs, had a desire to witness her twin granddaughters play together. As one was born with cerebral palsy, this became the catalyst to use her platform as past president of the Rotary Club of San Jose to have the PlayGarden’s construction be the focus of the Centennial project. It also wonderfully serves as a centennial gift to the community.
The San Jose Rotary PlayGarden is the city’s first all-inclusive play space opened in May 2015, featuring a variety of dynamic and fun play structures designed to be used by all abilities, and even surpassing ADA requirements. Beautifully nestled in the Guadalupe Gardens adjacent to the Guadalupe River, it promotes fun and connection to the surrounding ecology, while empowering the entire community to play, discover and connect with one another. The park facilitates play spanning from the tentative to the robust and allows for repose as well as activity—children can engage by rotating, swinging, sliding, climbing, spinning, and bouncing with equipment and elements that vary in kinetics and tactility. Elements such as sand, water, and a wheelchair-accessible carousel stimulate different types of play within an encouraging collaborative layout.
The 5-acre PlayGarden is situated alongside a tributary of San Francisco Bay and directly in an airport flightpath, features an estuarine slough-shaped motif, with imagery of waving grasses, flowing water, and animals moving with ease through water and air. The sinuous, unbounded nature of an aquatic environment mirrors what the design seeks to evoke: physical motion, and the sense of possibility inherent in long vistas, water, and flight. Part of the park’s legacy involves the use of staff and volunteers with special needs to help with maintenance. The Santa Clara County Office of Education and San Andreas Regional Center also support programming at the facility for their clients. The Rotary Club is also funded by community donations.
HMH provided landscape architecture services to enhance its inviting nature.
The Foster City levee system, surrounding the majority of the outer bay-front perimeter of the City, is crucial in providing protection from flood hazards and storms. In 2014, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) determined that our levee system does not meet minimum requirements for flood protection.
To protect people and property and avoid designating Foster City as a flood zone (which would require expensive flood insurance for most home owners), voters passed Measure P in 2018 to fund the necessary levee improvements.
The Levee Improvements Project will increase the height and width of the levee to improve protection against storm/tide surges, meet sea level rise projections through the year 2050, maintain FEMA accreditation, and make the levee more resistant to earthquakes. The project also includes redevelopment and widening of the Levee/Bay Trail, which will provide the community with an enhanced, more inviting recreation destination.
After a four-months-long study and research period to gain insights on how to improve the existing experience, the San Jose Flea Market came up with Garden at the Flea, which opened in April 2019.
Having unfolded steps away from the recently developed Berryessa BART Station, it’s a brand new expansion using aesthetics to hearken back to San Jose’s agricultural “Valley of the Heart’s Delight” aesthetic. The expansion primarily features beautiful new green spaces for attendees to enjoy, including an actual garden featuring sustainable California flowers and plants. Additionally, the space will offer a new beer garden experience, a games area and a food truck park allowing for both existing food trucks and new food trucks to be a part of Garden at the Flea and an exciting new live performance space with the capacity to host larger scale events.
HMH contributed to this project by providing design ideas for the landscape layout and expansion of the space, and consultation on the most sustainable planting options for the garden, and how to seamlessly integrate it with the entire ambiance of the overall market space.
The landscape concept for 545/515 N. Whisman modernizes, enlarges, and connects the two revitalized buildings with a shared landscape that can be utilized by employees and visitors to both buildings.
The existing site featured a large vehicular drive from N. Whisman Rd. that led to an additional circular drop-off that is oversized for the campus’ needed circulation. The new landscape design maintains the drive but amends the layout to enlarge the pedestrian landscape and courtyard into the unnecessary circular drop-off, which will enhance the pedestrian experience, while still maintaining the required parking and vehicular circulation for the campus.
The new design creates a central promenade that creates a clear visual corridor with open sightlines and flexible use space down the center for outdoor collective use. This is accomplished by providing two concrete sidewalks entering the courtyard from the new Whisman Rd. drop-off, with an additional walk cutting across the site to juxtapose on-grade flush decking with synthetic turf and low-water-use planting at the edges. All three pedestrian pathways lead to an on-grade social area with an overhead arbor (20’x 45’) and flexible-use movable seating and overhead lighting. Additional designated seating areas are scattered throughout the design, with a mix of seating on concrete pavers and flush wood or synthetic-wood decking.
The courtyard maintains several mature trees on-site, keeping four large sycamores in the middle of the design and several other existing trees up against the buildings. The large and healthy trees that are proposed to remain allow for the modernized landscape layout, while still proving large tree canopies immediately after construction of the landscape. In total, six trees remain on-site with three trees transplanted and replanted on-site.
With the enlarged landscape, central flexible use space, defined seating areas, and targeted pedestrian circulation, the landscape design for 545/515 N. Whisman blends the modernized buildings into the landscape while offering practical flexibility in a beautiful and enhanced outdoor landscape.
This monument was unveiled in 2013 to honor and remember the 142 “Sons of San Jose” who were killed in action during the Vietnam War. It is located in downtown San Jose at 393 West Santa Clara Street and Delmas Avenue. HMH had the honor of being involved in the landscape process for Sons of San Jose. The memorial creates a small gathering space and pausing point for pedestrians walking along the street. The landscape design helps form an inviting sense of space to the park. HMH also provided land surveying services.
Downtown Los Gatos ADU is a project completed alongside Stoecker & Northway Architects and DesignMatters. HMH provided landscape architecture services, civil, and survey.