Love Bank Park

Architect: Patterhn Ives
Landscape Architect: Arbolope Studio
General Contractor: E. M. Harris Construction
Structural Engineer: KPFF
MEP Engineer: Introba
Civil Engineer: Civil Design, Inc.
Lighting Designer: Lighting Associates
Location: St. Louis, MO

This compact urban park on a corner lot combines public recreation with on-site stormwater management. It began as a grassroots effort, when community leaders set up a basketball court for kids who had already begun playing there. The plan organizes around two overlapping zones, an open plaza of pastel tables and a permeable-asphalt basketball court. Conceived as a Venn diagram and drawing on Latin American plaza traditions, both surfaces sit over two-foot-deep storage basins that capture nearly all site runoff. At the center, a shade canopy of steel trusses and angled chain-link panels threaded with privacy slats takes cues from highway infrastructure. A catalpa rises through a central opening, and programmable LEDs render the structure a glowing lantern after dark.