Force Field: Ecological Park shaped from Wind, Water, Motion & Science

Carl Zeiss AG

Marcel Wilson, Lead Landscape Architect
Caroll Crump, Gensler, Architect
Simon North, BKF, Civil Engineer
Brandon Thrasher, HLB, Lighting Designer
Ned Kahn, Ned Kahn Studios, Artist

Unlike other closed-off campuses in rapidly urbanizing Dublin, CA, this project is a public-facing ecological wetland park. Designed around a complex water system to protect and enhance an existing seasonal wetland, the project creates equal access to nature and ecologically centered systems to demonstrate the potential every development offers to stimulate ecology. It proposes a new model for suburban development that synthesizes the forces of development, science, ecology, and art to create positive ecological and economic effects.

Situated in rapidly urbanizing Dublin, California, the project demonstrates how the forces of development, science, and art can be synthesized to create positive ecological and economic effects. This new research facility channels the flows of the site and building to create an ecological wetland park in a city where sprawl and privatization are the norm. This project creates public access to nature and demonstrates a high standard for watershed innovation and citizenry.

Through drone surveillance the landscape architect discovered seasonal wetlands at the center of the 11.65-acre site. Often misunderstood and destroyed by development, seasonal wetlands hold water high in the watershed, slowly infiltrate water, and host sensitive habitats. This discovery introduced significant regulatory challenges to the feasibility of the project. The client, a German company known for producing highly technical optics products, relied on the landscape architect to save the project. The solution was a paradigm shift away from typical privatized corporate facilities to an integral landscape that engages environmental dynamics, site flows, and technology as forces for human purpose and ecological function.

The existing wetland was the result of previous agricultural uses and benign neglect. Situated at the site’s low point, the wetland’s original watershed was a broad flat grassland. Urbanization severed its flows over time. The new facility is a highly specialized machine for innovative science. Hundreds of scientists from the region travel by car to the facility and require acres of parking. Site infrastructure, grading, and building systems were configured to efficiently capture surface water and deliver it to multiple above-grade treatment cells. This configuration generates more water than the historic watershed did and enhances the biodiversity possible in the optimized seasonal wetland. A polar geometry organizes the site into a gradient that ranges from precise and mechanized to unstructured and soft. Water is conveyed across the gradient from the treatment cells to channels below the central walkway to the wetland where it saturates expansive soils and supports native plant communities.

In stark contrast to the adjacent campus landscapes lined with high-water use and non-native plants, native and drought-tolerant plant species were carefully selected for this project to reactivate the site’s biodiversity using upland and aquatic species. Grown in special native plant nurseries, the new plants were hand-planted in the wetland and are subject to an extensive monitoring plan for long-term sustainability. Today the wetland surges with life. Shallow layers of water fill the microtopography of the wetland. Migratory and resident birds, invertebrates, rodents, and mammals are now finding and establishing themselves in its niches. The wetland is evolving, and people are welcome to watch and understand it over time. A trail around the seasonal wetland includes interpretive elements and educational signage. And a kinetic sculpture that engages dynamic wind patterns animates the site entry. It is a welcoming public gesture that invites the community to experience the ecological park and learn about the environmental and technological forces at play.