At Goldring Woldenberg Riverfront Park in New Orleans, the planting plan has an unusual foundation: an old wharf. Trees stand above its concrete-filled steel supports, placing their weight where the existing structure can carry it most directly. What looks like a landscape is also a careful arrangement of loads.
The 6.3-acre project, with landscape design by Hargreaves Jones and architecture by EskewDumezRipple, turns a former industrial edge into public ground. Its lawn and planting sit over roughly four feet of soil. Supporting that depth required checking the ageing wharf, designing the soil system, and coordinating drainage and waterproofing.
Reuse is visible above ground too. Two bays of the former warehouse remain as an open-sided event pavilion, reclad in perforated, rust-orange metal panels. A tree-lined lawn accommodates gatherings while retaining space for everyday recreation. Planted mounds introduce variations in moisture and exposure, providing different conditions for native species and pollinators.
The park also closes a gap in a 2.25-mile sequence of connected riverfront parks. That connection matters as much as the individual amenities: it makes the reclaimed wharf part of a longer public route.
The project offers a useful corrective to the idea that waterfront renewal is simply a matter of adding greenery. Here, the ground itself must be constructed and maintained. The trees’ alignment makes that dependence unusually legible: the industrial frame continues to organise the landscape that replaces its former use.
Photography: Michael Mantese / EskewDumezRipple.