FREEDOM PARK URBAN SPACE

Landscape Planning and Garden Design FREEDOM PARK URBAN SPACE by Eleftherios Piskitzis As the aim of the project was to create a showcase for South Africa’s identity, national heritage and place of celebration, the main theme for the Freedom Park Project was to express unity in diversity, of extreme importance in present day circumstances all over the world. The spiral path of the park plays the role of unifying core for the elements that make Freedom Park an experience for reflection, self exploration and enlightenment. These elements are Freedom Park Museum, the Gathering Space, the Gardens of Rememberance and the Memorial, the Wall of Rememberance as well as a series of smaller scale “green follies” dispersed in the park. They form a so-called update version of an initiation rite in which the visitors remember and acknowledges history celebrates, and make dreams for the future. The spiral path is paved with a mixture of textures ribbed faced concrete, bricks, as well as stone in irregular patterns, but close to human scale and low-key as an intervention so as to subtly guide the visitors through the site.