Great Rivers Greenway, Gateway Arch Park Foundation and City of St. Louis Parks partnered to provide much needed supporting infrastructure at the recently renovated Kiener Plaza. As part of the CityArchRiver2015 project, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates of New York, created a beautiful meandering landscape inviting visitors to relax, play, and wander through the new grounds and play areas. In the months since the new plaza reopened to the public, GRG and GAPF realized some operational requirements necessary for improving both the visitor experience and GRG operations.
Trivers was engaged in 2018 to select a site and design a new structure to provide adequate storage and staging space for ongoing landscape maintenance as well as create a permanent office solution for the security team. In 2019, after a public engagement survey, the program expanded to include a visitor center kiosk. Trivers utilized studied site lines, visitor circulation to and through the plaza as well as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) principals to site the building.
As the first built structure within the new plaza, a well-executed design was of paramount importance. Purposefully playful, the design engages visitors with varied appearance of colored fins as one moves through the site. Driving this movement and activity around the building results in feelings of safety and security as proven through CPTED research. LED lighting is incorporated into the fins adding the ability for GRG to create movement and an experiential moment for dusk and evening plaza visitors. In addition, the north, west and east concrete walls provide a canvas for showcasing a rotation of murals by local artists.
