Tanner Springs Park is a city park in the area of downtown

Downtown Portland

Downtown Portland, the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States, is located on the west bank of the Willamette River. It is in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and is where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found....

 Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 known as the Pearl District

Pearl District, Portland, Oregon

The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significant urban renewal since the late 1990s, including the...

.

History

Part of a 1999 Pearl District plan, the park was originally named North Park Square, but was renamed in April 2005.

Originally, the park was to be designed by Maya Lin

Maya Lin

Maya Ying Lin is an American artist who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. She is the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Personal life:...

, but concerns about her large sculpture, called "Playground", worried Pearl District residents who did not want another child-friendly park only two blocks from Jamison Square

Jamison Square

Jamison Square is a city park in the area of downtown Portland, Oregon, known as the Pearl District. It was the first park added to the neighborhood.-Design:...

.

Design

Connected to the busy Jamison Square two blocks away by a wooden boardwalk

Boardwalk

A boardwalk, in the conventional sense, is a wooden walkway for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles, often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments....

 made of ipê

IPE

Ipe or IPE can refer to:* Ipê, trees in the genus Tabebuia and their wood* Ipe , an extensible drawing editor* Individual Plant Examination in nuclear power plant probabilistic risk assessment* Institute of Public Enterprise in India...

, Tanner Springs Park is quiet and naturalistic, designed by Atelier Dreiseitl and GreenWorks PC. Stripping away the industrial cover helped reconnect the neighborhood with the pre-industrial wetlands, especially Tanner Creek, which ran through the area. The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

described it as "a sort of cross between an Italian piazza

Piazza

A piazza is a city square in Italy, Malta, along the Dalmatian coast and in surrounding regions. The term is roughly equivalent to the Spanish plaza...

 and a weedy urban wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

 with lots of benches perched beside gently running streams." The waterscape

Waterscape

Waterscape was set up in the summer of 2003 and is British Waterways leisure website, supported by the Environment Agency and the Broads Authority as an official information and leisure resource for inland waterways within the UK....

 was designed by architect Herbert Dreiseitl

Herbert Dreiseitl

Herbert Dreiseitl is an internationally renowned, sculptor, artist and interdisciplinary planner with over 30 years experience in the field of landscape architecture and water sculpture...

, who spent time perfecting the sound made by the rushing water. The park is planted with tall native grasses, and includes Oregon oak, red alder

Red Alder

Alnus rubra, the Red alder, is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to western North America.-Description:It is the largest species of alder in North America and one of the largest in the world, reaching heights of 20–35 m. The official tallest red alder stands 32 meters tall in Clatsop County, Oregon...

 and bigleaf maple

Bigleaf Maple

Acer macrophyllum is a large deciduous tree in the genus Acer.It can grow to be up to 35 m tall, but more commonly grows 15 m to 20 m tall. It is native to western North America, mostly near the Pacific coast, from southernmost Alaska to southern California...

 trees, salvaged in the region and planted as mature trees.

The east wall of the park is covered in an art installation, primarily composed of rail tracks

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

 recovered from the area placed vertically along the east wall. Portland Terminal Railroad donated the rails, recovered from the region. Some rails date back to 1898. Bullseye Glass, a local glass art company, supplied 99 translucent blue pieces of glass, which are interspersed in the rails. They were painted by Herbert Dreiseitl with scenes of indigenous

Indigenous (ecology)

In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...

 animals.

Reception

After early damage to the pond's ecosystem, signs were placed to explicitly indicate pets are not allowed.

Some visitors consider the park a waste of money, while others appreciate the serenity that a pocket park

Pocket park

A pocket park, parkette or mini-park is a small park accessible to the general public. In some areas they are called miniparks or vest-pocket parks....

 can provide in the middle of the city. Still others participate in yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

 in the park.

The park has been called a "beautiful little oasis", and architect Laurie Olin

Laurie Olin

Laurie Olin is an American landscape architect. He has worked on everything from private residences to large public parks. Olin grew up in Alaska, and earned his degree in Architecture from the University of Washington, in Seattle where he was mentored under Richard Haag. After graduating he...

remarked:

I've heard some Portlanders are snippy about Dreiseitl's park, boutique ecology and all that. I like the concept, but I'm not crazy about the proportions, for instance, of the stair-step grass seats. I like the idea of recycling the railroad rails and the sense of memory, but they look nasty and scary and that you're going to hurt yourself. The walkways are too Uncle Wiggly to me, too cutesy. But that's one designer criticizing the other designer's cuffs and pockets. I'm not arguing with the raison d'etre.