The Orange County Great Park will be a multi-use metropolitan park that spans over 1,300 acres of public land that was gifted to the City of Irvine by Lennar Corporation. This land was formerly part of the El Toro Marine Base.

Designing a Great Park means designing a park to serve many functions, and Ken Smith has created a design with several personalities. He sees the Great Park divided into three unique areas: habitat, fields, and a canyon.

Habitat
The habitat areas of the Great Park will revive the native flora and fauna of the area in a place where the ecology has been disturbed for over one hundred years. Smith’s vision for the habitat at the Great Park includes woodlands, wetlands, a canyon, and streams. As the connecting link between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Coastal Range, the Great Park is already a highway for many species of animals, and the Great Park design will help to create a far more animal-friendly passage for our wild neighbors. Smith’s design will “daylight” an underground water channel that will create habitat for many native plants and animals.

The Fields
The field areas of the Great Park will recognize the agricultural and military history of the land, as well as provide sports facilities for Orange County residents. Smith’s design will bring back groves of fruit and citrus trees, which were once so prevalent in Orange County. To honor El Toro’s military history, the Great Park design will incorporate a segment of one of the former Marine base’s runways, upon which will be a permanent display of military aircraft from different generations. The field areas of the Great Park will be an outdoor, living museum of Orange County’s rich history. This area will also provide space for many sports fields, including areas for extreme sports, bringing together people from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life.

The Canyon
The final area of the Great Park, the feature of Smith’s design that has captured so many imaginations, is the two-and-one-half-mile-long canyon. During the design competition, Smith visited Balboa Park in San Diego and was amazed that when he entered Palm Canyon, the air became cooler. The feature of a canyon at the Great Park will provide a whole new climate and landscape in an area that is now flat and featureless. The canyon will be the oasis in the middle of central Orange County’s desert climate. In one section of the canyon will be a large lake, big enough for boats. But what will make this canyon truly spectacular will be the cultural terrace, which will include an amphitheatre, a library, museums, and a botanic garden. All the facilities will be set up against or nestled inside the canyon walls. Smith would like to see a botanic garden that focuses on native plants and endangered plant species.

The Orange County Great Park must have several personalities because Orange County is home to so many people with such varied interests. Ken Smith’s design for the Great Park will provide facilities and amenities for every Orange County resident. The Conservancy looks forward to working with the community to ensure that the Great Park will be a treasured amenity for all of Orange County, both today and for future generations. We cannot wait to see this remarkable design become the Orange County Great Park.

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