Downtown Cary Park

Dec 18

“Downtown Cary Park is an investment in our region and an expression of the community to live inspired. The thoughtful design process resulted in a park that is filled with spaces and activities that offer something for everyone.”

— Sean R. Stegall, Cary, NC Town Manager

Located in the heart of downtown Cary, the Downtown Cary Park is a transformational synthesis of urban design, landscape, architecture, and programming. This seven-acre park is the centerpiece of an investment by the citizens of the Town of Cary to enhance, expand and protect the accessible public vibrancy of their rapidly growing community. The project’s design is the result of collaboration between the Town of Cary’s Parks and Rec Department, OJB Landscape Architecture and Machado Silvetti, and a host of consultants, community members, and the town’s council and manager’s office.

Client: Town of Cary
Location: Cary, NC
Year: 2017-2023
Status: Completed
Landscape Architect, Prime: OJB Landscape Architecture
Architect: Machado Silvetti
Civil Engineering: Withers Ravenel
Structural/ Envelope Engineering: SGH
MEP Engineering: Cosentini
Water Features Consultant: Fluidity Design Consultants
Graphics and Wayfinding: RSM Design
Contractor: Balfour Beatty
Honorable Mention in Unbuilt Landscape | Architect's Newspaper Best of Design | 2020
“Downtown Cary Park in North Carolina by OJB and Machado Silvetti creates a new square in the Research Triangle.” The Architect’s Newspaper.

Master Plan

Starting from the development of an early comprehensive master plan, the team of OJB and Machado Silvetti worked meticulously to design the park as a cohesive assemblage of landscape and architecture. The park itself is organized into two distinct zones whose landscape transitions from an urban condition to a naturalistic language as you traverse the site.

Signature Pavilions

“We intentionally blurred the line between buildings and landscape. Our collaborative approach led us to a design that is both sustainable and socially responsible. The park structures are intimately tied to how the community will gather for performances, celebrations, and enjoy each other’s company.”

— Jeffry Burchard, Principal

Machado Silvetti designed five pavilions within the park, providing programs including food and beverage, public restrooms, events and performance venues, as well as providing general covered and semi-enclosed spaces of shaded leisure and recreation. The architecture of the pavilions, while diverse programmatically have been designed as a cohesive ensemble. All sharing a consistent material pallet of timber, wood cladding, white brick and zinc roofs, connecting to vernacular traditions of construction in North Carolina.

Academy Pavilion

The Academy Pavilion provides indoor and outdoor multi-use flexible space at the interface between the historic urban core of the town and the park’s contemporary center. Located adjacent to Academy Street, it serves as the primary food and beverage point in the park in addition to providing public restrooms, indoor/ outdoor event and dinning spaces as well as below grade park storage and support spaces.

Great Lawn Pavilion

The Great Lawn Pavilion located at the center and lowest point of the park anchors the intersection of many distinct park zones. The pavilion provides a shaded space for a range of programed classes and activities in addition to capacity and infrastructure to host large events, movies, and musical performances.

The Pavilion is a single inverted cone with an asymmetrical apex, supported on just three points—a dramatization of structure that reflects the primary purpose of the stage. The geometry of this pavilion was created in precise relationship to acoustical needs for a multi-purpose performance stage while the form, material, location of structure, multiple orientations and ground surface were all designed to encourage regular daily use of this covered space between signature performances.

Bark Bar

The Bark Bar Pavilion located adjacent to Walker Street provides a smaller food and beverage point at the northern most corner of the park sited adjacent to the dog play areas. The pavilion is designed as an outdoor walkup bar experience with ample shade and seating for large and small groups to gather. Its roof edge is more sinuous in space, while forming an oversized scupper for rainfall, providing a centerpiece for a partially enclosed courtyard that serves as a memorable gathering point for park-goers.

Gathering House

The Gathering House, nested within the Gathering Garden, provides a large interior room that can be open to the Garden, for both private and public programming. While distinct from the other pavilions in its rectangular form, it is related to the others by means of dimension, proportion, and material consistency.

Materiality and Form

The pavilions are composed of a naturalistic material pallet of zinc, stone and wood which connect the structures to traditions of building in North Carolina, while simultaneously integrating with the material culture of the parks design.

Three of the pavilions share geometric similarities, utilizing conic roof forms. These roofs provide an extension of space outward into the landscape, allowing the structures to hover within the park blurring the condition between interior and exterior spaces. Subverting norms of conventional sidedness that differentiates front-of-house and back-of-house, the pavilions cleverly embed back-of-house functions on the interiors so that the surrounding landscape is activated in 360-degrees.

“Machado Silvetti brings to the table that rare combination of talent, confidence, adaptability, and humility, where their goals and ideas are never bigger or more important than the clients they serve. They are remarkable listeners and translators between the world of art and architecture and the world of the client, and they effectively bridge the gaps between multiple points of view and varying needs.”

— Sean R. Stegall, Cary, NC Town Manager