Hillcrest Streetscape

The restaurants and shops in this multi-unit building are set well back from the street, on a site that slopes down to the west. The previous streetscape negotiated the grade change by being flush with the sidewalk at the east end then introducing progressively more steps up to entry level to the west. The business owners wanted to eliminate those accessibility-impeding steps. They also wanted a more attractive and cohesive landscape to replace the site’s existing series of view-blocking concrete planters.

With only a ‘ribbon’ of space between the sidewalk and the outer edge of the restaurants’ patios to work with, PLANT introduced a ramp that slopes up to patio level and back down to the sidewalk. At the west end, in behind a weathering-steel retaining wall with the BIA’s name lasercut through it, new steps offer an alternative means of accessing the patio level; there is also a midpoint set of stairs.

Several trees contained in the existing planters had died, but the new landscape retains two remaining trees and provides them with a much larger, planted growing area to preserve their root health.