Gulf State Park Restoration Project Featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine
The touching tribute weaves a vibrant portrait of how recovery funding from the devastating Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill led to the award-winning rebuilding of one of our area’s most precious natural resources.
The Gulf State Park restoration project was featured in a worthy tribute written in Landscape Architecture Magazine and covered in detail the process behind our area’s coastal restoration efforts since Hurricane Ivan and the devastating Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Not only is the Gulf State Park project still unfolding, but yearly dispersements of recovery funding from the RESTORE ACT are still being allocated across gulf state coastlines to support more public restoration projects.
We hope you take a moment to enjoy reading about our work with Sasaki and Biohabitats on the master plan and design for the 6100+ acres of the Gulf State Park. It’s still unbelievable to us that our state’s biggest tourist attraction is now also a self-regenerating, living amenity that not only protects the dunes and landscape, but also actively restores the ecosystem through its design and function. That’s a pretty big deal! We are beyond grateful that this project’s publicity has shown the world what is possible to achieve with sustainable architecture and landscape planning and design.
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was a devastating environmental tragedy that brought long-lasting impacts to our local area. One of the few positives to emerge from the disaster was recovery funding that allowed public projects to rebuild our natural resources stronger and more sustainably than ever before – projects like the restoration of Alabama’s Gulf State Park. As sustainability consultant, Watershed worked closely with Sasaki, Biohabitats, and the University of Alabama on behalf of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to develop a design that complements, conserves and actively regenerates our precious coastal landscapes.
Learn more about the project in this touching tribute published in Landscape Architecture Magazine.