Portland City Hall's Better Together Garden

An early concept exploring ways to draw attention to the garden, such as using salvaged materials and free-standing trellises to create vertical growing space

Preliminary Overhead map of the redesign of the better together garden

The GreenWorks team completed a preliminary re-design of Portland’s “Better Together Garden” at City Hall. GreenWorks Landscape Designer Vivian Schoung explained, “The next evolution of the garden is to make it more welcoming to people of all abilities and to increase its visibility.”

The next step in improving the garden, which GreenWorks was tasked to address in this project from the City, is installing walking paths that are friendlier to people of all abilities. New surfacing on the pathways will allow water to soak into the ground, but it will also mean the garden will become more ADA accessible, with 4-foot-wide paths. It will also include raised plant beds of varying heights so people can more comfortably work in the garden.

In spite of its prominent location, the garden can be surprisingly difficult to find if you aren’t looking for it. “Oftentimes people don’t see the garden because it’s raised above the surrounding sidewalk and behind the low wall that surrounds the courtyard,” GreenWorks designer Schoung said. Future iterations of the garden’s design will seek to address this issue.

“The opportunity to give back to the community through our pro-bono services at The Better Together garden was a special opportunity for Greenworks,” GreenWorks Associate Principal Jason King said. “While a small space, the impact is immense as an example of how community landscapes can address food insecurity through thoughtful design while being accessible to all. This reflects our firm’s aspirations for design to contribute to the overall livability of the Portland metropolitan area.”