Dolly’s Park

Working together with local community members and decarbonization through material reclamation are at the the heart of this project. Assemblage Landscape Architecture collaborated with Dolly’s Park Board and NYC GreenThumb to reimagine Dolly’s Park as a greener, more accessible community space in Gowanus. The project transformed an underutilized gravel lot into a welcoming landscape that supports gathering, ecological restoration, and everyday use.Assemblage prioritizes the use of local and regional materials to reduce embodied carbon, and we use salvage and reclaimed materials to reduce the harvesting of new resources and the production of new materials. The QR-enabled material source map traces the origins of all site elements, revealing a layered narrative of place and reuse. Incorporating former building materials into the landscape represents a vital form of adaptive reuse—extending the life cycle of existing resources while grounding the project in the history and fabric of its community.