OKC Myriad Botanical Gardens Wins International Award

Oklahoma City’s Myriad Gardens was named as a recipient of the 2015 Urban Open Space Award.

The Myriad Gardens was one of only two contest winners in the global contest; the other winner was Thousand Lantern Lake Park in Foshan, China.  

Award winners were selected based on “large and small-scale public spaces that have socially enriched and revitalized the economy and their surrounding communities.”

The following was the written descriptor for the Gardens:

“Myriad Botanical Gardens, owned by the Myriad Gardens Foundation and designed by the Office of James Burnett, and Murase Associates, is a joint investment effort that takes a highly-underused yet prime 15-acre urban downtown garden and park site that had fallen into disrepair, and turns it into a state-of-the-art, highly active destination to improve the quality of life in Oklahoma City and continue the renaissance of the entire downtown.”

Six finalists were selected, but only the Myriad Gardens and Thousand Lantern Lake Park were named winners of the award. Those other finalists were Marina Bay in Singapore, Millennium Park in Chicago, Tongva Park and Ken Genser Square in Santa Monica, Calif. and Washington Canal Park in Washington D.C.