Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum today unveiled plans for a new park on the front lawn designed to attract more visitors and enhance the hall's mission of honoring veterans while also paying homage to its original architect.

"Remembrance Park," designed for free by a team of local engineers and architects, will feature a memorial lawn near the street, a garden for a new statue in tribute to the war on terror and a courtyard near the building.

The idea is to eliminate the static feel of the existing expanse of lawn and replace it with a more dynamic space that draws people in from the moment they arrive.

The Oakland museum will present conceptual drawings of the project, spearheaded by Powerhouse Design Architects and Engineers in Station Square, at its Memorial Day ceremonies today.

"It's what we were looking for," said John McCabe, head of the museum. "We had worked with this organization for a couple of months, and they understood what we wanted. It was just a nice relationship."

The hall plans to mount a capital campaign to raise money for construction. Estimates are preliminary, but the finished product could run as high as $4 million.

The project could be complicated by the fact that the lawn is actually the roof of an underground parking garage, but Mr. McCabe said he sees that as an opportunity to install the city's next "green roof." Rooftop gardens have been sprouting up across the city; this one will be on a mammoth scale.

Mr. McCabe said the hall, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of its 1910 dedication next year, was looking for a project to symbolize a "rebirth" for that occasion.

So the board reached out to Powerhouse founder Michael Cherock, 37, a former Navy submariner whose hand was partially paralyzed in an accident aboard the USS Columbia in 1995. Much of his work is for the federal government, which, under a program initiated by President George W. Bush, is required to award contracts to a certain percentage of firms run by disabled veterans.

He agreed to do the design pro bono and assembled a team that includes Jonathan Kline and his wife, Christine Brill, owners of Studio for Spatial Practice, and Bernie Lamm of Lamm Engineering.

Mr. Cherock said the team envisioned a park that would be inviting rather than intimidating; flexible to accommodate new ideas and future needs; and accessible to disabled and aging veterans, something the long walkway and staircase leading to the hall now is not.

"The question was, How do we pull the mission of the hall out onto the lawn and create a narrative?" said Mr. Cherock. "We wanted to develop a narrative starting at street level."

The memorial lawn, which Mr. Cherock said could function as an amphitheater for events, is circled by a path that would feature plaques or installations honoring each branch of the military.

Behind the lawn is a garden of low hedges in a symmetrical pattern of flourishes that the team said reflects the style of architect Henry Hornbostel, who designed the building in 1907.

The garden is where monuments and statues will be displayed. The main one, designed by Michael Kraus, honors veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The garden will also feature the 7,000-pound bow ornament of the USS Pittsburgh. The ship, originally the USS Pennsylvania, was part of the Great White Fleet sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt from 1907 through 1909.

The bronze scrollwork ornament, forged in Homestead, has a connection to the hall in that Mr. Hornbostel also designed it.

Meanwhile, existing statues of a sailor and a soldier, now dwarfed by the building at its imposing entrance, will be moved to the front of the park near the street.

"To do the project really well is a serious undertaking," said Mr. Kline, who drew the design. "It's a very interesting, compelling project in a very public, urban space."

All it needs now is money.