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34 LETTERS
FOREGROUND
"'/
78 INTERVIEW
Moving Cats Robert Inglis, a six-term former Republican congressman from South Carolina, believes clima te change is real and caused by huma ns. Now, in private life, he's trying to show Americans the absurdities ot their attachment to fossil fuels and suggest free- market solutions. BY ARTHUR ALLEN
42 NOW 90 WATER
Forests seem not to be the best place for the disposal of hydrofracturing fluid waste; Detro it's downtown gets a jump from an energy compa ny's headquarters; exhaust towers in Singapore are crawling with life; and more.
Take It Downhill A redevelopment project in Seattle includes plan ni ng tor the city's largest green infrastructure project yet. Better days are ahead tor Lake Union.
EDITED BY UNOA MCINTYRE
BY USA OWENS VIANI
64 SPECIES
After several recent floods, a look at trees that can stand wet feet; a gander at gooseberries, those fruits of envy; and pla nting in e lu sive s hades of "black."
102 GOODS
On Fire
With colder weather coming, we've found several well- designed ways to keep warm outdoors. BY USA SPECKHAR DT
BY CO NSTANCE CAS EY 110 PARKS
Safer Parks After Dark Park managers rely on night lighting to protect people from crime and extend a park's hou rs of use. Dark-sky advocates see the stars washing away. But new LED tech nolog ies are coming closer to making everyone happier. BY PETER HARNIK, ASLA; RYAN DONAHUE; AND JORDAN THALER
10/ LANOSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV2011
WESTERN PRAGMATISM 8·8ESN'T EXCLUDE AMBITION .. ." - CH RI S REED OF STOSS LANDSCAPE URBANISM, P. 140
FEATURES 128 DAYS INN, DAYS OUT
Lango Hansen Landscape Architecture turn s a parking lot into a cool new courtyard as part of the upgrading of a dowdy old motel in Portland, Oregon. BY MAR K HINSHAW
THE BACK 176 PRACTICE
Stitches in Time and Place Two young designers joined the main office of Sasaki Associates and launched an urban research project that is resound ing in the ways the firm addresses the design of cit ies. BY ERNEST BECK
134 NATURE CALLS 188 BOOKS
A complex renovation at Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia creates more than a dozen new public restrooms and two astonishing green walls.
220 DISPLAY AD INDEX
BY NICOLE NEDER, ASSOCIATE ASLA 222 BUYER'S GUIDE INDEX 140 SO INCUNED
Jim Schmitt, the amb itious mayor of Green Bay, Wisconsin, was looking decades in to the future when he comm issioned Stoss Landscape Urbanism to remake three blocks of publ ic waterfront into t he intriguing, angular CityDeck. BY ADAM REGN ARVIDSON, FASLA
235 FORWARD
Research Priorities An agenda for research at the national level would bring coherence and authority to the pursuit of new knowledge in landscape architecture. BY KURT D. CULBERTSON, FASLA
154 A POND WOULD BE PERFECT
Michael Vergason, FASLA, was quite content to let a farmstead in Pennsylvania become simply more of itself, which meant one major addition- and it became the l ife of t he place. BY ANNE RAVER
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 I / 11
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VICE PRESI DENTS Edward G. Czyscon. FASLA Chad D. Danos. FASLA Mar k H. Hough, ASLA Gregory A. M1Uer. ASL A Vaughn B. Rinner. ASLA K. Ri<:hard Zweifel. FASLA EXECUTIV E VICE PR ES ID ENT Nancy C. Somerv
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I LAND MATTERS
BARRELS OF LAUGHS A
fter an awful dry spell, it started to rain like crazy in Washington, D.C., in the middle of August and during all of September. I started looking for a rain barrel to hook up to a downspout on my house. My jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, like some others, will give me a rain barrel or reimburse me up to $roo for one I buy myself It's part of the RiverSmart Homes program sponsored by the people at the District's Department of the Environment, who are trying to cut the city's storm runoff into creeks and rivers. They're also encouraging property owners to plant trees and install permeable paving systems and rain gardens. This is all good news.
WHY LEAVE THE DESIGN OF OUTDOOR PRODUCTS TO OTHERS? LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS COULD OWN THAT WORK. The problem is, the rain barrels approved by the program, like the ones I've seen for sale elsewhere, are all ugly. A friend of mine who was taking part in the RiverSmart program saw the rain barrels and asked whether they were supposed to be buried underground. He's not a design guy, he said, but his wife does have taste, and there is no way she would allow one of those things anywhere near their house in plain sight. I thought, for free or for a rebate, how bad can they be? So 1 looked. The nicest barrel, speaking generously here, tries to pass for a Go-gallon terra cotta flowerpot-without flowers. One of the real losers holds 275 gallons and looks like a suspicious package-it's a white tank with a steel cage around it. lf we expect people to use this stuff where they live, we need much better designs. Here's a hint to get you started: A rain barrel is simple; it involves injection-molded plastic and not much more. It doesn't even have to be a barrel. The design problem extends to a lot of manufactured things you see outside. The kinds of park benches that most cities can afford seem to come in about three varieties, two of them from the age of Dickens- wrought iron, if you're lucky, and wood slats. The nearest lighting, signposts, and trash cans are likely from the same gene pool. They make eve1y place
28/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1
you go feel the same as every other place, but of course city governments are usually after the lowest qualified bids if they can buy anything at all. There are companies (yes, some are LAM advertisers) that hire great landscape architects to create intriguing new kinds ofsite furnishings, like the Maggie bench that Gustafson Guthrie Nichol designed for Landscape Forms. But as often as not, it seems, the outdoor designs come from interior designers or product designers. Two of the most heavily promoted lines of outdoor site furniture I've seen recently are designed by architects, which is not surprising. Otto Wagner, after all, was an architect and urban planner who created one of modern history's most memorable chairs. And then there were Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, and the list of architects goes on. Allison Arieff said something hilarious last year in her New York Times blog about designers' having realized the need to stop reinventing not the wheel, but the chair. Indoors, that is so true. But outside I see no glut of original product designs, despite their being easier than ever to fabricate through the powers of rapid prototyping and computer-aided manufacturing. A plaza bench or light standard design has a lot of interesting problems to solve. lt has to withstand water, ultraviolet rays, freezing, thawing, graffiti, and bird droppings. This is practically automotive design. ls it a coin<.;dence that one of the cooler outdoor lamps for sale today is created by a division of BMW? A lot oflandscape architects won't touch product design, but for those who will, there's a potential mint to be made, if you're up for that sort of thing. (Hey, recent grads...looking for work?) There's no reason for us to settle for the same old benches and lights and really, truly horrible rain barrels. If something can be designed badly, it can also be designed well.
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I LETTERS
ON THE ROAD
T
hank you LAM and Kim Sorvig for publicizing in glorious color and great writing the critical role of landscape architects in the planning and design of our transportation conidors. The article's title, "3s,ooo Transplants" (August), however, is misleading, since the bulk of the most important work was in the genuinely context-sensitive design of the road's alignment and grading that was led by the project landscape architects. It was encouraging to read how all of the design professionals developed a truly collaborative relationship in arriving at this most attractive solution. We old-timers are well aware of our profession's legacy in roadway planning and design. The so-mile-long Going-to-the-Sun Road (1924-1932) in Glacier National Park, Montana, and the 469-mile-long Blue Ridge Parkway (1935- 1987) in Virginia and North Carolina are but two prime examples. I, for one, had the great fortune to learn about "landform grading" from one of its early mastersR. A. "Bill" Wilhelm, then the park landscape architect in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the late 1950s. l was one of the student assistant landscape architects under Bill's tutelage for three consecutive
summers. Under his guidance, I was given the opportunity to do the design and grading plan for a couple of the last few turnouts along the Blue Ridge Parkway near its entrance to the park One of my best memories is of Bill standing nose to nose with the Bureau of Public Roads engineers along a road "P" line to argue successfully for an alignment change on behalf of the park's landscape. I hope that LAM and other generalinterest publications will feature more of these kinds ofexamples so that the public will appreciate the truly broad scope of our profession. KEN T WATSON , FASLA MISSOULA, MONTANA
CORRECTIONS
ln the October issue, the 2on ASLA Professional Awards article listed the incorrect Design Workshop Inc. office for th ree award winners-Snake River Retreat, Galisteo Modern, and South Grand Boulevard "Great Streets Initiative." It should have been the Aspen, Colorado, office. A book brief in the October issue misstated the length oftime that the author, Charlotte M. Frieze, FAS LA, worked for House&<: Garden magazine. It was nine years, not 15 years.
34/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
MORE ON PH ILLY'S STORMWATER STRATEGY
was really intrigued by the Philadelphia versus Washington, D.C., story comparing their respective green versus gray approaches to stormwater infrastructure ("Green City, Gray City," September). The EPA's potential approval of the Philadelphia landscape as infrastructure strategy can prove to be a major coup for landscape archjtects. It would be fantastic if the metrics regarding not only the financial costs but also the environmental consequences of each approach could be documented. The construction of a landscape at grade that sequesters carbon ruox:ide through vegetation, measured against the transport and production factors of excavated soil and the forming of concrete alone, must have entirely oppositional footprints.
I
BEYOND POLITICS
found Kristian Wiles's letter to the editor in September's issue very troubling. At first I couldn't understand why you chose to publish a willfully narrow-minded political harangue that assaults many of the professional principles of ASLA and the current practice oflandscape architecture. A rebuttal of Wiles's specific assertions would require all of the pages of the magazine. 1 simply wish to state that the practice of landscape architecture can and should transcend politics. We possess a unique set of skills and lmowledge that can be and is being used to help guide the ethical use and appreciation of the land and its resources. Whether we "believe" in global warming or not, settling for the status qu o is simply negligent. The politicization and monetization of global warming encourages its escalating ravages by dividing our efforts.
I
Thank yo u for publish ing that letter. 1 now feel the urgency and necessity of AS LA's advocacy efforts, and the integral role 1 have in forming a vibrant, healthy, and equitable American habitat. SARAH RICHAROSEN, ASSOCIATE ASLA AN NAPOLIS, MARYLA NO
I hope LAM follows up with the results of the EPA's decision once it's available, along with a multiyear tracking of the differences between these nvo approaches. A USSA NORTH, ASLA TORONTO, CANAOA
SUBMIT Please e-mail comments to LAM/etters @asla.org or send via U.S. mail to: AM ERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE A RCHITECTS 63 6 EYE STREET NW WASHINGTON, OC 2 00 01-3736
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FOREGROUND NOTES AND REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
The disposal of hydrofractunng fluids from natural-gas dnll1ng seems to pose a threat to deciduous forests; an energy company makes a very greganous landscape overture in downtown Detroit; a new argument emerg es over plants and nativism; and salaries for recent landscape architecture graduates are up in NOW. Some trees withstand flooding better than others; gooseberries inspire obsession; and there is a m ournfu l ar t of planting a black garden in SPECIES. Bob Inglis, a six-term House Republican, ou tlines the conservative case for heeding clima te change in INTERVIEW. Seattle plans a new neighborhood-scale approach to storm flows in WATER. We've found several ways to warm by an outdoor fire 1n Gooos. And there are more sensitive ways to light up the night in PARKS.
FORE GROUN D
I NOW CANARY IN A FRACKING FIELD and the author of the report. Within a week, trees on the site began showing similar symptoms: They had scorched, curled, or wilted foliage and significant dropping ofleaves.
HYDROFRACTURING FLUID MAY HARM FORESTS. BY LIN DA MCIN TY RE, EDITOR OF NOW Contact lmcintyre @asla.org or @Linda_ Me on Twitter.
s natural gas production by hydrofracturing, or "fracking," ramps up to meet energy demands, a lot of concern has been expressed about the process's impact on water quality. A new study raises a less familiar concern about fracking: It suggests that one method used for disposing of its liquid by-product can seriously damage forests.
A
TOP Beech trees on the si te suffer ed t he most damage, with bark sloughi n g and many deat hs. I NSET
Damag e to fol iage was appar ent ver y soon after th e applicat ion.
An article published earlier this year in the journal of Environmental Quality ("Land Application of Hydrofracturing Fluids Damages a Deciduous Forest Stand in West Virginia," vol. 40, no. 4, July 2on) described how researchers from the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station tracked the impact of the spreading of more than 30o,ooo liters of hydrofracturing fluids over a one-third-acre tract of
42/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1
The agency's scientists elected to monitor the site as a case study. They took regular soil samples over two years and analyzed them alongside samples from adjacent forest areas with similar vegetation on which the fluids had not been applied. Two years after the fluid was applied, s6 percent of the b·ees in the affected area were dead. In a nearby reference area, only L3 percent of trees died each year on average. The patthe Fernow Experimental Forest in tern of symptoms suggested that both direct contact with the hyWest Virginia. drofracturing fluid and uptake of This study wasn't planned or de- those chemicals by plants' roots had signed. Although the federal govern- caused the damage. ment owns the land at Fernow, the mineral rights stayed with the origi- Soil tests suggested the fluid released nal owner and are leased by a gas at Fernow was high in salts such as exploration company. The disposal sodium and calcium chlorides (its of drilling and hydrofracturing flu- exact composition is proprietary). ids on this site was part of the legal For almost a year after the fluid was operation of a gas well in the forest released, the concentration of sodium and chloride in the top ro inches The disposal on land of hydrofrac- of the soil remained significantly turing fluids is allowed in West Vir- higher in soils where the [racking ginia, and some other states, with fluid was sprayed. The study also a permit. But what happened at showed an increase in the pH of the Fernow may give regulators pause. soil over time, which was not found Immediately after the application in the nearby reference plot. of the fluids in June 2008, Forest Service field staff saw herbaceous Two years in, most of the sodium plants, even extremely tough spe- and chloride had leached out. Many cies such as greenbrier (Smilax ro- plants, such as greenbrier, bluebertundifolia), start to brown off and ries, and sassafras, had regenerated die. Within a few days, almost roo from seeds embedded in the soil, percent of the understory vegetation assisted by the much greater levels was dead. "It was shocking to see it of su nlight brought about by the die so quickly," says Mary Beth Ad- damage or death of the canopy trees. ams, a Forest Service soil scientist Rhododendrons and mountain ~
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FOREGROUND
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I NOW
laurels, however, have not regenerated. "We're not sure why," says Adams. Without appropriate pretreatment data, and working with limited resources, researchers couldn't delve into all the aspects of the ecological damage. But the information they did publish made a big splash, in part because, as the Forest Service team found out after the incident at Fernow, there's almost no pulr lished research on the impact of natural gas exploration on forests, despite the aggressive growth of hydrofracturing in the big Marcellus shale beds running through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, which "came as quite a shock to us," says Adams. Publishing the effects of the Femow incident is helping to fill that gap, as will a new line of research the Forest Setvice has established on the effects of energy development on forests. A more detailed account of the research is provided in a 2on Forest Service report, "Effects of Development of a Natural Gas Well and Associated Pipeline on the Natural and Scientific Resources of the Fernow Expetimental Forest," for which Adams was the lead author (General Technical Report NRS76, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station). One recommendation found in both the report and the journal article is to consider a dose-based standard when disposing of frad
44/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
BELOW The Fernow Exper imen tal Forest is located i n north central West Virginia.
THERE'S ALMOST NO PUBLISHED RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF NATURAL GAS EXPLORATION ON FORESTS.
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FORE GROUN D
I NOW
LEFT The DTE campus site in downtown Detr oit used to consist mostly of surf ace par king.
BEYOND RUIN PORN gas and electric utilities that serve southeastern Michigan, so the company didn't have to stay downtown when its leaders decided to upgrade their facilities. But moving away from Detroit was not on the table.
texture even during the long Michigan winters. The landscape architects of the plaza, Grissirn Metz Andriese Associates, worked with both executives' sensibilities and a complex underground labyrinth of utility and security infrastructure that limits planting options.
Instead, DTE Energy sold off 25 dingy acres-used mostly for surface parking- to a casino developer and used the money to make over its indoor and outdoor spaces- improving the connection between the two and adding nine acres of new green space.
"We've changed our practice a lot over the last few years and are doing a lot more natural-style planting," says principal Randy Metz, FASLA. He notes that not all clients have embraced the lessmanicured aesthetic, and that, in any case, nine acres of new green space is a big improvement over nine acres of parking.
Visitors used to approach the headquarters through a parking lot, but toThere is, for example, DTE Energy. day they enter through a plaza ded<ed DTE is a national Fortune soo com- with greenery and water. Pavers are pany with more than $8 billion in an- laid in high-contrast stripes, and the nual revenue. The company's down- fountain mutes the sound of traffic. town headquarters consumes several city blocks, combining pale yellow- It's a pretty standard high-end corbrick buildings from the 1920s with porate landscape-a lot of lawn, an a dark glass tower in the Miesian impressive fountain, and ponds lined style. Its holdings lie well beyond the by river stone that provide interesting
Next to the entry plaza, a garden space with planted mounds and circling paths provides a space for employees to burn some calories or clear their heads. The mounds, of varying heights, were built up with soil and concrete debris from sitework. Curvy paths offer scores ofcirculation options and create an eye-catching view that really pops from the offices above.
A SIGN OF RENEWED ENERGY I N DETROIT.
T
he past few years have been tough for Detroit, but the city is doing better than you might think if all you've seen are the artsy photos of its abandoned buildings. The sluggish economy hasn't driven everyone out, and some people and institutions are even ramping up their investment here.
46/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 201 1
Both the garden and the entry plaza are fenced for security, but throughout the site, fences are ~
FOREGROUND
I NOW
COMPANIES ARE LEAVING THE SUBURBS TO SET UP SHOP DOWNTOWNJ AND SOME OF THEIR EMPLOYEES ARE FOLLOWING .
'7 installed in raised planting beds and are mostly hidden by vegetation, avoiding the sense of its being an urban bunker. Walled edges along busy roads are fitted with "windows" of varying sizes and planted with Boston ivy, making them look more like hedges when the vines are leafed out. "1 wish we could have made the site more open, but utilities have to deal with a lot of homeland security issues," says Metz. The campus's "backyard" includes a small patio area surrounded by a noise-muffling grassy berm. Umbrellas will shade the tables and chairs here until the trees fill out more. Perennial plantings nearby attract butterflies as well as people. This relatively secluded space is offset by a sunken amphitheater that the company uses for receptions and parties. Both features have been popular with employees and visitors. This project isn't an isolated case of good news. New restaurants and coffee shops are drawing suburbanites as well as neighbors. Campus Martius Park is thriving (see "Miracle on Woodward Avenue," LAM, November 2oo6). Other companies, including Quicken Loans and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, are leaving the suburbs to set up shop downtown, and some of their employees are following. Scott Simons, a DTE communications manager with whom I spoke, was preparing to move from a prosperous suburb to a downtown loft.
not only are there grocery stores in the city, there's even a Whole Foods on the way.
The DTE Energy campus doesn't play in to either of the simplistic narratives that seem to drive most Detroit-related news: the blighted, deserted manufacturing city or the mecca for crafty, tattooed hipsters hoping to start an urban farm. Seeing plantings, water, thoughtful design details, and people outside enjoying their lunch break might not be a big "For the first time in a very long time, I'm see- deal in som e downtown cores. But ing lots of foot traffic downtown," Jim Bieri, a in car-mad, concrete-riddled, somereal estate executive, told the Detroit News in late times luckless Detroit, it is. It's also August And contrary to a persistent urban myth, a hopeful sign of things to come. o
48/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 2011
ABOVE A new gl ass - front entry creates a str onger link bet ween the building and the l andscape.
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The "supertrees" provi ded quick structure to t he devel opment's gardens i n high r ise Singapore.
T
he r8 new "supertrees" in Singapore's Bay South garden are gigantic trellises for exotic plants, but they also double as exhaust tubes and supports for sustainable infrastructure.
The brightly colored concrete and steel structures rise at varying heights up to r64 feet, and support some 200 plant species including orchids, neoregelias, and bougainvilleas. Eleven of the towers will suppo1t photovoltaic cells and rainwater harvesting technology, while also venting warm air from the underground cooling system of adjacent conservatories. A 420-foot-long aerial walkway will link two 138-foot-high supertrees to give visitors a bird's-eye view of the gardens, and the tallest will house a restaurant in its "canopy." The $831 million Bay South garden is the largest of three gardens wrapped around a freshwater reservoir in a mixed-use business and residential developm ent called Marina Bay (perhaps best recognized for the architect Moshe Safdie's three high-rise buildings connected by a gigantic floating deck in the air). The community is part of the Gardens by the Bay development, which stands on about 250 acres of reclaimed land on Singapore's south coast. Master planned by Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter, both British landscape architecture firms, it features two conservatory domes, 12 them ed gardens, and a two-mile-long waterfront promenade.
SINGAPORE'S SUPERTREES MULTIPURPOSE TOWERS SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE AND MORE. BY ROBERT SUCH
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The garden layout for Bay South is based on the shape of the national flower of Singapore, an orchid hybrid called Varuia Miss Joaquim var. 'Agnes.' Andrew Grant, of Grant Associates, says the giant karri trees (Eucalyptus diversicolor) in Australia's Walpole-Nomalup National Park were another source of inspiration. The karri trees "loom over the surrow1ding forest to create an extraordinary sense of scale and drama," he explains, and he set out to design something similarly impressive. The gardens will open for an advance viewing as part of the 2oth World Orchid Conference in November and are scheduled to open to the public next summer. o
50/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 201 1
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M
any designers and home gardeners, trying to be good stewards, use native plants whenever they have the option. As a result, "native" has become shorthand of sorts for easy maintenance and low environmental impact And nonnative plants are often viewed skeptically, even in planting situations, such as in a parking lot or on a green roof, where there is no native flora. Mark Davis, a biology professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, says it's time to abandon this false dichotomy. In a recent essay in the journal Nature ("Don't Judge Species on Their Origins," val. 474,
NOT FROM ARO UND HERE DON'T JUDGE PLANTS BY THEIR ORIGI~ SOME ECOLOGI STS SAY.
ABOVE
" I nvasive" plan ts can pr ovide food for bi r ds such as the cedar waxwing, shown on a honeysuckl e.
no. 7350, June 9, zon), Davis and a group of r8 other ecologists, including Peter Del Tredici of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum and its Graduate School of Design, argue that conservationists sho uld judge plants by their environmental impact rather than where they originate. The reigning bias against nonnative species, they assert, is largely unsupported by data. Moreover, they said, recent research suggests that most alien species don't cause serious ecological problems, and they usually increase a region's species diversity. "The effects of nonnative species may vary with time, and species that are not causing harm now might
52/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 2011
do so in the future," the ecologists wrote. "But the same is true of natives, especially in rapidly changing environments."
authors readily concede that some species do cause damage, and they recommend that eradication efforts should be focused on these species. "Most nonnative plants do not cause Language is part of the problem, any economic harm," says Davis. says Davis. "Bad< in about 1980, when scientists began to foc us on "Restoration should be site specific;" introductions of nonnative species, says Del Tredici, "and it's not posthe issue was often framed as 'inva- sible to restore everything. Some sion,"' he says. "It could have been sites, if the soil is intact, have potencalled 'species addition' or 'mixing,' tial. But cities show the irrelevance of but instead terms such as 'aliens,' the distinction. The environment is 'exotics,' 'invasions,' and 'biological so distw·bed, there's nothing native pollution' were used." So now, in to speak of, and nothing invasive." our horticulture as in our politics, Rejecting species that thrive in urwe're stuck with a black-and-white, ban environments, he says, means us-versus-them paradigm. rejecting the benefits these plants can provide. '~ilanthus [trees] proAnd, says Davis, "if you demon- vide all of the ecosystem services ize something to such a degree, street trees do," he says. then almost any form oferadication is justified." So toxic And these kinds of "weedy" plants herbicides are deployed, might provide the best, or only, opand resources are spent, tions. Davis notes that in many places on restoration efforts that where native plants are less abunare often impossible to dant than they used to be, nonnative sustain. The Nature essay species are more abundant. "A lot of cites, among other exam- people jump to the conclusion that ples, the failed seven-decade, nonnative plants are corning in and multimillion-dollar effo rt to choking out natives, but recent studeradicate Tamarix species in the ies have found that in the majority of United States. Like some other no- cases, natives are declining for other torious "invasives," this species is reasons. Nonnatives are better adaptnot without value: It can help reveg- ed to disturbed conditions," he says. etate some damaged streamlbanks and serves as nesting habitat for the Del Tredici, who has critiqued "faithendangered southwestern willow based" restoration in these pages beflycatcher. Others, such as nonnative fore (see "Brave New Ecology;' LAM, honeysuckle (Loniceraspp.), provide Februa1y zoo6), says he thinks the food for birds and other wildlife, message might be catching on. He's as discussed by Davis in another seen a shift in attitude at his lectures, recent article ("Do Native Birds Care and he was even invited to address Whether Their Berries Are Native or a recent meeting of the Society for Exotic? No." BioScience, vol. 6r, no. 7, Ecological Restoration. July 20II). Davis is seeing much the same thing. After the nature essay was pub- "Some scientists are recognizing that lished, some ecologists criticized the this isn't a black-and-white issue," authors for downplaying the dam- he says. "But that message has to be age done by exotic species. But the communicated to the public." o
FORE GROUN D
I NOW
YOU'RE SOAKING IN IT FIELD TRIPS SHOW PEOPLE THE VALUE OF CIVIC LANDSCAPES. BY LYDIA LEE
event gives laypeople the chance to get into the mind-set of a landscape architect. "We want to teach people how to value landscape architecture in the way they value other art forms, so they know that parks are not an act of God and understand how designers can shape a city," says TCLF's founder, Charles Birnbaum, FASLA. The tours are an outgrowth of TCLF's What's Out There datan a sunny weekend in the mid- base ofAmerican landscapes, which dle of September, nearly 1,ooo has grown to 1,ooo entries in just a people went to parks around the San few years. Francisco Bay Area, but not to picnic on the grass or play soccer. Instead, The firs t What's Out There Weekthey were on one of a number of end was held in Washington, D.C., tours as part of What's Out There last year, followed by Chicago this Weekend. As they listened to a land- past spring, each supported by a scape architect describe the park as flotilla oflocal partners; the national it was being conceived, participants sponsor is Bartlett Tree Experts. San got a different view of a well-worn, Francisco was picked for its imporfamiliar space-as a designer's per- tant role in modernist landscape design: "I don't know of another sonal vision. place in the United States where San Francisco is the third city to play you have such exuberance iin the host to What's Out There Weekend, postwar era," Birnbaum says. What's a series offree public tours of impor- Out There San Francisco had 15 tant civic landscapes. Organized by tours, located in the city proper but the Washington, D.C-based Cultural also across the region. At Palo Alto's Landscape Foundation (TCLF, pro- Mitchell Park, tourgoers oohed with filed in LAM's May 2010 issue), the delight at Robert Royston's "gopher
O
TOP James Hor ner, ASLA, lea ds a tour of UC Ber keley's campus. I NSET
Lor r i Ungaretti nar rat es a t our of St ern Grove.
54/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
holes" in the playground; at Oal
FORE GROUN D
I NOW
A LI TTLE MORE DOUGH ASLA'S 2011 SURVEY OF GRADUATING STUDENTS SH OWS STA RTING SALARIES ARE REBOUNDI NG. BY DANI EL JOST, AS LA
andscape architects, like others in the construction industry, have been looking for light and seeing a lot of tunnel for at least three years now. But here is some hope: Though most landscape architecture students who graduated this spring did not have jobs lined up at the time, according to a recent ASLA survey, the percentage of students with job offers this year was much higher than at any time since the recession hit. And those who did find work are commanding much higher salaries than the previous two graduating classes did.
L
FOR 201 1 GRADUATES WHO RECEIVED JOB OFFERS, THE STARTING PAY NOSED UPWARD .
The 2011 ASLA Survey ofGraduating Students, released in mid-September, found the average starting salary offered to this year's landscape architecture graduates was approximately $39,100, an increase of $r,8o o over that of the previous year and an increase of $3,8oo over that of 2009. Those who had accepted a job offer reported an average starting salary of approximately $42,000, a 14.7 percent increase over last year. The average starting salary accepted was $38,700 for students with a bachelor's degree and $46.400 for those with a master's degree. The survey did not separate graduates receiving their first professional degree from those with previous experience in landscape architecture or a related field. The online survey was conducted by Lewis & Clark, a market research firm. A link to the survey was sent out to all ASLA student members in late April and remained open
56/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE M AGAZIN E NOV 2011
through July. It was also sent to chairs of landscape architecture programs, who were encouraged to forward the survey to their students. In all, 249 graduating students responded; 53 percent of those responding were undergraduate students and 47 percent were graduate students.
more than one job interview. That is up slightly fi·om last year when 56 percent did not have any interviews and from 2009 when 59 percent reported no interviews. But it is much lower than in 2008, when two thirds of those surveyed reported receiving at least one interview in their final semester of college and a majority A similar survey has been carried had more than one interview. out eveJ.y year since 1997 (it has been online since 2004). Comparing this These surveys do not measure how year's survey to previous surveys many landscape architecture stureveals that although the economy dents find employment in their field. would seem to be turning a corner, Many students do not begin seriously finding work remains a struggle for looking for work until after they've graduated. Also, this year's graduates many graduates. are likely competing with graduates A vast majority of the graduating s tu- from 2oro for job openings. dents who responded-82 percentsaid their plans for the immediate The report also looked at benefits future were to work or seek em- offered to those who had accepted a ployment, but only 35 percent had job. lt appears that benefits are not received any job offers and only 21 returning to their former levels as percent had accepted a job at the time fast as salaties, though they have also the survey was completed. Those improved somewhat. More than half numbers are up considerably from of those candidates who have acceptthe same time last year when only 23 ed jobs are receiving major medical percent reported a job offer and only insurance (59 percent) compared r8 percent had accepted a job. But with 44 percent of those surveyed in they are m uch lower than the figures 2009. Between 1999 and 2008, the collected in 2007, when 73 percent percentage of recent hires receiving reported job offers, and 2oo8, when health insurance was never less than 54 percent reported job offers. 79 percent The percentage of recent graduates offered 4or(k) retirement Another sign of the still slow but im- plans has nearly halved since 2oo8, proving market for landscape archi- with only 40 percent of recent hires tects is the number of interviews s tu- being given this option to save for dents received in their final semester their retirement. And fewer employof college. Fifty-three percent of this ers are providing recent graduates year's graduates did not have any job with life insurance or profit sharing, interviews at all during their final or paying their employees' professemester, and only 25 percent had sional dues. o
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FOREGROUND
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NOTES FROM THE WORLD OF LIVING THINGS BY CONSTANCE CASEY
TREES FOR A WETTER CLI MATE o one in the northern part of North America can have failed to notice that it rained a lot this past summer. The town of Minot. North Dakota, had its second-wettest r8-day period in recorded hist01y. The city's summer deluge followed the wettest winter since records have been kept- a total snowfall of 8r.8 inches. Levees of the lower Mississippi River were opened onto tens of thousands of acres of farmland to save one town, Cairo, Illinois, in mid-spring. Farther south, parts ofMis· souri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska were flooded by the Missouri River. Vermont's Lake Champlain was already sloshing over its banks from a record wet spring when Hurricane Irene dumped more water and created a major disaster in August
The first way to identifY the likely flood survivors is to observe which trees grow on floodplains and streambanks. Most obvious are willows and cottonwoods. Prolonged seasonal flooding is the price these trees pay to gain the advantage of new loads of deep, rich alluvial soils. Willows and poplars are specifically used to dry up wetlands, acting like wicks.
There will be more. Climatologists predict that rain and snow in the next decade will be above normal. They can't predict how m uch above normal, but anyone who planted an apple orchard along the Lal<e Champlain shore should move it to higher ground. The cherry trees at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., may find themselves kneedeep in water next hurricane season-it was half expected they would be this past season.
Not everyone is a fan. These trees with an affinity for water tend to be fast growing, brittle, and notolious for falling limbs. ln Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, Michael Dirr writes: "I have never recom· mended, at least when conscious, a poplar." To use cottonwoods appropriately, you really need a ranch.
N
ABOVE
The swamp tupelo not only survives flooding, but it th r i ves i n soil that is con ti nuously wet.
64/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
Certainly floods are tough on human beings; whole towns have toppled, roads and bridges have crumbled, and lives have been lost But we can move out of the floodplain or back from the streamside. Trees can't. Even the toughest tree can't resist the force of rushing water pushing against its trunk and loosening the soil. But many kinds of trees have adapted to survive the second stage of a flood-standing water and saturated soil.
Populus deltoides, the eastern cottonwood, is the state tree of Kansas, Wyoming, and Nebraska, all places where any shade tree is appreciated. The plains cottonwood (Populus sargentii) grows as far south as Mexico (in Spanish they are los alamos), and provides welcome shade along streams.
So poplars are not the solution for a spongy backyard in New Jersey. Some very common conifers might work. Many of the water-resistant trees are in the Cupressaceae family. Decay-resisting wood is a feature of both American and Asian arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis and orientalis), the ubiquitous hedge tree. The Thujas are called cedars, though they're not true cedars, and their wood is used for outdoor furniture and shingles. In its native Oregon and Washington, the longdead trunks of the western red cedar (Thuja plicata) stand steeped in lake water for decades. ~
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FOREGROUND
I SPECIES
'-7 Other rot-resistant members of the cypress family are the dawn redwood (Metasequoia gtyptostroboides) and its American cousin, the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens).
THIS YEAR 'S WET SUMMER TESTED TREES AROUND THE COUNTRY.
ABOVE
Where other trees would dr own, r ed maples, native to bo ttoml ands, survive in saturated soil.
66/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1
including Mexico. Impress your dendrologist friends by telling them that the Aztec name for sweetgum is xochiocotzoquahuitl. The sweetbay magnolia prefers wet, acidic soil but adapts to various soils, and is worth growing for its lemonNot surprisingly, a big clue to identifying water- scented blossoms. tolerant trees is the word "swamp" in its common name. For a large, sodden New Jersey yard the The river birch can survive in low areas flooded swamp oak (Quercus bicotor) would work. for months at a time, but can also be grown on dry sites. Prized for its picturesque not-paper-white In nature, oaks are often found in poorly drained, bark, it is the only birch that tolerates day soils acidic soil, but many, including the swamp oak, and fends off the bronze birch borer. also do well in dry sites and survive compacted soil. The bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) is one of Finally, the tree that arborists always mention the trees mentioned by North Dakota arborists as first (it's often first on a list for alphabetical realikely to get through their extreme flooding. The sons) for tolerance of standing water is the red bur oak is common on river floodplains, often maple (Acer rubrum). People presume the tree in combination with the m uch-planted pin oal< is named for its fall color, but the early spring (Quercus patustris). flowers mal<e a haze that is more purely red. This fast-growing tree grows in boreal forests and Another kind of tree able to adapt to a wide range southern swamps. This is the tree to plant on the of conditions and climates is the tupelo. Native shores of Lake Champlain. to the southem pa1t of the United States, some tupelos do fine farther north. (The common name How does this ever-more-useful ability to suris Native American in origin; it comes from the vive in waterlogged oxygen-poor soil work? UnCreek et6 for tree and opil6 for swamp.) fDltunately this is one more of the things in botanical science that elicits the phrase "poorly One tupelo, the blad
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FORE GROUN D
I SPECIES
DUCK, DUCK,
GOOSEBERRY c
harles Darwin didn't begin his great book On the Origin of Species with Galapagos finches and natural selection. He started with gooseberries. As an example of how plants are domesticated and refined by rutificial selection, he described how gooseberry growers develop improved varieties of the fruit. The pale green fruit started out small and tart. Selection for bigger and sweeter fruit led to hundreds ofvruieties of gooseberry in northern Europe. Darwin cultivated 54 of them in his home garden. (The Oiford English Dictionary says the name has nothing to do with geese, more probably coming from a corruption of the Germ an
Krausberre.) It would not be going too far to say
' ABOVE
In nature, gooseberry fruits are usually small and sour . Centuries of human selection have created berries like these - pl ump and sweet.
that the England of Darwin's time was gooseberry obsessed. In the Kentish village down the road from Down House there was probably a pub holding a gooseberry competition to see who could grow the biggest, heaviest fruit. Growing gooseberries for show started in the r8th century, and by Darwin's time, there were some 700 gooseberry shows across Great Britain. Today, sadly, there seem to be only about eight. These include the competition held by North Yorkshire's Egton Bridge Gooseberry Society, founded in r8or. To take part in the contest, held the first Tuesday in August, you must be a paid-up m ember of the society by Easter Tuesday. Techniques include putting a saucer of milk under an especially promising berry.
68/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 2011
Why grow gooseberries in this century (aside from competing at Egton Bridge)? Because they taste good, says Lee Reich, the author of Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden, and because it's hard to find them in grocery stores.
tivars taste better, but are prey to mildew.
It's wise to wear leather gloves when picking the hairy fruit, which can be red or pink as well as green, off the spiny branches. The Chinese gooseberry, which really is native to China, The shrub's Latin name is Ribes uva- is the hairy, brown-skinned, egg-sized crispa. As is the case with their cous- treat we know as kiwi fruit. ins in the genus Ribes, black currants and red mrrants, their popularity is Gooseberries are easy to grow, toleron the upswing. Black currants turn ating a wide range ofsoil conditions out to be at least as packed with an- and a lot of cold. Contrary to what tioxidants as blueberries, and goose- the name may lead you to guess, berries are brimming with vitamins the cultivar 'Hinonmalcis' is from A and C. There is an International Finland, not japan. Gooseberries Ribes Association on the job. grow on Norway's west coast almost up to the Arctic Circle. They demand Reich says they're not ornamental. winter chilling, and grow well in In this he differs from British gar- U.S. climate zones 3 to 7· den writers who rhapsodize about the arc of the sh rub's branches A caution: Ribes species are hosts heavy with fuzzy fruit. They've long for white pine blister rust, which been a part of the British cottage gar- doesn't bother the gooseberry but den, tucl<ed in a partially shaded cor- kills five-needle pines. Gooseberries ner. T he enthusiastic British view are banned in some U.S. counties of gooseberries may be colored by where pines are grown for lumber, thoughts of gooseberry fool, an an- making them forbidden fruit. cient dessert (said to date from the rsth century) that consists of stewed Gooseberries play a pivotal role in a berries, s ugar, and an enormous short story by Anton Chekhov, which, not surprisingly, bears the title Gooseamount of double cream. berries. After his family estate is sold If the straggly bushes, up to ro feet to pay debts, Nikolay Ivanovitch must tall, aren't attractive enough, the gar- work as a clerk in a government of. den designer can train them as fans, fice. Miserable, like so many Chekhov characters, he dreams of havstandards, or espaliers. ing a farm. ''He could not imagine a Reich's interest is flavor rather than homestead, he could not picture an aesthetics. For sweetness, he recom- idyllic nook, without gooseberries." mends the varieties 'Hinonmakis,' As things turn out, Nilmlay probably 'Poor Man,' 'Black Satin,' and 'Red shouldn't count on winning the next Jacket.' Some other European cul- gooseberry competition . o
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FORE GROUN D
I SPECIES
Hess wasn't thinking about penguins, tuxedos, or chess when she began to plan black and white. "''d done riotous and colorful," she says. "I wanted elegant and understated.'' Elegant was right as the background for receptions and dinners given by the new president.
BACK TO BLACK T
here are more than a few books about black flowers, with fabulous photos and long, long lists. Garden essayists are repeatedly rediscovering the tulip 'Queen of Night' (which ought to be 'Queen of the Night') and Iris 'Superstition.' But the species in question here is the human gardener. Once you've identified all these cool and dramatic near-black plants, what do you do with them? What experience does the gardener intend for the garden visitor? Here are two examples of a thoughtful use of black by thoughtful gardeners.
A B OVE
Impatiens 'Dazzl er Whi t e' combined wi th Solenostemon ' Col orbl aze Dark Star' is part of the black - and - whi te di splay at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Julie Hess, a senior horticulturist at the Missouri Botanical Garden, designs and maintains the five acres around the residence of the garden's direc tor. She changes the beds near the house six times in the course of a year; this year's summer garden was black and white.
70/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUR E M AGAZIN E NOV 20 11
The borders are set against yews. The shrubs that give the beds their structure are purple-leaved plums, Pittosporum 'Tom Thumb,' Sambucus 'Black Lace,' and MacDonald's favorite, Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diablo.' She barely tolerates the pink flowers of the Physocarpus, which she calls "insipid," and is relieved Hess got plenty of compliments, es- that they don't last long. pecially on combinations with Caladium 'Moonlight,' which she says MacDonald favors plants morbid in really did glow in the dark, combined name as well as h ue, the Geranium with near-black plants including phaeum known as the "Mourning Cissus amazonica vines with heart- Widow," for example. Two of the shaped leaves and silver stripes. plants she grows that are closest to pure black are the hollyhock Alcea Tropicals were pe1fect. St. Louis just rosea 'Black Beauty,' and the astonwent through its fourth-hottest sum- ishing succulent Aeonium manriquemer on record. "What people don't orum 'Zwartkop.' realize," Hess says, "is that we never cool off. We had many days over roo, Th e local undertaker stops in at the when the morning low would be 8o MacDonalds' garden fairly often bedegrees.'' cause he's also the person who does maintenance on the pump for their If she does black-leaved-and-flowered well. He avoids the black borders, plants again, Hess says she would calling the plantings "morbid, sick, use more silver, which made the and disgusting." look even more elegant. But next year summer will be a crayon box- Visitors in general say they're inspired, but qualify the comment to purple, orange, and hot pink. say they're inspired to use a couple Frances MacDonald is an Irish gar- of kinds ofblack plants in combinaden writer with what it would be too tion with lime green or orange. Most easy to call a dark sense of humor. visitors like the garden, but MacDonShe's humorous, but completely ald says, "they do find it strange that se1ious about plants. The fur1ereal I talk so easily about death. It's where beds, as she calls them, that she and I'm going to be buried." She's not her husband lain have developed joking: "Adjacent to the border is a over the past 14 years in their gar- small hedged area, pebbled over and den in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, containing two of our departed cats. cause garden visitors to be startled, Inevitably 1 will join them, obviously discomfited, and impressed. A cou- in ash form." o ple of French visitors described the CONSTANCE CASEY IS A FORMER NEW YORK borders as "death and hell." CI TY PARKS DEPARTM ENT GA RDEN ER AND WRITES ON NATURAL HISTORY FOR THE ONLINE M AGAZINE SlATE.
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FORE GROUN D
/INTERVIEW
MOVING CATS A REPUBLICAN EXPLAINS WHY WE NEED TO FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. BY ARTHUR ALLEN
You were on the science committees that's conservative. My dad has the in Congress. Where does your inter- more conservative approach, and est in these issues originate? he's 88 now. I was doing some door-to-door campaign ing and I spoke with a lady who lived with her retired husband, and they had a Yukon and a Suburban. And she said, "They want us to drive smaller cars. How do they expect us to get our stuff around? I've got three cats." The sad thing is, somebody's kids are going to die My dad, who is a conservative and fighting for oil so she can move her an industrial engineer, when he was three cats around. teaching his five children to drive-l can't tell you how many times he'd How do you propose getting that lady say, "Don't burn up the ga.s and to trade in her Yukon for a Prius? don't wear down the bral<e lining." Well, a funny thing happened to us It all starts with a confidence in conservatives. Somewhere along the free enterprise, that the market will way we went from people like my provide a solution. Inventors, invesdad to, "I have a God-given right to tors, and entrepreneurs can deliver drive my SUV wherever I want to solutions if the economics are set go, and when we run out of gasoline up right. As a conservative, I'm conwe'll send someone else's children fident that the markets work and to the sands of the Middle East to America is an innovative place. If fight the Chinese for it." I don't think you just make it so that all fuels bear My first six years in Congress I wasn't terribly focused on long-term issues; I basically surfed every wave of publicity that came along. During the six years off. I decided that if I returned I'd focus on a big issue facing the country. Energy qualifies. lt needs a solution.
obert Inglis represented the 4th R district of South Carolina for a total ofsix terms, from 1993 to 1999 and 2005 to 2010. He lost a landslide Republican primary to a Tea Partybacked candidate in 2010. After a semester doing energy policy discussions as a fellow at Harvard, Inglis began a campaign to get GOP support for measures to halt global warming. LAM interviewed Inglis as he was driving to his house, which lacks a solar water heater, in his daughter's 1981 Volvo, which gets horrible gas mileage.
78/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUR E M AGAZIN E NOV 2011
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FOREGROUND
/INTERVIEW
all of their true costs, the market will provide a solution. Right now we produce 8 percent of the world's oil and consume 20 percent That isn't sustainable. Every president since Nixon has said we need to break our addiction to foreign oil, but it hasn't happened, because the market incentives are all off.
need reaching out to entrepreneurs What's the mechanism? A tax? for delivery. That's where you get rapid change. Yes, initially. We should tax the negative externalities. The prices of your Well, what about the government natural gas and gasoline are going to raising the CAFE [Corporate Aver- go up. Great deal so far, huh, voters? age Fuel Economy) standards and But 1 would couple that with cutting forcing manufacturers to produce the payroll tax- a carbon tax while more fuel-efficient vehicles? ina·easing the size of yow· paycheck. This is our song- use the power of The biggest changes occur without free enterprise, send a transparent What do you mean? government incentivizing or man- price signal. That sets up a pull to We have what economists call neg- dating. Look at the Internet and the buy the better products, rather than, ative externalities-hidden costs PC, with the huge market and pen- "No, we don't need to do anything. -associated with oil and coal. etration, and the advances for the We just need to get more oil." The distortion means that cleaner country in the way of new businesstechnologies can't compete, and so es and jobs. I voted for higher car Do you accept the scientific consenthe investment money sits on the fuel efficiency standard mandates. sus that rising carbon dioxide levels, caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, are contributing to climate change? ARE NOT THE BEST WAY
MANDATES TO ENSURE EFFICIENCY, INGLIS SAYS, BECAUSE THEY ALWAYS HAVE LOOPHOLES. sidelines. Look at the hidden costs of petroleum: tax subsidies for oil companies, defense expenditures to protect the Middle East supply lines, air pollution and its health effects. None of these costs are factored in at the pump, and I haven't mentioned global warming yet. If you accept climate change science, that's another huge externality. I just pumped some gasoline into my daughter's r98r Volvo, and it cost about $3.35 per gallon. It would be way more expensive if you factored in the hidden costs. Her car gets terrible mileage, but I don't feel the pain enough to make a switch to smarter technology. This is where the power is, where the change comes, where you have willing consumers with a
90/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 201 1
Yes.
Why do you think that the mainstream of the GOP has been relucBut it's not the most elegant method, tant to accept this thesis, with many because mandates have loopholes; party leaders even calling climate you had SUVs counted as trucks change a "hoax"? and so on. There'll always be a way around mandates. The more elegant There are a number of reasons. One solution is to send a transparent and is that it's seen as just too much of certain price signal. And then I, the an existential threat. When we're willing consumer, will drive the confronted with something that's change, without mandates or regula- just huge, we have a tendency to tions. I Live in South Carolina, where deny it because it makes it easier we're on the same latitude, about, as to get through the day. It's the ScarIsrael. When you go to Israel you lett O'Hara approach: "Tomorrow see solar hot water heaters on the is another day." That's a pretty good roof of eve1y structure. 1 don't know coping mechanism. The other main anybody in South Carolina who has driver has been talk show hosts who one, because there's no price sig- are making a lot of money poohnal. Power is so cheap that it doesn't poohing climate change. Look, the make sense for me to put a heater on climate change models are complimy roof that would make a third of cated, the science is hard, and it's easy to poke holes and sell soap by my electrical usage go away.
FOREGROUND
/INTERVIEW
saying, "This is all a bunch of hooey from elitist eggheads and bureaucrats. You don't need to worry about this- just worry about real things, like jobs." Some hucksters have made a lot of money selling that line. It's fertile territory in down economic times. And science is hard. Most of us aren't scientists, and we feel uncomfortable with the fact that these PhDs understand more than we do.
says, "I don't need to know whether climate change is true-we have op· portunity to change the way we tax, and in doing so change the world." What do you think can be done to slow climate change? How can this bemadeaneconornicgrowthengine? I was on the budget committee [from 1993 to 1999] in Congress. We
PEOPLE CAN MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND CREATE JOBS BY BREAKING FREE OF PETROLEUM , INGLIS SAYS . How many partners do you have so started out $300 billion in deficit, far in your coalition-building effort? ended up in surplus by 2000. WeRepublicans would like to claim credit We're just at the inception; we hope for the fiscal discipline we brought to have some sort of a launch this starting in 1994; Clinton claims his fall. I'm having some very produc- 1993 budget package did it. But the tive conversations, especially in the real credit goes to the growth of the business community. My focus is Internet and PCs. As Alan Greento help conservatives hear the busi- span pointed out, it was a period of ness case. They've heard some of the sustained economic growth- with environmental arguments- that's a low inflation brought on by growth good perspective, but some of them in productivity caused by a c!hange aren't persuaded. If they heard the in technology- that brought us to business case they might be more a new economic plateau. I think enlike [the economist] Art Laffer, who ergy has the possibility of supplying
92/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1
a similar climb. The growth that can come from the new technology, buying all the gadgets that will deliver these efficiencies, has to expand our economy. And the result is that a lot of people can make a lot of money, create a lot of jobs, and expand our economy by breaking free of petroleum and finding better ways to make electricity. My goal is to end up with lots of millionaires, billionaires, delivering new products and creating lots of jobs. I think my plan should resonate with different GOP camps: the national security conservatives because we're currently funding both sides of the war on terror by buying their oil; the economic conservatives who are driven nuts by distortions of the marketplace; and with social issue conservatives. As religious people, we believe in accountability and responsibility: Shouldn't we hold petroleum and coal accountable for all their negative externalities? As conservatives, that's our song. o ARTHUR ALLEN IS A JOURNAUST BASED IN WASHINGTON, D.C. HE IS THE A UTHOR OF VAC-
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FORE GROUN D
/WATER LAKE UNION
TAKE IT DOWNHILL
t
TO PONTIUS
" KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS • Swale replaces on-street parking lane • Swale 10.5' to 16.5' w ide. 14" to 23" deep • 26' w ide driving/ parking roadway • Minimum 6' sidewalks · Mid-block (-17' wide) pedestrian crossing
STORMWATER CAPITOL HILL
SEATTLE PLANS TO CLEAN HUGE VOLUMES OF RUNOFF.
ne of the arguments you hear a lot against stormwater retrofit O projects dense urban areas that
from about 435 acres of an entire drainage basin in the Capitol Hill section of town.
BY LISA OWE NS VIANI
their scale is too small to make a difference. But the city of Seattle is about to prove those critics wrong. In yet another innovation in greener infrastructure from the Pacific Northwest, and what may be the first of its kind anywhere, at a cost of $w million, Seattle is piping stormwater from one neighborhood and treating it in bioswales in another one dO\VIlstream as part of a redevelopment project. The volume of stormwater is not tiny: It involves up to 190 million gallons of stormwater annually
The project, which is about 90 per· cent designed (pipe construction is expected to start at the end of this year), is a collaboration between Seattle Public Utilities and Department of Transportation; the private developer Vulcan Inc. and its landscape architects at the Berger Partnership; the engineering firm KPFF, which is designing the swales' hydrology; Runberg Architecture Group; and the landscape architects KPG (who serve as the prime contractor to the
ABOVE
In a cost- benefit study, Sea ttle foun d tha t the storm water swales it i s buildi ng as par t of a r edevelopment project ar e more cost- effective than a new end-of -pipe fil trati on vault.
90/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 201 1
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FOREGROUND
/WATER
STORM CRAIN MANHOLE
BLOCK10 (FUTURE DEVELOPMENT)
BLOCK 11 (FUTURE DEVELOPMENT)
BIOFILTRATION SWALE · Treat portion of stormwater draining from 435 acres of Capitol Hill ' - - - - - CIII£RSION S'mUCTURE ROUTES PORTlOH OF WATeR TO (l.OCATEO NEAR STEWART ST)
SW~
· Crea te 4 interconnected swates in conj unction w ith future developments · Clean water flow to Lake Union
FROM CAPITOL HILL
ABOVE
If all goes well in the first two phases, the city pl ans to build two more l ong blocks of swales al ong Yale and Ponti us as those bl ocks are redeveloped.
city). "Were walking hand in hand on species that can deal with the situathis;' says KPG's Paul Fuesel. ASLA. tion we're putting them in, and we wanted to minimize long-term and Fuesel's goal is to ensure that the short-term maintenance." The opswale design blends with the rede- portunity excites him. "We've been velopment project, which takes an sending lots of dirty water into Lake old laundry building listed on the Union for much of Seattle's life," he National Register of Histmic Places says. "Every little bit helps." and several warehouses and reincarnates them for residential and The idea for m any of Seattle's natucommercial use. The swales will ral drainage treatment systems was front two of the development's four spawned in the late 1990s when sides, on Yale and Pontius streets. then-mayor Paul Schell allocated milFuesel says five different species of lions of dollars toward in-the-ground sedges and rushes will be used in restoration projects: Seattle Public the swales. "It's a water-cleansing Utilities staff took his concern one machine," he says. "We're choosing step further and started asking what
92/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 201 1
could be done to treat polluted runoff before it even got to the creeks. In 2004, then-Mayor Greg Nicl<els, Honorary ASLA, im plemented a new initiative, Restore Our Waters, to build on Schell's effmts, asking all city departrnen ts to examine their impacts on water resources and find solutions. With the new Swales on Yale and Pontius projec~ the city hopes to improve water quality in Lake Union, which the states Department of Ecology lists as impaired. The lake's natural hydrology was altered long ago with a series oflod<S and chutes connecting it to Puget Sound and Lal<e Washington, but Chinook salmon,
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FOREGROUND
/WATER
an endangered species, still migrate through Lake Union on their way to the Sound and back upstream to Lake Washington. Steelhead and bull trout, also threatened species, use Puget Sound as well, says the city's project manager, Jason Sharpley.
pipes coming from Capitol Hill run exactly through this neighborhood that is undergoing redevelopment." From there the stormwater heads to Lake Union.
In the first phase of Swales on Yale and Pontius, the city will construct Concerns for these fish and other 2,ooo new feet of pipe that will split wildlife are thus driving the city's the flows coming from Capitol Hill efforts to treat polluted stormwater to direct the smaller, more frequent storms into the swales, while leaving the exist· A PRIVATE DEVELOPER, ing 48- to 72-inch pipes VULCAN, HAS MADE ROOM in the ground to handle peak flows. Just before it FOR THE SWALES AND reaches the swales, the AGREED TO MAINTAIN THEM. stormwater will enter an underground vortex sepa· before it can race into creeks, lakes, rator that filters out trash. In that and the Sound by using plants and same phase, the existing gas and soil to slow, spread, and sink-or at water lines will be moved out of the least filter- the water first "We had swale construction area. implemented a lot of natural drainage systems in our 'creek' watersheds," In the second phase, the city will says Tracy Tackett, the city's green build the swales along the 400 iblocks stormwater infi·astructure program of Yale and Pontius streets. The manager, referring to impressive swales are large, ranging from ro to stormwater swale projects-like SEA r6 feet wide by 270 feet long, and are Street- in the Piper Creek watershed designed to treat the stormwater as on the northwest side of the city, in it flows through them- and to allow more residential areas. "The city has sediment to settle out- rather than been prioritizing pollutant loadings to infiltrate the stormwater into the from different neighborhoods. If we grouncl The next two phases of the are already digging up the public project will follow with the building right-of-way, were trying to find mon· of more bioswales and housing and ey for restoring the rights-of-way to mixed-use development in the next treat stormwater." The Cascade (aka block over, Sharpley says. South Lake Union) neighborhood, where the swales will be created, is This project would not have been undergoing a lot of redevelopment. feasible without cooperation from "We looked at vaults, a swale sys· Vulcan, says Sharpley. The developer tern, asking ourselves: What is the is giving the city a one-foot easement right way to treat this?" Tackett re· that will mal<e room for the swales, calls. "We found that the storm drain as well as the dollar equivalent of
94/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
what it would have normally paid to improve the right-of-way with sidewalks and street trees. Vulcan has also agreed to maintain the swales. A lane of street parking will be lost, Tackett says. To gain support for the project, especially considering the loss of street parking, the city's staff asked the mayor for support. "The mayor made a policy call, that the environmental needs of the city are a priority," Tackett says. In addition to the developer's contri· butions, the project will be funded by the city's drainage utility rates, the city's capital improvements fund, state revolving fund loans, and a $1 million grant from the states Department of Ecology. Tackett says the city's costbenefit analysis showed the swales to be more cost-effective than building a large end-of-pipe plant with a filter media vault where the filters would have had to be replaced often. "With this type of system, the long-term operations and maintenance is much less expensive," she says. 'fuld if were going to spend money, we'd rather spend it in a way that provides multiple benefits, including green space in the urban core." Tackett says that although the city has built smaller green stormwater treatment projects downtown, it hasn't tried anything of this scale before in such a built· out area. She's convinced ofits value: "When you decentralize stormwater treatment-and remove this kind of volume from the system- it's incredibly cost-effective." o llSA OWENS VIANI IS A WRITER IN THE BAY AREA AND A FREQUENT CONTRIBUTOR TO LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.
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FORE GROUN D
/GOODS
ON FIRE BY USA SPECKHARDT
BURNING BRIGHT
Fire is mesmerizing bu t wood fi res can be problematic. They need to be watched constantly. And they can be tricky to start and r equi r e care when putting them out. Gas fir es don't have that snap -cracklepop sound, and gas fire pits aren't appropri ate for cooking over (though gas grills can work well), but they have a dvantages- no escapi ng embers to watch for and they're easy to switch on and off.
, B+D DESIGN OUTDOOR FIRE SCULPTURES
The London-based sculptor Cathy Azria creates individual pieces-she doesn't mass produce-made of steel that will glow red hot, adding to the fiery display. Some look like a traditional bonfire set in stone chips, while others can be designed into fireproof vessels. All run on gas, and the steel elements are left untreated to develop a fire-tempered rusty patina. o FOR MORE INFORMATION , VISIT WWW. BD - DESIGNS.CO .UK.
KALAMAZOO OUTDOOR GOURMET ARTISAN FIRE PIZZA OVEN
It's a pizza purist's dream to have his or her own pizza oven, but installing one is out of reach for most. The Artisan Fire Pizza Oven sits on a countertop, and the only setup is hooking it up to a gas supply, either liquid propane or natural gas. It has an open front and an exposed flame, and it offers a temperature range from 350 to 8oo degrees. o FOR MORE INFORiv'ATION VISIT WWW. KALAMAZOOGOURMET.COM .
102/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE M AGAZINE NOV 201 1
~ .; TRAVIS INDUSTRIES TEMPEST TORCH
The Tempest Torch brings light without electricity, and its tempered glass walls mal<e it easy to view the dancing flame inside. This decorative outdoor gas lamp comes in two versions: a manual light system or an electronic ignition version that allows multiple units to be turned on and off with the flip of a light switch. It can also be tied into an automated lighting system. o FOR MORE TNFORI>IATION , VISIT WWW.TEMPESTTORCH .COM .
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The Gas Plug securely connects any outdoor gas appliance or lighting directly to the home's existing gas supply. Barbecues, heaters, lighting, and outdoor appliances can be plugged and unplugged quiddy and easily, and it is available in a variety ofstyles. o FOR MORE INFORMATION , VISIT WWW. BBYMFG. COM.
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The Austrian archite<.t Wolfgang Pichler statted VTTEO when he was looking to design some outdoor furniture for his own garden. VITEO's PURE COLLECTION features linear elements made of teak, concrete, Corian, and aluminum. The PURE fireplaces, including Fire Table 90 in dark gray, are designed for a campfirelike atmosphere, and some come with a grill element. o FOR MORE INFORMATION , VISIT WWW.VITEO .COM.
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FORE GROUN D
I PARKS
SAFER PARKS AFTER DARK NEW NIGHT-LIGHTING METHODS HELP ANSWER DARK-SKY ADVOCATES. BY PETER HARNIK, ASLA; RYAN DONAH UE; AND J ORDAN THALER
ganizations such as the International Dark-Sky Association (IDSA) and National Dark-Sky Week battle light pollution, and say it disrupts patterns of behavior for nocturnal animals and prevents humans from enjoying the wonders of the nighttime sky. Even dark parks aren't always dark enough. In December 2 0 10, when a ranger took a group of New Yorkers out to a remote park at midnight to watch what was expected to be a spectacular meteor shower, the shooting stars weren't visible because of the overwhelming ambient glow from the city.
ABOVE
The Summer Ni gh t lights program in south l os Angeles combines late-night park li ghting with athletic and arts programs to engage gang members and r educe violence.
T
o light ... or not to light. For urban parks, that is often the question, and an early nighttime flight over a city clearly reveals the dichotomy. Within the fabric of pulsing roads and faintly shimmering neighborhoods, the patch es of comple te blackness are almost invariably parks- the only spaces that retain the ancient vestige of total darkness in our modem, artificial world. And the pools of dazzling white light are
110 /LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV2011
Park managers are caught between the politics and the significant expense of installing lighting and paying utility bills. Fortunately, technological advances are helping to bridge the gap. Some programs are showing usually also parks- venues where that lighting can help purge parks baseball, football, or other organized of criminal behavior, and new techgames are being played. nology enables light to be confined to the ground without blurring the In the past, the debate over light- cosmos- at lower cost. ing seemed to admit no compromise. Advocates claim that parks One proponent of bright parks is obviously need lights for safety: the Los Angeles, known for its shortmore bulbs, the fewer criminals, the age of parkland in crowded, lowless vandalism. Opponents lament income communities and also for losing the beauty and primordial a gang twf culture that frequently romance of nature in the dark. Or- spills over into parks. Harvard Park
TOUGH
FORE GROUN D
I PARKS
THERE IS SOME PUSHING BACK AGAINST CLAIMS THAT LIGHTS REDUCE CRIME .
ABOVE
I n a test i n Central Park, New Yor k Ci ty's Departmen t of Transpor tati on found that new LED lights l ast l onger, give better visibility a t lower light intensi ty, and cost less t o oper ate than standard bulbs.
in Inglewood, historically a flashpoint for gang conflict, was perennially shunned after dark by all but the bravest of residents. Thanks to an initiative called Summer Night Lights, things have been different for the past three years. The city, by ratcheting up nighttime visibility and adding programming such as athletic leagues, arts initiatives, and family programs at Harvard Park and 23 others, has helped use gang loyalties to spur healthier organized competition and to diminish vandalism, drug use, and violence. Because of the lights and programs, other members of the community now feel comfortable there at night, too, which improves Harvard Park's usership and safety. Alicia Avalos, the director ofSummer Night Ughts, says: "The program is not about changing someone's identity, but rather curbing violent behavior. Out of 24 sites, we have not had to pull out of one." Compared with statistics from before the program, she
112 /LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
notes, there has been a 40 percent reduction in gang activity and a 57 percent reduction in gang-related homicides. The success ofthe program has made it a priority at city hall. Even as Los Angeles struggles with a budget deficit, the program has been expanded to include eight more parks. (About half the $6.2 million program is funded by private compa· nies.) Other cities are following suit, too-Long Beach, California, and Jacksonville, Florida, have recently started similar programs. Although the Los Angeles program is a success, it's not universally agreed that maximizing lighting is the key to safety. Some people believe that programming and community building do more than bulbs, and they challenge the notion that brighter parks are necessarily safer.
2oo8 study by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, which found that many criminal activities, such as theft, are "more prevalent during daytime hours," and that "artificial lighting can encourage certain types of vandalism, such as graffiti, as individuals are better able to see what they are doing." In the United Kingdom, a 2009 study by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution suggested that badly designed street lighting can lead to glare and dark shadows that may promote rather than hinder criminal activity. A meta-analysis by British researchers looked at eight American studies, finding that they split evenly on the topic of whether lighting reduces crime in parks. When the results of the studies were aggregated, they did show a 7 percent reduction in criminal activity- but that figure is barely statistically significant.
"Based on before-and-after studies of crime statistics, there is no clear evi- In some cases, leaving a park dark dence that outdoor lighting reduces can make it safer by not giving users crime." That's the verdict of a March a false sense of security. Greenway
FOREGROUN D
I PARKS
COMPARISON OF LIGHTING COSTS Annual Maintenance Cost
Annual Energy Use
Annu-al
Total
?· year
Energy Cost
Annual Cost
Total Cost
$160
$100
672 kWh
~ 1 03
J 203
$1.578
$160
$100
476 kWh
$73
$173
$1.368
250W
$95
$100
1,230 kWh
$188
$288
$2,108
LED
108W
~1 ,050
so·
443 kWh
i68
i68
i 1,523
LED (standard pole or under deck)
LED
90W
$1.050
$0'
369 kWh
$56
$56
$1,444
CENTRAL PARK LED
LED
90W
$1,650
$0'
369 kWh
$56
$56
$2.044
Light Typo
Wattage
COBRA HEAD/STANDARD WITH ELECTRONIC BALLASTS
HPS
150W
COBRA HEAD/STANDARD WITH ELECTRONIC BALLASTS
HPS
IOOW
HISTORIC (i.e. shielded teardrop)
HPS
~ole
or under deck)
Fixture
LED (standard
Fixture Cost
HPS - high power sodium LED - light emilling diode
• The LED components are covered under a 7-year manufacturer's warranty
THE IMPROVED PERFORMANCE OF LEOs MAY MEAN IMPROVED SAFETY AND LOWER LIGHTING COSTS. designers argue that if lighting is going to be placed haphazardly, it is better to make its absence conspicuous, clearly signaling that the area is not meant for use after dark. Also, if only certain paths are lit, criminals can more easily predict the paths of pedestrians. (These are sometimes refened to as "channelized routes" or "movement predictors.") Whether lighting actually increases safety or not, it certainly mal<es people feel safer; lighting is regularly one of the most requested new features. And if people begin to feel more comfortable in a park, it will become safer simply by being better used. The stellar crime reduction that accompanied Summer Night Lights cannot be fully attributed to lighting; the presence of gang interventionists and professionally supervised recreation programs surely played a role. Even beyond crime reduction, there are plenty of reasons to better equip
114 /LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV2011
urban parks with more--and more modem- light technology. Lighting maximizes the efficiency of the existing park stocl< by allowing considerably more use. In New York City, the lighting of fields allows two more hours of daily use in the summer and four more in the winter and fall. Astronomical organizations and the other dark-sky efforts recognize, of course, that humans demand brightness and that urban areas will always require lighting. Thus the groups call for more research into the specific types oflight rays that are emitted and better design to put the right amount of light where it is needed. "Some level of artificial lighting is required for nighttime activities:' says Robert Dick, the chair of the light Pollution Abatement Committee of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. "But this lighting must be designed to increase visibility. Paradoxically, more light can reduce visibility, especially for persons over 40 years of age."
The lDSA offers help in buying, installing, and using lights. Its web site gives lists of approved lighting fixtures and encourages the use of such "dark-sky features" as shields that prevent fixtures from projecting light into the atmosphere. For example, the IDSA lauds one reducedglare Leotek Electronics model for its six energy settings as well as for an attachment to fu.sten it to existing poles. As a result, the seemingly unbridgeable gulfbetween crime fighters and dark-sky enthusiasts may be shrinking. Driven by the growing efficiency gap between old high-pressure sodium and new light-emitting diode (LED) lights, cities are transforming their lighting stock, and some of the benefits are spilling over into parks. Major cities mal
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FOREGROUND
I PARKS
ABOVE
Blue- LED- lit benches in Minneapolis's Gold Medal Parle are inviting to patrons leaving the nearby Guthrie Theater, which is famous for its blue facade.
in parks (and 262,000 on streets). In 2009, the DOT began a pilot program in Central Park to test LED lights as a replacement for standard roo-watt metal halide park lights. It found that LED lights last two to three times as long, while allowing for better visibility at lower light intensity, which would save $94,7ro per year in that one park ln Santa Fe, New Mexico, the city parks department has installed new LED lights along the pathways of Frenchy's Field, a 17-acre recreation park. They turn on by way of motion sensors and change brightness depending on ambient conditions. They also have broader wavelengths, according to Santa Fe Parks Division Director Fabian Chavez, so that they illuminate better, even with less light There are other benefits, too. Since LEOs use only a fraction of the power of incandescent or sodium-vapor bulbs, they can be powered by solar panels, meaning that they can be erected without any connection to the electrical grid. "I can install them with my own crew," says Chavez.
116/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV2011
The advent of LEOs has also allowed landscape architects to just plain have more fun. Some have bathed center-city parks in kaleidoscopic public art displays, allowing parks to become more prominent civic landmarks and draw more tourists. Phoenix's Civic Space Park has a stunning LED-clad 145-foot sculpture in its center. Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis, part of a revitalized MiJI District, features blue-lit benches that echo the facade of the adjacent Guthrie Theater, from which it draws visitors. Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland, Oregon, has a glass canopy lit with multicolor LED lights, which creates a new downtown nighttime focal point o PETER HARNIK, ASLA, IS DIRECTOR OF TH E TRUST FOR PUBUC LAND'S CENTER FOR CllY PARK EXCELLENCE, BASED IN WASHINGTON, O.C., AND AUTHOR OF URBAN GREEN: fNNOVAnvE PARKS FOR RESURGENT CffiES (ISLAND PRESS, 2010). RYAN DONAHUE IS THE CENTER'S RESEARCH DIRECTOR JORDAN THALER, FORMERLY WITH THE CENTER, IS NOW OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR FOR NEW YORK CITY'S BRYANT PARK CORPORATION.
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R!;STROOI'-1 IN T!;RIOR
FEATURES THE WALLS ARE ALIVE
Two green walls show qu1te d1Herent approaches 1n the1r deployment. At a hotel in Portland, Oregon, the vertical growth dissolves in a solld-and-vo1d dialogue 11 p1cks up from the ground plane of a new courtyard. Longwood Gardens, near Philadelphia, has gone for vegetal immersion along two curving walls inside its new public rest station. Both installations take a good bit of labor to keep up their irresistible lushness. Meanwhile, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the newCityDeck along the waterfront is a triple winner: It's got an intriguing strategy and design; it's already stimulated new development: and it's a hit wi th the people. And on a tranquil farmstead in Pennsylvania, Michael Vergason. FASLA. arranges new native stone walls like the lines of a poem to join old ones, and where the land wanted to be wet, he ingeniously created a pond.
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DAYS INN , DAYS OUT AN OLD MOTEL GOES UPSCALE, AND ITS PARKING LOT BECOMES A SWANK COURTYARD-AND THE PLACE TO BE. BY MARK H INSHAW
LEFT
The south half of the central courtyard at t he Hotel Madera is open to the public.
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o one has managed to build a major new hotel in Portland, Oregon, in many years, despite the city's latent demand and available properties next to the soaring glass convention center. What has been happening instead is the reworking of secondclass hotels and nondescript motels into striking, sleek places to stay. These properties are meant to appeal primarily to travelers in their twenties and thirties who are looking for something different from the blandness of international hotel brands.
These lodgings are often high-style rnash-ups: part college dormitory, part art gallery, part music venue, part hip resort That is the atmosphere at the Modera, a sophisticated hotel situated in the rather backwater southern part of Portland's downtown. 1t was formerly a downscale Days lnn, but the place has been transformed to furnish eye candy alongside hospitality. The Portland-based landscape architecture firm Lango Hansen was part of a design team that turned a former parking lot of the motel into a courtyard that is as functional as it is delightful. Working with Holst Architecture, they fitted the new space right on top of the asphalt The basic organizational palette is simple. Three surfaces were used on the ground plane. A central walkway ofMeranti wood is flanked on one side by crushed granite and on the other side by scored concrete. A long, elegant, glass-topped steel loggia bisects the space, providing a rain cover from the lobby to the sidewalk. Stone sculptures found inside the courtyard also appear on the street, and low walls permit views inward so that the space flows searnlessly with the public realm. Anyone can wander in and enjoy the space, as many people in the surrounding neighborhood do. To one side of the linear trellis is a generous courtyard containing lounge chairs and elevated, rectangular fire pits dad with steel. According to Jane Hansen, ASLA, a coprincipal of Lango Hansen, the intent of the finely crushed granite and the pits was to make the place feel like a beach, an effect reinforced by the chairs' legs digging in sand when people move the chairs around. On a warm, dear day people were sprawled about sunning themselves with their feet propped up while the wait staff served drinks. Overhead fabric shades help make the place feel like a resort, although there is no pool or ocean. Coral bark maple trees rise up and flare outward dramatically from elevated box planters wrapped in Cor-Ten steel. The rust of the swfaces echoes the distinctive red color of the branches. The concrete wall<Ways from the motel era are still there, but
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ABOVE
A green wall is composed of square cells initially pl anted in t he suppli er's greenhouses, then br ought to the site and cli pped onto a system of support s and irrigation.
they were made more refined by being saw-cut into squares. With the top surface ground to reveal the aggregate, they resemble stone pavers. The former hotel had a long and narrow pool on the southern, sunny side, which the designers converted into a catchment basin for a rain garden and a planted plaza on the south side of the long trellis-covered walkway. This part of the project is particularly striking. Along the most southerly edge of the property, the sloping driveway
that leads down to underground parking was enclosed with a roof and a wall. A green roof sits atop the slab and provides an upper terrace filled with vine maple and hinoki false cypress trees along with salal and evergreen huckleberry shrubs that can be seen from the grotmd. Facing the inner courtyard and plaza, the inner wall endosing the driveway was designed as a vertical green plane faced with a quiltlike arrangement of vegetation growing horizontally. Plants include a mixture of woodfems,
ABOVE
The north half of the courtyard is for hotel guests, with activity in the lounge and restaurant spilling out. The space is contained by a low fence and a planting pocket filled with grasses.
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The ti gh tly or ganized courtyard is bisected by a canopy l eading to the l obby.
mondo grass, wintergreen, licorice fern, and Heuchera-most "This installation does demand a significantly high level of mainof them native to the Padfic Northwest tenance," Hansen notes, "in addition to the initial costs, which can be up to $2oo per square foot installed." The wall system The wall planting system, by GSky Plant Systems, is composed is packed into a relatively small area; it measures 13 feet high of six-inch squares of filter fabric wrapped around a two-foot- by 64 feet long, but the visual impact is nonetheless striking. thick inner layer of compressed soil and punctuated with holes. The company, based in Canada, plants seedlings prior Despite the cost and innovative planting system, Hansen obto installation and grows them initially so that the vegetative serves that the client kept pressing the design team to create effect is almost instantaneous upon completion. Drip irrigation unique and elegant spaces. A co-owner, Alan Battersby, who maintains appropriate moisture. along with his partners Craig Schafer and Desmond Mollendor
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has a company called Posh Ventures, encouraged them to think creatively and infuse the project with cutting-edge approaches. They clearly understood the cost implications and yet were extremely supportive. Hansen expresses relief that nothing was dropped from the design by value engineering. The plaza also includes horizontal, groundlevel planting pockets over the old pool. These, together with the vertical green wall, produce a space that is calm even though it is a few feet away from the busy sidewalk and a nearby light-rail line. No barriers or signs discourage entry, although the front desk was positioned to have a clear view of the space. "We were trying to bring architecture to the outside," Hansen says. And it works. The courtyard draws the spirit of the interior all the way to the street in a way that is tailored, casual, and very sociable. o MARK HINSHAW IS THE DIRECTOR OF URBAN DESIGN FOR LMN ARCHITECTS
ABOVE
The covered walkway runs from the stree t to the hotel entrance. INSET
In the evenings, open fire pits draw people to surrounding seating.
Project Credits CllENT POSH VENTURES. LLC, SEATILE (ALAN BATIERSBY, CRAIG SCHAFER, AND DESMOND MOLLENDOR). LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT LANGO HANSEN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, PORTLAN D, OREGON (JANE HANSEN, AS LA; KURT LANGO, ASLA; ELAINE KEARNEY; ANDREA SAVEN, ASLA; AND BRIAN SCHROEDER). ARCHITECT HOLST ARCHITECTURE, PORTLAN D, OREGON. CIVIL ENGINEER KPFF CONSULTING ENGINEERS, PORTLAND, OREGON ARTIST MICHIHIRO KOSUGE, PORTLAND, OREGON . GREENWALL SYSTEM GSKY PLANT SYSTEMS INC., VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA. CONTRACTOR S. D. DEACON, PORTLAND, OREGON. LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE TEUFEL LANDSCAPE, PORTLAND, OREGON.
INSEATILE.
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TERRACE RESTAURANT
ongwood Gardens, in southeastern Pennsylvania, is known for taking horticulture to an uncommon level that melds history, plants, and design into stunning visual narratives. The Brandywine Valley land, formerly a Quaker farm, was purchased by the industrialist Pierre du Pont in 1906 as a way to preserve trees. As du Pont acquired more land over the years, he used it as a place to foster his creative side and love of gardening. For du Pont's friends and family, it became a destination for grand festivities. Today, as a public garden, Longwood provides amazing views, education, culture, and history to its visitors, all with a serious dose of wonder.
L
ABOVE
All of this gardening goodness requires restoration and continuous upkeep. The entire conservatory complex, which includes the Main, East, and West conservatories and production areas, encompasses 4·5 acres ofspace and features half a mile ofstrolling paths. Visitors can easily spend an hour or two wandering through it The restoration of the East Conservatory was completed in 2005 after three years ofrenovations; it was originally an addition by duPont to the Main Conservatory. The project included rehabilitation ofa music room and ballroom as well as an excellent new children's garden. These improvements, coupled with the huge number ofvisitors each year, led to the birth of the East Conservatory Plaza project Paul Redman, the director of Longwood
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The East Conser vatory Plaza plan incorpora tes a 200 - year- ol d Taxus seamlessl y i n the new design.
the building's east entrances. H idden underneath the terraced slope and attached to the East Conservatory are the south wall's domed restrooms. Wilkie worked with the London-based architects Michaelis Boyd to create a concept for the naturally top-lit restroom pods.
A B OVE
The East Conserva tory Plaza creates space for gat her i ngs and seating. IN S ET
The creation of t he scul pt ed lawn form requ ired significant grading to bury the new restroom pods.
Gardens, explains that the smaller Main Conservatory's entrance and lowerlevel resb:ooms couldn't handle the numbers of visitors, which reach l),ooo on peak days. The new East Consetvatory Plaza creates additional grand entrances and alleviates congestion at the Main Conservatory entrance. And it provides a home for 17 unique and very necessary modern restrooms.
The restroom corridor is inconspicuously built into the terraced lawn on the outside, but inside, a long, elegant green wall unfolds intriguingly, like a botanical dreamscape, along either side of the curving corridor's walls. The Philadelphia landscape architecture firm Wells Appel was brought in to elaborate the designs ofboth the plaza and the green wall- and to act as the landscape architect of record and as the prime conh·actor of the design team. The effort was a team collaboration among several multidisciplinary firms. Wilkie interacted with Wells Appel and Longwood Gardens throughout the process. ''The The British landscape architect Kim Wilkie had been review- ability of the team to work together was essential, because ing designs for the East Consetvatory Plaza with the Longwood almost everything was custom designed," notes Stuart Appel, Gardens staff when he came up with his own concept for the FASLA, a principal of Wells Appel. space. They reviewed many designs, but none of them stuck, Redman notes. Wilkie's concept included a curved and ter- As you arrive at the East Conservatory Plaza, you first absorb raced lawn and a multiuse plaza that would be oriented toward the large scale of the building itself, which is tempered by
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV201 1/137
Wilkie's wide, seamless plaza and the curved and terraced lawn. Up over the steep slope at the top of the lawn, you see a hint of the green wall corridor's glass roof as it forms a backdrop to the view. The plaza paving uses Addaset, a resin-bound aggregate surfacing that looks like tiny pebbles, which closely resembles the building's facade. There is a carpet of Kentucky bluegrass sod in the terraced areas, which is mowed and can be used for seating. Children seem to appreciate this. On the day I visited, there were kids chmbing the banks and rolling bad< down. The steep upper slopes are covered with three varieties of fine fescue grasses, left unmowed, to create a neutral green canvas that offers a better view of the hint of glass roof just above it. The plaza is vast in scale, at ros,ooo square feet. The sculptural lawn comprises five terraces and spans q,8oo square feet, which encompasses all the subterranean lavatories on the south side of the green wall corridor. Mature trees at the perimeter of the site were preserved, and the sight of them helps weave together the new and the old landscapes. As you enter the East Conservatory through its grand sets of doors, you immediately see the lush beauty of its interior, smell its fragrant flowers, feel its warmth, and hear the sounds of water. But when nature calls, and visitors follow the signs that point them to the restrooms, they get a surprise. Around a corner, another lush landscape appears.
otherwise utilitarian corridor. The spacious restrooms have modern decor and mostly rounded walls. Natural light filters into each restroom from the domed ceilings. This green wall is said to be the largest in North America. At 14 feet high, it has more than 4,000 square feet of plants that grow in 3,590 one-foot·square stainless steel panels produced by GSky Plant Systems, Inc., of Vancouver, Btitish Columbia. The panels each contain 13 plant plugs, gro\vn in coconut coir fiber in trays in Florida and transported to Longwood. The design consists of 25 species of ferns and philodendrons. The mounting system attaches the panels and drip irrigation system to the corridor's concrete walls. 1t took less than three weeks to install.
The corridor has a north-facing wall of concrete, a south-facing wall also of concrete, and a glass greenhouse roof, creating different light conditions throughout its length. The varying conditions on each wall required a zonal irrigation system to customize the drip irrigation so that it accommodates chang· ing light and weather, which in turn helps prevent diseases The green wall curves along and out of sight, revealing the and pests. Lorrie Baird, a senior gardener at Longwood, is in doors to each of 17 private restrooms, and loops around a charge of green wall maintenance. She relies on integrated still pool at the far end, like an exclamation point to finish an pest management techniques as well as organic methods to
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LEFT The north and south restrooms flank the green r oof corridor.
RIGHT The terraced lawn creates a multi use space for seating or pl ay.
I NSET The individual restroom pods allow natur al light i n from above.
In the decade before the green wall's construction, the space that it occupies had been used as a construction staging area. The corridor's addition on what was literally a blank slate makes the m ost of necessa1y restrooms and sticks with Longwood's ethics of sustainability and environmental stewardship. The small amount of runoff water from the green wall panels collects in floor drains and is taken out of the system. This runoff, along with restroom wastewater, is transported to Longwood's own wastewater management facility. After the water is cleaned, it is stored for use in irrigation. As for air quality, as if 1,050 verdant acres at Longwood isn't carbon credit enough, the green wall corridor alone is said to provide as much oxygen as 90 trees standing 14 feet high, and it cleans more than rs,ooo pounds of toxins from the air each year. The green wall project took two and a half years to design and build before its dedication in October 2010. At a cost of around $375,ooo, the project was a huge investment for Longwoocl. But in a pub!lic relations sense, quite literally, it pays off nicely. Visitors benefit from the added restrooms, and their discovery of the green wall is yet another Longwood marvel-and in a very unexpected place. The wall brings texture, immersion, and an elegance to what could otherwise be a humdrum area you would want to escape as quickly as possible. The gardeners and horticulturists at Longwood Gardens continue to monitor and address maintenance issues for the green wall, the terraced lawn, and the plaza. The professional staff is busy sharing their green wall knowledge and experience through lectures- it has become a very popular topic. Paul Redman is quite pleased with the results. He admits that it amounts to one big experiment, but he thinks of the green wall as "a case study in how to do this right" o NICOLE NEDER, ASSOCIATE ASLA, IS A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER AND FREELANCE WRITER BASED IN THE PHILADELPHIA AREA.
Project Credits A B OVE
A still pool at the end of the corr i dor acts as a focal point as you walk through and adds a place to sit and view the green wall.
maintain the plants. In the year that the wall has existed, she has found need to replace three of the plant species with other species that will perform better, though she has found few problems with pests or diseases. Baird notes that among her daily maintenance work on the green wall are routine checks on the irrigation system, the occasional trimming of the fastgrowing plants, and the occasional replacement of panels in areas where plants are not looking stellar. She estimates that she spends r6 to 24 hours a week maintaining the wall.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT KIM WILKIE ASSOCI ATES, BISHOP'S WAl1HAM, ENGLAND. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OF RECORD WELLS APPEL, PHILADELPHIA. ARCHITECT MICHAEUS BOYD, LONDON. ARCHITECT OF RECORD FAREWELL MILLS GATSCH ARCHITECTS, LLC, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY. CUENT LONGWOOD GARDENS, KENNETT SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA. CONSTRUCTION MANAGER BANCROFT CONSTRUCTION, WIUMINGTON, DELAWARE. STRUCTURAL ENGINEER BAKER INGRAM, NEWARK, DELAWARE. UGH11NG DESIGN THE UGHTING PRACTICE, PHILADELPHI A. CIVIL ENGINEER VAN NOTE -HARVEY, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY. MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL, AND PLUMBING DEDC, NEWARK, DELAWARE. GEOTECHNICAL EN GINEER DUFFIELD ASSOCIATES, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE. IRRIGATION DESIGN IRRIGATION CONSUl1ING, INC., PEPPERE LL, MASSACHUSETTS. GREEN WALL COMPONENTS GSKY PLANT SYSTEMS, VANCOUVER, BRffiSH COLUMBIA.
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LEFT Gr een Bay's new Ci tyOeck is a catalyst
for the city's downtown r enaissance-and an i n ter es ti ng place to sit.
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LEFT CityOeck flanks the east side of t he i ndustrial Fox River , whose waters are still plied by massive Gr eat Lakes carg o ships.
ERE'S SOMETHING NEW: AN ARTICLE ABOUT GREEN BAY THAT DOESN'T MENTION THE PACKERS. Well, maybe just in this first paragraph. The title came back to Titletown last year when the lowest-seeded team in the playoffs improbably won Super Bowl XLV. Green Bay, an improbable NFL town to begin with (population wr,ooo, very small media market), went justifiably nuts for the green and gold, a team tha~ in many ways, the city had been building from the ground up for a decade or more. But this wasn't going to be an article about football, right? OK. No more football.
Also building slowly from within in Green Bay over the past decade was a downtown renaissance almost as improbable as, well, you know. The visible culmination of that renaissance is the CityDeck, a three-block-long waterfront plaza and promenade, designed by the Boston-based firm Stoss Landscape Urbanism. CityDeck is composed of angled wood planes and custom concrete pavers, and it features an array of built-in wood seating that seems ext:tuded up from the boardwalk itself On what used to be derelict waterfront, this unique design anchors a serum of new and renovated buildings jostling for views and urlban pedestrian traffic. For downtown Green Bay to go from uncompetitive to contender took some design talent, yes, but also a committed community and a charismatic mayor. was about five minutes early for my meeting with Mayor Jim Schmitt in his office, and within 10 minutes he was speed-walking out the door, with me in tow, because he wanted to show me his downtown. Schmitt was first elected in 200 3- He's a native of Green Bay and for years ran a company that turned waste paper into disposable tissues like the ones barbers put around your neck. His paper background is very Green Bay: It's an industry and shipping town. The city, which sits w here the Fox River flows into its namesake bay, has the classic combination of Great Lakes water access and
I
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUR E M AGAZIN E NOV 20 11 /143
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proximity to Midwestern forests and farmlands that has given tise to plenty ofsimilar resow-ce-dtiven cities: Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Toledo. The boats still call today. More than 200 commercial vessels per year- some of them massive ocean freighters- dock at about rs active terminals up and down the Fox River. Green Bay's waterfront used to bustle with both industrial and social activity. Downtown was, just like everywhere else, the heart of the city. l'hen, in the r96os, also just like everywhere else, business started to move to the outskirts and the core began to die. As a stopgap measure, a mall was built downtown, severing the w-ban grid. At the same time, industries were moving out, ship traffic was declining, and the watetfront became neglected. It turned into a site for parking and garbage collection. ABOVE A l ineup of summer p rograms activate the design with weekni ght concerts and lunch time food vendors .
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Bay has long been at the fringes of my life. Growing Green up, my family would vacation in Door County, skirting the city to the east on ow- drive up from Chicago. I now live in Minneapolis, and since 2005 my mother has lived full time in Door County's Sturgeon Bay, just to the north. Regular visits there with my wife and two young children require a vertigo-inducing drive over the Leo Frigo Memorial Bridge, which rises up over the Fox River (and, in fact, the entire city) just north of downtown. 1 have seen the piles ofblack coal and white limestone sitting inches from the slack water of the Fox; the massive freighters groaning their way upstream, all the downtown drawbridges open; the frozen, wind-scalloped bay and a city frosted in white, all quiet.
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I would never have imagined something like the CityDeck could be built here. I've seen plenty of snazzy waterfronts in other cities- more vaunted cities, destination cities: Toronto, Seattle, Chicago. But in Green Bay? Im probable. The m ayor's take: "Wf!re going to have something so unique down here, something so special, that it's going to be the first step in revitalizing our whole downtown ." He campaigned on this (he just won his third term) and shepherded the entire process, and at times he was derided for spending public money on what some called "the mayor's yellow brick road." Schmitt sees the City Deck as one piece, albeit a critical piece, of a total downtown redevelopment. But on the CityDeck specifically, he argues that Green Bay could have done something more modest- that many would have expected something more modest- but that the city needed to look 50 years forward and ask itself what it would be known for then. l first laid eyes on the City Deck about three hours before meet· ing the mayor. I can't remember the last time I was in downtown Green Bay and, notably, neither could my mother, when l mentioned to her I would be visiting the city for this article. She com es to town to shop, but never into the center. We decided to make a day of it, booked rooms at the Days Inn, just steps from the waterfront, and enjoyed a picture-perfect late summer day strolling the boardwalk before I went to meet the mayor.
I
GREEN BAYJS MAYOR) JIM SCHMIT~ THOUGHT THE CITY NEEDED TO LOOK 50 YEARS FORWARD AND ASK WHAT IT WOULD BE KNOWN FOR THEN.
City Deck stretches for three blocks along the western shore of the Fox, between the Ray Nitschke and Walnut Street btidges. It is built on top of the existing river bulkhead wall. Described
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUR E M AGAZIN E NOV 2011 /145
most simplisticall.ly, CityDed< features two basic materials: a wide ipe wood boardwalk at the river's edge and a linear and slightly narrower concrete paver plaza between the boardwalk and buildings. The geometry of the spaces is pleasantly erratic, edges jogging in and out seemingly by whim, here cinching the space a little tighter, there extending a belvedere out over the river. The boardwalk portion is punctuated by seatingmade of the same ipe-that rises up from the walking surface in various shapes and configw·ations.
TOP
The seating i s desi gned to give ample choice of postur e and pur pose. I NSET
A fountain-jet water feature (which can be activated by anyone at the touch of a button) entertains visi t ors.
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l couldn't drag the landscape architect, Chris Reed, ASiA, of Stoss, out to Green Bay from Boston for an afternoon, so I talked to him by phone once I got home. He told me that his earliest concepts, envisioned back in 2004 when he was asked to prepare a larger master plan for the downtown waterfront, featured the wooden planes of the boardwalk. Back then, he says, he wanted a series of wooden platforms that would "start up at the city grid and fold their way up and down, a·eating a diversity ofspaces along the very tight waterfront" Upon further investigation of the bulkhead wall during detailed design, Reed found that what he thought was a uniform river edge was in fact a mess of different elevations, structures, and ages of construction. The design, then, had to remain flexible, but Stoss had already laid the groundwork for that with its minimalist concept. The geometrically independent triad of design elements -boardwalk, paver plaza, and seating-could flex and move as needed to address the underlying reality. ~
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AT RIGHT Together, the benches (top, showing the metal str ucture beneath) and boardwalk constitute one of two pri mar y desi gn moves, the other being a field of custom concrete pavers (bottom), which are permeable i n places.
FIXED MESH SCREEN BETWEEN BENCH TYPES COVERING LARGER BENCH OPENING METAL TRUSSES IPE DECKING
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV 2011 /149
THE DESIGN IS FLASHY AND SUBTLE AT THE SAME TIMEPURE ARTISTRY FROM A SI MPLE MOTIF.
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Embedded within this simple flow of space, says Reed, is a deliberate cliversity of scales meant to provide comfort for in· clividuals, small groups, and large gatherings. At the inclividual level, he says, are the benches: "The whole idea here is that we could fold the wood surfaces in ways that could accommodate the human body in a number of different ways depending on people's moods and people's body types." CityDeck features about 10 different seating options, all with a rigid angular geometry that reflects the plaza's edges. All are long and linear, either just behind the railing at the water's edge or nosed up to the boardwall< farther back to form the bound· ary between the wood and the pavers. Some are backless and look like the number 7 in cross section, while some reverse the 7's acute angle to create a sloped-out vertical support Some seating is double height, with a lower bench's bad< forming the leg rest of an upper, baddess seat. Some are chaises, like beach chairs in stasis, but with width enough for dozens. Large groups can gather on several large platforms, hl<e the ShopKo
BELOW
Ci tyOecl< was buil t in conjunction with r e devel opment of the waterfront, such as these high - end condomi niums with stunni ng sunset views over the Fox River .
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Landing, a deck with a folded surface meant to conjure the fractured ice found in the Fox River in winter (several more will be built over the next few years as phases 2 and 3).
started trying out benches. And looking around. It was maybe 8o degrees, with a light breeze, on a Thursday afternoon. Small groups were wallcing around, obviously happy, but not sitting anywhere. The number 7 cross-sectional benches are 1specifically asked Reed about his middle scale, the small group fine, but their partners, the ones with the kicked-forward base, gathering spaces, because the CityDeck struck me as very linear. are difficult to even sit down on, because you have to stand so He pointed to two locations. There's the spot where the outer far forward of the seat. 1 was moderately comfortable in the edge of the boardwalk inflects a little, rotating a few benches to chaises tongues, but the backs are perfectly straight, rather face slightly toward each other. And the upper terrace between than curving toward vertical to support the head. I'm s-foot-10 the CityDed< itself and a forthcoming restaurant elevates some and felt all right, but my mother, at 5-foot-4, just didn't fit. The seating above the fray. I agree there are some interesting places double-layer benches usually have the kick-forward base, so to sit alone or as a couple, and 1 agree (though 1 didn't happen they're tricky, too, and the upper seat, above the backrest, hit to be there on a festival day) that the large gathering spaces me just below the shoulder blades. And since the detail has likely work very well, but when I visited the project I had been that upper seat's slatting extending forward over the vertical generally concerned about the seating, and Reed's short list of slats of the backrest, a pointy edge occurs right at the upper middle-scale moments didn't reassure me. The inflection he ref- back. Reed told me that Stoss prototyped each seating option erences is a widely obtuse angle, and a stairway passes between at full scale, out of plywood, and had various staff members of the seats right at the point of the angle. That doesn't make for various sizes try them out, making adjustments before finalsociable seating. The rest of CityDed<'s seating is arranged in izing them. That's a sound design process, so I am at a loss straight lines, but there are no parallel lines. It is impossible to to explain my own discomfort on site.. sit across from someone anywhere on the site, and a group o£ say, five or six people would have to sit side by side by side and Normally l wouldn't harp on seating so much, but this projcrane their necks forward to speak to one another. ect is all about the seating. True, there are exquisite details throughout: the locally made pavers are custom, of a pleasing When my mother and I walked the length of the deck before trapezoidal shape, and laid as an underlying field that never my meeting with the mayor, we raved about the project lt is exactly matches the angle of the boardwalk; the water-edge definitely memorable. It has an aesthetic that is engaging and railing switches from heavy maritime timber to thin delicate unique. But when 1met up with her again after meeting Mayor metal, creating imp01tant va1iation in what could have been Schmitt, she was still walking the boardwalk, book in hand. a monotonous line; and the benches themselves, aesthetiShe had been unable to find anywhere comfortable to sit So I cally, are striking and gorgeous. But when both the mayor
RIGHT
The ShopKo Landing is the primary large ga thering space r i ght now, but t wo larger terraces will be built next year in phase two.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 20 11 /151
and landscape architect talk about re-creating the social heart of downtown, I can't help but wish there was some sociable seating in downtown's heatt. That heart, though, on the whole seems to be rebounding. My mother and I had dinner at Republic Chophouse a few blocks from the waterfront The mayor and I had popped in there on our whirlwind tour. He considers it one of many downtown success stories: It's new, and would never have opened downtown ro years ago. A block or so away is Koko, a sushi restaurant that relocated in from the suburbs after the CityDeck opened. Riverfront Lofts is a new condominium building that faces the water. Tt has 26 units and an assessed value of$22 million. At the other end of the deck is Lofts on the Fox, apartments with the same views as Riverfront but aimed at middle-class earners (and it has deck-facing retail on the ground floor). In between sits an old department store building being converted into one of the more diverse mixed-use projects I have encountered: a restaurant with dining out on the CityDeck, offices, residential units, a parking garage. and a brand-new children's museum. And the old mall, the mall that some say put the nail in downtown's coffin? While I was in town it was being demolished, with the Days Inn soon to follow, to be replaced by the corporate headquarters and technology center of a major processed cheese company (please hold your cheesehead jokes). That company will bring 550 new employees downtown.
A
s a born and raised Midwesterner, 1 have seen many potentially excellent projects dumbed down by an embedded regional practicality and reluctance to stand out This is especially true in smaller, grittier cities like Green Bay. But Reed told me his work in Green Bay, corning on the heels of another smaller waterfront plaza in Milwaukee, has been some of the most rewarding in his career. "Midwestern pragmatism," he said, "doesn't exclude ambition for what [Midwesterners] want out of their city life and social life and for their kids:· A cornerstone of Stoss's work is solving practical problems-infrastmcture problems, social problems, environmental problems- while also creating innovative landscapes. It's a tough balance, but well suited to places like Green Bay.
The design does achieve that balance. It does manage to be flashy and subtle at the same time. I keep turning it over in my head: First it strikes me with its boldness and angularity, then I come down from the initial high and realize it's just wood and pavers, and then I see again the pure artistry that Stoss
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managed from such a simple moti£ And during our phone call, Reed lobbed one more subtlety at me: The custom pavers have tiny flecks of green, so they have a verdigris tinge in certain lights, and the trees all turn yellow in the fall, just as Sundays become dedicated to, well, you know. Mayor Schmitt thinks that Reed understood the city from the beginning, and I have to agree. If the seating were what seating should be, 1 wouild consider this one of the most interesting, contextually appropriate projects I have had the privilege to visit-and it's just three blocks long and had a total budget of only $12 million (that's for all three phases). And what's more, CityDeck is truly a catalyst for all the rest
ABOVE
A beautiful, unexpected design has already brought newfound prosper ity to downtown Green Bay.
"We still have a lot of work to do," the mayor told me, gestur- Project Credits ing around a bustling downtown that a decade ago just wasn't CLIENT CllY OF GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN DESIGNER SlOSS LANDSCAPE URBAN SM, BOSTON (CHRIS REED, ASLA, PRINCIPAL, LEA D DESIGNER, SCOTI BISHOP, worth visiting, "but we couldn't be doing these (redevelop- IASLA, PROJECT MANAGER, DESIGN TEAM· TIM BARNER; CATHY BRAASCH; STEVE ments] unless we reactivated and reconnected the community CARLUCCI, JILL DESIMINI; ADRIAN FEHRMANN, ASLA; CARL FRUSHOUR, ASLA, with the waterfront. KRISTIN MALONE; CHRIS MUSKOPF; SUSAN FITZGERALD; JANA KIENITZ; USL "Eight years ago," he continued, in a parting comment, "we were hopeful. But now...." He trailed off with a grin. Nice that a Green Bay mayor can say that-about the city, instead of theteam. o ADAM REGN ARVJOSON, FASLA, IS A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE. HIS MOTHER PLANS TO BRING HER FRIENDS TO DOWNTOWN GREEN BAY MORE OFTEN.
KOTHEIMER, BRYAN MIYAHARA, GRAHAM PALMER, MEGAN STUDER, AND SARAH WRIGHT). URBAN DESIGN VmER OENK, MILWAUKEE STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING GRAEF ANHAlJ SCHLOEMER AND ASSOCIATES, GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN. CIVIL AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING STS CONSUlJANTS/AECOM, GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN. UGHTING DESIGN UGHT THIS'. BOSTON SOIL SCIENCE PINE+ SWALLOW, GROTON, MASSACHUSmS EL.ECTRICAL AND PWMBING CLARK DIETZ, GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN. CDST WF BAIRD ASSOCIATES, MADISON, WISCONSIN GENERAL CONTRACTOR THE SELMER COMPANY, GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 20 11/ 153
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alking in and out and around the Lily Lake residence is like piecing together a fascinating puzzle. There are old stone waUs and new ones that cannot be told apart The long sliver of the new house, all wood and glass, is slipped like a narrow boat between a low stone waU and a stone cottage anchored by specimen trees. You find yourself nestled in these fields where cattle once grazed and huddled under the shade of the sugar maples. The seamless connections between the buildings and the land here, in the rolling hayfields and wooded wetlands of eastern Pennsylvania, arise from a close collaboration between the landscape architect Michael Vergason, FASLA, and the architect Peter Bohlin.
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"We've been working together for more than 2 0 years," says Vergason, one very hot day in midJuly, leaning against an old stone wall near the entryway to this rural year-round home in Dalton. "Peter has a better instinct about landscape than any architect I know."
Bohlin has also spent hls career working in a variety of ve1y different settings, such as Seattle's City Hall, the glass-cube Apple store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and modemist houses made of timber and stone and tucked into rural settings. "Michael;' he says ofVergason, "like Laurie Olin and Peter Walker, were all trained as archltects. But one should not Vergason, who received an ASLA Honor Award see the divisions between buildings and landscape for the project last yeax, is known for his sensitivity and what you do on the inside ofbuildings." to sites, from hlstoric farmsteads like this one to the new Center for Aquatic Life and Conservation On the first approach, the real heart of this landat the Baltimore National Aquarium. scape is hidden. "You don't want to give it away all at once," Bohlin says.
ABOVE
The new sliver of a house is hidden, on first appr oach, behi nd the 1800s stone house that rises over the hayfields and stone walls of its agrarian pa st.
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THE POND MAKES A SECOND FRONT FOR THE HOUSE AND PULLS THE SUN INTO 11.
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To enter the house, you walk under a long pergola (its simple lines are almost Shakerlike, though it's made of mahogany) and turn left through a mahogany door-on axis, thanks to Bohlin, to the entrance to the old stone house-into a room full of light. Only a rather massive double fireplace blocks the view of its source. "I suggested they move that chimney to open up that spectacular viewshed:' says Vergason, with a you-win-some-you-lose-some shrug, as we round the fireplace. There, through a wall of glass, the shimmering water of a great pond stretches a good 2 00 feet in all directions, framed by native woods and pasture. Herons feed on the trout and frogs at the pond. Woodcock and mallards swim among the sedges and reeds. Foxes, deer, coyotes, and even bears wander to its shores. And in winter, especially, when Light is predous, reflected light off the water fills the house and changes with the hours.
There was much discussion with the owners about the dimensions of the slender house, which is 150 by 25 feet. Would it be enough room? But to their surprise, they hardly ever traverse its length (the guest quarters are tucked into a corncriblike suite on the east side), so rooted are they to the sunrise and water to the south, and the cozy quarters for reading and entertaining in the renovated "It really pulls the sun and that life of the pond in stone cottage to the north. to this side of the house, making it very, vety alive for family life:· Vergason says. As he steps out to The owner, an early riser, likes to have his coffee, the patio, startled bullfrogs leap into the water. and even work on his laptop, out on the cantileDragonflies zoom across its surface, catching vered deck, which juts out over the pond. (The bugs (they love mosquitoes, too). owners' four grandsons, by the way, wear life presetvers when fishing on the end of the deck. "It also makes a kind of second front for the And toddlers are kept out by a gate.) place," Vergason points out. "Because the formal front is the stone house, which is not the central ''I'm literally sitting in free space," he says. "You feel like you're floating." living space."
ABOVE
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A cantilever ed deck i njects an energy both moder nist and prehi sto r ic over the pond, which is deep enough for trout. LEFT AND OPPOSITE
The owner s and designers wan ted a structur e that would not domi nate the landscape.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1/159
THE ENTIRE FARM WAS FRENCH DRAINED. IT HAD SPRINGS COMING UP ALL OVER.
The ded<'s gesture is pure modernism, but it strikes some deeper connection, as well, to those cantilevered stones at Yo· semite, jutting into the air, a thousand feet up. It was Vergason who envisioned the pond, as he walked the site and stood by the low stone wall that borders what was then just a field. "Michael said, 'You know, a pond would be perfect here,"' recalls the owner. He and his wife had long loved the old fa1m property, especially its stone cottage. "Our thought was tro build by the cottage, but not overpower it with anything we added," the owner tells me. "I think we were suc· cessful. You can't see it from the road-only when you're up on it"
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Vergason, who grew up in the rolling hills of Virginia, had a hunch that the old field had been drained long ago for agricultural use. And he was spot on. It turns out the entire farm is French drained. It has springs coming up all over the place, and the high clay content of the soil means fields stay wet much of the time. The property originally had belonged to C. S. Woolworth, who longed for something out of the English countryside, with low stone walls and a stone cottage, and a Victorian house with a wide porch atop the highest hill.
"All the walls were constructed by one man, who might have been Welsh," the owner recalls. "He also had a fondness for alcohol, so Mr. Woolworth would find him and sober him up, so he could build another wall:' The Woolworth farm was once a thriving dairy operation, with barns for cattle and hay across the country road, and well-kept pastures and hayfields surrounding the stone cottage, where the imported Scottish or Welsh, or English-no one can quite remember- farm manager had lived.
ABOVE A mix of meadow grasses, sedges, and rushes su r rounds the pond, once a drai ned agr icultur al field atop natural spr i ngs.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUR E M AGAZINE NOV2011 /161
LEFT A graduated w eir on the edge of the pond sl ows stormwater flowi ng into a wooded w etland.
SKETCH ES A series of stepped pools allows w ater t o seep gradually i nto the hayfield that sl opes fr om the stone house to the road.
But after Woolworth's death, the heir's widow, who had rather eclectic tastes, demolished the rambling Victorian on the hill and put up a big brid< house with columns. "That dog up there;' as Bohlin called the brick house, which the new owners happily demolished. The widow had also planted blue spruce trees, which are rather jarring among the crabapples and sugar maples of this agrarian landscape. Vergason suggested they might go, though the owners decided the spmces should stay. "They're not indigenous to the area and wouldn't have been my first choice;' th e owner says, "but they're here, and they are very large and lovely trees."
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RIGHT
BOTTOM RIGHT
The new house is sl ipped between an original stone wall and the stone house; a new re tai ni ng wall, covered in stone, all ows a clear view from a sunken bedr oom.
The site's ori ginal trees, the framewor k of dry-l aid stone wall s, and the fiel ds have been preserved .
BELOW
A mix of five nati ve ferns appears to grow naturally among stone paths.
The original Victorian house, as well as its replacement, afforded a grand overlook from the highest promontory, of fields, woodland, and sky-an old idea of the castle on the hill, where you can see and be seen. But that was not for the new owners, nor their designers, who didn't want a structure dominating the landscape. "It's an extraordinary property \vith a beautiful intrinsic quality to it that called for doing as little as possible to it;• Vergason says, so that "whatever you do builds on the beauty of the place." And fortunately, Bohlin and their clients agreed.
"I love the idea that people with the financial resources to do exactly what they want chose something more modest rather than some larger, more muscular statement," Vergason says. "It reflects a kind of deferential wave to the larger landscape." The old stone cottage is connected to the lowslung residence with a glass and wood passageway that feels virtually transparen t. T he passage offers a westward view to a magnificent Japanese maple, which was carefully moved to that exact spot.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1/163
"Peter had decided exactly where the maple was to be when there was nothing here, no building, no glass," says the owner. "He said, 'When you look through that glass the tree will be framed by this link.' He has a tremendous gift that way." And the long, low pergola at the entry to the residence is, like the water, a play on perception. "It gave us a chance to lower that line below the height of the house, so we're dropping the scale down," says Bohlin. "If you made a whole house that height, it would probably be a little too crunched down."
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Bohlin transformed the two-story stone cottage, which was "a rabbit warren of funny little rooms," he says, into a great library room lined with bookshelves, with a central fireplace and sleeping loft. "It's .a magnet when we entertain:' says the owner, who loves to read there, by the fire, in winter. Or enjoy its cool shade in summer. Vergason chose a simple palette of native plants to merge these buildings with the natural landscape. A mix of five native ferns- ladyfems, woodferns, sensitive ferns, Christmas ferns, and hay-scented
ferns-softens the comers of both the stone cot- It is the stone-in the low walls that are threaded tage and the new residence. Native shrubs, includ- both vertically and horizontally between the two ing Fothergilla, witchhazels, winterberry, and Vir- structures- that anchors this site. Much of it ginia sweetspire ( 1tea virginica), chru.t the seasons came from the excavated field, which is now with their fragrance, color, and fruit for wildlife. a r2-foot-deep pond, and walking along these paths, or up the wide steps made of single slabs A hedge of summersweet (Clethra alnifolia), of bluestone that was dug from the site, you feel whose spicy-scented flowers attract humming- centered, almost drawn down into the earth. birds in late summer, and whose lustrous dark green leaves turn golden-yellow in fall, lines the Vergason also has solved erosion and runoff north end of the parking court. And moss fingers problems here by opening up a gap in one of the its way among the mosaic of fieldstone that greets stone walls by the pond and creating a graduated weir that allows water to flow through narrow visitors walking up to the house.
ABOVE Bot h t he ol d sugar maple and these corncri bl ike rooms speak the vernacular.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV201 1/165
AS YOU APPROACH, THE HEART OF THE LANDSCAPE IS HIDDEN.
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or ever-wider channels to the adjacent woodland and down into the field west of the house, where a series of stone step pools dug into the field col· lect and slow storm runoff that once eroded the old pasture. The owners grow timothy and alfalfa in the field that fronts the stone cottage, so a productive hayfield now rolls down to the road. But Vergason planited a little sea of hard fescue closer to the buildings, along with a bit of green lawn, to accentuate the living space.
This same fescue fans out beneath the grove of aspens he planted to enliven the north side of the pond. And the owners like them so much, they may plant a grove of them up on the hill. ''A kind of extension of the same thing;· the owner says. "A simple gathering place:· o ANN E RAVER WRITES ABOUT THE ENVI RONMENT, INCLUDING GARDENING AND FARMING, WILDLIFE HABITATS, AND LANDSCAPE DESIGN.
Project Credits
ABOVE
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT MICHAE L VERGASON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, LID., ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA (MICHAEL VERGASDN,
The new house, artfull y low, does not domina te the old stone house, which still serves as t he formal fron t to the property.
FASLA, PRINCIPAL IN CHARGE; DONALD PARTLAN, PROJECT MANAGER; TRISHA RUBENSTEIN). ARCHITECT BOHLIN CYWINSKI JACKSON, WILKES- BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA (PETER BOH LIN, TODD R. HOWARD). LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR KALINOSKY LANDSCAPING, INC., WYOMING, PENNSYLVANIA (JOSEPH KALINOSKY). GENERAL CONTRACTOR BREIG BROTHERS, DALTON, PENNSYLVANIA (WARREN BREIG ill).
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZI NE NOV201 1/ 167
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THE BACK DESI GN FOR THE OTHER 90%: CITIES
Organized by the Cooper- Hewitt, National Des1gn Museum, at the Un1ted Nations Visitors Centre. New York City, to January 9, 2012. About one billion people worldwide hve in slums, and the number is expected to double over the next 20 years as more people seek better lives, as defined on a decidedly sliding scale. Most of thi s strain will show in places that are already quite crowded and poor. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, has organized a range of examples that show how design can help to ease informal living conditions. There is housing to consider, of course (you have to wonder at the sheer preponderance of corrug ated metal in nearly all slums}, plus drinking water, education. sanitary infrastructure, and transportation. Designers are also helping spread joy, as with the public space projects of the Kounkuey Design Initiative (shown} at the Kibera settlement near central Nairobi, Kenya, where more than a m1lhon people hve.
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INVESTIGATING OLD AMERICAN TEXTILE CITIES AND WAYS TO REVIVE THEM. THEIR FINDINGS ARE ALSO HELPING TO BUILD A FRESH KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR THE FIRM AND ITS URBAN PROJECTS. BY ERNEST BECK
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0
n a balmy late summer day, the 325-acre Seaside Park in Btidgeport, Connecticut, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, is an oasis of greenery and stunning water views. Visitors stroU along the wide, sandy beach and dip their toes into Long Island Sound, while others walk or jog along paths and sports fields. "This is a real draw for the city, a gem," observes Eamonn Hutton, Associate ASIA, a landscape architect at Sasaki Associates, which has created an ambitious, far-reaching master plan for the parks of Bridgeport, a city that is known better for its economic woes, abandoned factories, and many potentially contaminated sites than it is for green spaces.
Yet as Seaside Park and its many attractions amply illustrate, there is another side to Bridgepoti: underused parks, including a second designed by Olmsted, that the city beLieves can be leveraged to improve the quality of life for its 14o,ooo people, a quatier of whom live below the poverty leveL "We are trying to reclaim our hetitage of the natural environment and parks;' Bridgeport's mayor, Bill Finch, explains. He notes that today's parks master plan is the largest, in size and scope, of any plan since Olmsted's. "We have let it go for too long." The Sasaki plan, developed with Heller and Heller Consulting, a
parks and recreation specialty firm in Oak Park, Illinois, envisions a connected system of vibrant green spaces, from parks to community gardens, schoolyards, greened vacant lots, and brownfield sites, that spread out across the city. To im plement the plan, its creators call for a network of community support groups and public-private partrlerships that collectively will improve Bridgeport's health- socially, economically, and ecologically-and help secure a sustainable future.
OPPOSITE
Seaside Park i n Bridgeport, Connecticut, has a vi ew of Pleasure Beach. A BOVE
Sasaki proposes a park system of connected green spaces for Bridgeport.
A h igh priority of the plan is to work holistically, says Gina Ford, ASIA, a design principal at Sasaki's Watertown, Massachusetts, office
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THE BACK
I PRACTICE
the GSD. They also wanted to build a conversation at Sasaki about the future of urban centers. "The key word is 'systems,' and thinking about the city in those terms," Canter recalls, "and this seemed well suited to Sasaki's interdisciplinary structu re." Ford, who hired the two graduates for the Urban Studio, says she was intrigued by the proposed project because it pushed the firm in a direction it was already moving. "They wanted to take a broader look at the rise and fall of industrial cities, to see the bigger story, and that was appealing;' she says.
THE URBAN FABRIC PROJECT SPARKED CONVERSATIONS THAT INFLUENCED SASAKI'S BRIDGEPORT PLAN.
ABOVE
A segment of Bri dgeport's Yell ow Mill Creel< today, bottom, contrast s with proposed restoration of habi tat and pedestrian connections, top.
These ideas were also championed by an unusual in-house pilot project at Sasaki called Urban Fabric, an initiative that coincided with the firm's bid for the Bridgeport project and that has since been widening its and the head of its Urban Studio influence in the firm's practice. unit. "We could have talked about 46 individual parks and where to Urban Fabric was the brainchild of put playground swings and ameni- Hutton, 28, and a colleague, Alexis ties and improvements, which is Canter, Associate ASiA, who is 30, important," she says. "But we want- after they came to work at Sasaki. ed to think about more than small, HuttonandCanterwereclassrnatesat discrete physical interventions. We Harvard's Graduate School of Design wanted to talk about the park system - they graduated in the spring of as the city's green infrastructure and 2oro. The two were interested in rethink how to make a super multi- a more research-oriented approach functional system, and to reinforce to landscape architecture, one that that vvith a strong structure of com- coupled design with rigorous analymunity partnerships." sis, which they had experienced at
178/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV2011
In September 2oro, Sasaki beat out a dozen competitors for the Bridgeport assignment The firm had worked on a number of projects in what it calls "middle cities" such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Indianapolis, but parks master planning is not one of its bigger markets. Sasaki jumped into the running, Ford says, because it saw that projects like Bridgeport "have a huge potential." Hutton and Canter were allotted eight hours a week to focus on Urban Fabric, in addition to their other work, so most of the study was done on their own time. (As part of his billable hours, Hutton conducted interviews with people on the streets in Bridgeport as the firm prepared for its bid.) They decided to focus their research on three cities-Newark, New Jersey; Mobile, Alabama; and Fall River, Massachusetts- that were integral
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RIGHT I n Fall Ri ver , Massachusetts , 10 million square f eet of f ormer textile mil l b uildings remain .
to the country's once-thriving textile industry but are now facing similar problems ofan American economy that is shifting away from manufacturing, of disused urban space, and the changing role of infrastructw·e. Textile production involved a net· work of processes that tapped into geograph ic and geological assets. Cotton was shipped to the market from port cities like Mobile. Rivers and fulls powered mills in northeast· ern cities Like Fall River. Newark was home to dye factories, where work· ers and skilled chemists were available. While textile production has dedined, the cities and people remain - along with the in frastructure of a faded industry. In Fall River, for example, there are 10 million square feet of former textile mill buildings. These cities, the Urban Fabric report concluded, reflect "a fu ndamental misalignment between 2oth-century infrastructure and z rst-century notions of sustainability." In addition to the report, Urban Fabric resulted in the mounting of an exhibition at Sasaki's Watertown office, detailing Canter's and Hutton's findings. and the publication of an accompanying catalog. Canter and Hutton also organized a lecture series to build on the themes and ideas presented in the exhibition, focusing on landscape architecture and urbanism, among other related topics. Ford, who worked closely with the two on the initiative along with other principals, says that Urban Fabric was a way to "make connections to
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other cities and academics and to ecological systems to ensuring sociothink about strategies." It also made economic opportunity and achieving for good public relations. stable levels ofeconomic growth and employment. What these strategies In the exhibition, a number of strat- have in common, the report notes, is egies were outlined that have been that they aim to achieve these goals used in projects in different cities through innovative forms of partto address the underlying issues of nership, systemwide thinking, and industrial urbanism and sustainabil· embracing the transformative power ity. They range from creating healthy of design.
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THE BACK
I PRACTICE LEFT A map highli gh ts Mobile, Al abama's 100 yea r fl oodplain and its relationship to the city. BELOW The port i n Mobile once bustled with shi ps carrying cotton to market, but t he economi c shift away f rom manufactur i ng has hurt the textile industry.
2 MILES
Although Bridgeport wasn't part of the Urban Fabric study proper, it shares many characteristics of those that were. It is a former industrial hub known as "the Arsenal of Democracy," for its factories that produced arms and, later, consumer goods. It fell into disrepair after its industrial base collapsed, leaving behind contaminated land. Its wealthier residents fled to the suburbs. Poor waste management turned the waterfront into a dumping ground for a dirty mixture of chemicals. Today it has a large number of people who are poor and basically lost, and massively underused infrastructure. BGreen 2020, a comprehensive sustainability report undertaken by the city of Bridgeport and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, a con-
182/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 201 1
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sortium of local business groups, concluded that these conditions are "the canvas on which Bridgeport's future will be painted-centmies ofeconomic and cultural wealth followed by 50 years of abandonment and neglect." A tour of the dty confirms this observation. A small downtown area around city hall has been revitalized into a pleasant inner-city space with cafes, restamants, and new housing along streets lined by trees. But if you step outside this zone, you find sad streets with boarded-up buildings and storefronts, and a few lonely pedestrians. In outlying areas, some residential buildings retain their period charm, though many neighborhoods have been badly neglected. Mixed into these areas are derelict factories,
often vast in size, like the Remington Alms Factory, a r.s-million-squarefoot structure of 13 interconnected buildings spread over 76 aa·es. It's hard to imagine that Bridgeport, where the entreprenem and showman P. T. Barnum was the mayor in the late r8oos, once called itself the Park City. What Sasaki has in mind is to build on that legacy by revitalizing the historic spaces while also creating new community parks and green areas. The plan would first address immediate priorities; Seaside Park, for example, could use some more tree cover, resilient lawn spaces, and a new maintenance plan. A bmned-out bathhouse on the grounds, an eyesore for years, could be turned into a destination for public events, which, along with
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I PRACTICE
LEFT Peopl e ch eck out Urban Fabr i c at its openi n g night in Sasaki 's Watertown, Massachusetts, office.
RIGHT One of the exhi bition photos shows a contai ner terminal in Ne wark.
other visitor amenities, could bring things already happening at Sasaki in money to be used at other parks. and helped catapult and build on those ideas." Ford describes Urban On a broader scale, the master plan Fabric's effect on the firm as emembraces a strategy to link the city powering and invigorating, "food and its people to the water (only four for thought," she says, that allowed miles of 22 miles of waterfront are designers to "look at problems in now accessible to the public via bike a fresher and deeper way." What's lanes and river walks, and memora- more, the purely enterprise research ble streets and parkways). Floodplains "represents an evolution ofour pracwill be reclaimed for ecological resto- tice as we are exploring the types of ration with trails and an educational cities in the case studies." wayfinding system. A major component of the master plan is social: Sasaki had sponsored internal regetting people in town engaged and search projects in the past But this inemolled in its civic welfare, especially tensive project-generated by the enin the worse-off sections, and build- thusiasm and interests of two young ing partnerships to fund, build, and staff members-raised questions maintain a revitalized parks system. about the models for future research projects, how they are situated in the Urban Fabric's impact on Sasaki's practice, and what opportunities such Bridgeport plan can be found in projects hold for the 250-person firm, broad strokes. Ford says. "There is a lot of interest in how we can make projects like All those involved in the Urban Fab- Urban Fabric part of our DNA, and ric project say the research project demonstrate in a tangible way how sparked conversations about the it impacts work and our brand and future of struggling industrial cit- visibility," she says. ies, and how landscape architects can design holistic systems to meet For the moment, Canter and Hutthese challenges. Canter reckons ton are engaged with other assignthat Urban Fabric "picked up on ments while keeping the momen-
184/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
tum going for Urban Fabric. They are taking the exhibition to Sasaki's San Francisco office, publishing the book, and participating in an urban design conference at North Carolina State University in March 20I2. "We are not done with Urban Fabric," Hutton says. 'We will try to keep it alive." o ERNEST BECK IS A NEWYORK-BASED FREELANCEWRITER. Project Credits
URBAN FABRIC TEAM PROJECT CURATORS ALEXIS CANTER, ASSOCIATE ASLA, AND EAMONN HUTTON, ASSOCIATE ASLA. CORE COLLABORATORS DAVID BORDEN,STUDENTASLA; BRIE HENSOLD, LAURAG. MARETT, ASLA; SAM PEASE,AND ANNASCHERLING. PROJECT GUIOANCE JANNE CORNEll; MARK DAWSON, FASLA; GINA FORD, ASLA; JASON HELLENDRUNG, ASLA; PHILIP PARSONS; ALISTAIRMCINTOSH, FASLA; ANDJAMES MINER. BRIDGEPORT PARKS MASTER PLAN TEAM JASON HELLENDRUNG, ASLA; GINA FORD, ASLA; EAMONN HUTTON, ASSOCIATEASLA; BRIE HENSOLD; JEFFSPRAGUE; STEPHEN GRAY; RICKY BLOXSOM; NEDA MOVAGHAR; BARBARA HELLER, ATHELLER ANDHELLER; BILL FINCH, MAYOR; CHARLIE CARROLL, PARKS DIRECTOR; TED GRABARZ, AFFILIATE ASLA, SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR ANDDEPUTY DIRECTOROF PUBLIC WORKS; STEVE HLADUN, PROJECTCOORDINATOR; MIKE N!DOH, DIRECTOR OF PLANNING; AND THE PARKS BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS.
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TH E BACK
I BOOKS
MY KIND OF COUNTRYSIDE: FINDING DESIGN PRINCIPLES IN THE LAND BY ROGER G. COURTENAY; CHICAGO: CENTER FOR AMERICAN PLACES AT COLUMBIA COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 2011; 192 PAGES, $35. REVI EWE D BY P ETER J ACOBS , FASLA
oger Courtenay, FASLA, a principal with AECOM, says that countryside exists "where cultural manifestations R are not so dense as to crowd out natural features." With him, we discover this countryside from the perspective of a canoe on the French Broad River near Asheville, North Carolina, footpaths through Shenandoah National Park, riding trails through the Virginia Piedmont, and on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which the author describes as "a 469-mile Mobius strip of asphalt." Courtenay's interest in the relationship between landscape setting and built form is conveyed vvith great reverence, through the wood, water, and fields of the Mid-Atlantic, the great houses of the Piedmont and Tidewater landscapes, Thomas Jefferson's layout of the University of Virginia, and even one of Frank Uoyd Wright's Usonian homes.
Courtenay treats the countryside with great respect, as he does the people and settlement patterns that animate it. His reader is considered an active participant in the process of discovering the dynamics that underpin the landscape that we experience at very precise moments in time. Courtenay tells us to "expect to smell, hear, and taste a landscape," but offers no neat formulae to link the experience of landscape and the design principles he proposes. These require an effort from each of us, opening multiple paths of individual inquiry that provide their own rewarding insights.
The introductory essay, one that warrants multiple readings, focuses on the sometimes subtle, sometimes sudden forces of change that affect the countryside Courtenay so obviously loves. "The reciprocal energy of a people engaged with the environRATHER THAN OFFER A FORMULA, COURTENAY ment'' builds on the forces of contrast, perceived beauty, and memory ENCOURAGES READERS TO EXPLORE THE DESIGN as it does on crop failures, floods, PRINCIPLES THEMSELVES. and urban sprawl. These are the forces that frame our understanding Each of r6 short essays invites the reader to reflect on a par- ofand behavior within the landscapes we inhabit, that inform ticular landscape experience. These are annotated \vith design our morals, memories, and moods. insights that give a better understanding of the places that we have chosen to shape, reshape, or simply visit. Some of these Courtenay offers us a highly personal account of his idea links between experience and design principles, such as rhythm of countryside. He invites us to share his appreciation of in the country, are relatively straightforward, while others, such particular places using images forged of dense prose and as restlessness along the coastal shoreline, require greater effort. sparse poetic line drawings that complement each other, much as the continuing balance of nature and human activity In one of the more intriguing essays, Courtenay explores the inform the central premise of the book. The very structure of nature of the Washington Mall from the roof of the Capitol the book, framed by four prose poems of the four seasons, building and from the flat lowland within the Mall itself The reflects the author's commitmen t to the design process, complex relationships of the central lawn and reflecting pool weaving a pattern of ideas well suited to the complexity the to the geography of the tidal landscape and the successive ad- countryside conveys. o dition of built forms that line the Mall are linked to the idea of indeterminacy, the "juxtaposition or commingling of two PETER JACOBS, FASLA, IS PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE opposite modes of expression...a kind of blurring, in which UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL. HE HAS EXPLORED THE MID-ATLANTIC COUNTRYSIDE WHI LE SERVING AS SENI OR AND DISTINGUISHED FELLOW OF LANDSCAPE AND things are not just indefinite but indeterminate, fixed neither GARDEN STUDIES AT DUMBARTON OAKS. in extent nor character."
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TH E BACK
I BOOKS
BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ e focus our Books column on new bookswhat's worth adding to every landscape architect's bookshelf, what will appeal to those working in certain practice areas, and what can be passed over. But what if there are gaps in your bookshelves that need to be filled with the best of the best, not necessarily the newest? A recent conversation on AS LA's Linkedln discussion group, started by Lisa Horne, ASLA, asked discussion group members what were the top three books that influenced them as landscape architects. The responses were intriguing; some are books everyone would expect, and others are more surprising. Included here are some of the most mentioned books in that discussion. o
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DESIGN WITH NATURE BY I AN L. MCHARG
THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SMALL URBAN SPACES BY WILLIAM H. WHYTE
"Design With Nature by McHarg is what got me into landscape architecture and eventually into GIS. I believe it should be required reading for anyone going into either profession. Probably wouldn't hurt engineers to read it either." - Kim McDonough A PATTERN LANGUAGE: TOWNS, BUILDINGS, CONSTRUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, SARA I SHIKAWA, AN D MURRAY SILVERSTEIN
A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC BY A LDO LEOPO LD
This "should be required reading for all landscape architecture students, and maybe a couple continuing education program hours for all pros; it can be a goosebump read with a 'natural' prose that borders on being poetry." - Timothy May, ASLA THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES BY JAN E JACOBS
THE GRANITE GARDEN: URBAN NATURE AND HUMAN DESIGN BY A NN E WHISTON SPIRN, FASLA
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"A great book illustrating how strong an influence our cities have on nature, and vice versa." - Larry Lesser THE LANDSCAPE OF MAN: SHAPING THE ENVIRONMENT FROM PREHISTORY TO THE PRESENT DAY BY GE OFFREY ALAN JELLICOE AND SUSAN JELUCOE
SIFTINGS BY JENS JEN SEN
LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: SAVING OUR CHILDREN FROM NATURE-DEFICIT DISORDER BY RICHARD LOUV
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GARDENS ARE FOR PEOPLE BY THOMAS CHU RCH
"A must!" - Mariano Corral A SENSE OF PLACE, A SENSE OF TIME BY J. B. JACKSON
GARDEN HISTORY: PHILOSOPHY AND DESIGN 2000 BC- 2000 AD BY TOM TURNER
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: A MANUAL OF LAND PLANNING AND DESIGN BY JO HN ORMSBEE SIMONDS A ND BA RRY W. STARKE, FASLA
"His dedication says it all: 'To my teachers, whose gifts to all who would accept them were the open m ind, the awakened curiosity, the discerning eye, and the compelling vision of that which is higher, wider, deeper, and greater- and worth the striving for.. .'" - Margery Morris, ASLA DESIGN ON THE LAND: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE BY NORMAN T. NEWTON
LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY BY SIMON SC HAMA
AMERICAN SPACE: THE CENTENNIAL YEARS, 1865-1876
SUBURBAN NATION: THE RISE OF SPRAWL AND THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
BY J. B. J ACKSO N
BY A NDR ES DUANY, ELIZABETH PLATERZYBERK, AND JE FF SPECK
BOLD ROMANTIC GARDENS BY JAM ES VAN SWEDE N, FASLA, AND WOLFGANG OE HME, FASLA
INVISIBLE CITIES
THE CONCISE TOWNSCAPE
BY ITALO CALVINO
BY GORDON CULLE N
THE RSVP CYCLES: CREATIVE PROCESSES IN THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
BY A LLAN B. JACOBS
BY LAWRE NCE HALPRIN
"[This book] explores how we experience, perceive, and remember places." - Hannah McAleer, ASLA THE IMAGE OF THE CITY
GARDENS MAKE ME LAUGH BY JAMES C. ROSE
THE GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF AMERICA'S MAN-MADE LANDSCAPE
GREAT STREETS
wonderful analysis of key elements that create the falbric of ow· cities." - Hannah McAleer, ASLA "A
THE POETICS OF SPACE BY GASTON BACHELARD
BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
BY KEVIN LYNCH
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZIN E NOV2011 / 191
THE BACK
I BOOKS
BOOKS OF INTEREST
THE EARLY LEADERS OF THE U.S. WERE ALSO PASSIONATE AND PROGRESSIVE GARDENERS.
CONCRETE
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FOUNDING GARDENERS: THE REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION, NATURE, AND THE SHAPING OF THE AMERICAN NATION BY AN DREA WULF; NEW YORK CITY: ALFRED A. KNOPF, 2 011; 352 PAGES, $3 0.
America's founding fathers- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison -were passionate gardeners and, arguably, protolandscape architects. Founding Gardeners explores how their plant collecting, site designs, and quest for new food crops shaped the nation's politics and culture in everything from the design ofWashington, D.C., to the Louisiana Purchase. Their progressive interests in native plants and soil conservation show remarkable foresight and anticipate the later work of John Muir, the Olmsteds, )ens jensen, and today's pursuit of sustainable ag1iculture. o
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BY MALIN NILSSON AND CAMILLA ARVIDSSON; PORTLAN D, OREGON : TIM BER PRESS, 2011; 132 PAGES, $19. 95 .
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EUROPEAN GARDENS: HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND DESIGN BY TOM TURNER; LON DON: ROUTLEDGE, 2011 ; 424 PAGES, $62 .9 5.
While European Gardens may look like a coffee table book at first glance, it reads like an introductory course on European garden design. lts author, Tom Turner, teaches at the University of Greenwich in London and edits the web site gardenvisit.com. This book expands and updates his previous work, Garden History, with two new chapters. The photos used to illustrate the book are generally of recent origin, and most of the plans are drawn in a similar way so that readers can compare gardens from 50, soo, and 5,ooo years ago without being influenced by drawing style. o
For designers who like to be handson and aren't afraid to get dirty, making your own concrete garden elements can be a fun challenge. The expected benches, stepping-stones, birdbaths, and flowerpots can be found in these pages, along with less obvious concrete boot scrapers, small ponds, and head-scratchingly decorative concrete Bundt cakes. o
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PUBLISI-IING E:VE:NT 01= TI-lE: YEAR "Smart, opinionated, comprehensive, wonderful." -Margaret Roach, awaytogarden.com Timber Press is proud to publish Michael A. Dirr's seminal work, Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs, a comprehensive visual reference that thoroughly updates Dirr's bestselling books into the most up-to-date resource on t rees and shrubs featuri ng:
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THE ULTIMATE ILLUSTRATED REFERENCE FOR WOODY PLANTS
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011 /201
visit www.tim
Or contact the makers, Columbia Cascade Company at 1-800/547-1940 or
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Catalog Requests:
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~Stabilizer THE ORIGINAL NATURAL BINDER
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DURASAFE SERIES"' The only surfacing system engineered to provide fall protection from the tops of safety barriers at no additional cost. Available Spring of20 71.
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ECfiPLAY PLAYGROUNDS FROM Safeplay
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Systems
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We've got you covered
~
CFP
C e dar Forest Products 800-552-9495 www.cedarforestproducts.com
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LANDSCAPE A RCHITECTURE MA GA ZINE NOV 20 11 /205
ARCOM The leJtNr tn tOKiiheatlons
For 40 years, MasterSpec has
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been the leading industry resource for efficiently producing complete and accurate specifications for construction projects. Today, more than 75 percent of all architec ts, engineers, and specifiers trust their construct ion documents-and their reputations- only to MasterSpec. Shouldn't you?
MasterSP-~..~ www.arcomnet.com/lam
800.424.5080 Visit us at Booth #2039 MasterSpec, published by ARCOM . is exclusively endorsed by: ARCOM now offers Free LACES opportunities l u u u' t olllt MI Itt fll lltr (OU l n t llf fiiiU. ti Ooll hllUI '
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Engineered soils ... that work.
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BARTLETT. BECAUSE CUSTOMER SERVICE, JUST LIKE TREES, SHOULD BE A BREAT H OF FRESH AIR. We're Bartlett Tree Experts and we've been exceeding expectations for over 100 years. No matter the size or scope of your customers' tree and shrub care needs, our experts bring a rare mix of local service, global resources and innovative tree care practices that makes sustainable landscapes thrive. Trees add value to properties. And Bartlett adds value to trees.
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Leatzow I nsurance
j llll!!lt ~11
To learn more visit www.leatzowinsurance.com or call 8oo-g?8·71oo Leatzow Insurance is a division of Risk Specialist Companies Insurance
Agency, Inc. (RSCIA). RSCIA, a Chart Is company, Is a premier broker of specialty property. casualty, and personal lines insurance. Chart is is the marketing name for the worldwide property-casualty and general insurance operations of Chartis Inc. For additional information,
please visit www.chartisinsurance.com. All products are written by Insurance company subsidiaries or affiliates of Chartls Inc. Coverage may not be available in all jurisdictions and is subject to actual policy language. Non-insurance products and s.ervices may be provided by independent third parties. CIRCLE 129 ON READERSERVICECARO
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DECil SUPPORTS ..fi'h Request free ~ U samples online CIRCLE 91 ON READER SERVICE CARO
B I SON CUBE
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•
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Green Roof Outfitters
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Plotipus Anchors Inc,
843.364.7653
1902 Garner Station Boulevard, E:
[email protected] Raleigh, NC 27603, USA. W: www.platipus-anchors.us
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T: 866 622 2283
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iiiih:
Custom Modular Planters and Recycling Bins www.DeepStreamDesigns.com
Lighting the world's most advanced water features. Contact us for more information on our Liquid Color.. and Liquid Light'" series wet/dry LED lighting products. 512.392.11551 www.fountainpeople.com
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___Commercial _
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HEALTH CARE GARDEN DESIGN Professional Oevdopmem Cenilicate of Merit Program
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SONANCE' LANDSCAPE SERIES
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SONANCE
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$H Western Porphyry The widest rangeoftheworld·s best paving stone
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TILE • WALL STONE •
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Steel Structures & Trellises
Petersen Mfg. Co., Inc Concrete and M etalsite Furnishings
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ar·ch11cological siles • digs es panels • rock work custom pla)gi'Ound equipment
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High Style, Low Maint enance Finishes Exciting nC\\ finishes are available for Danvcr's stainless cabinetry. As the market for outdoor kitchens expands, Landscape Architects are looking for way> to create that uni<1ue "one·ol~a kind" look. The designer colors and extremely realistic wood options are powder coated onto the stainles. for durabilit) and style and require no maintenance. Protect-A-Coat, a dear coat option i~ available for those who want the stainless look with no maintenance. Protect·A-Coat also imparts excellent pro~ctioo again>t Chlorine (in high salt air coastal areas or if the lh·ing center is next to a pool) and against mtD'iatic acicl which is used to dean patio pavers. QlJTDCX)R KITCHENS
www.danver.com • 888-441-0537
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~~~'
Each four square foot unit is 4" thick & can provide a ,...,,......~ 75% grass to concrete ratio, ensuring a green turf that can support significant vehicular loads and is an ideal erosion control solution.
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Signs ..~ ~Carved in Stone Permanent and Maintenance Free
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Atomizing Systems Inc
I ns rb ry.
201.447.1222
Visit us at booth # 1521 ASLA EXPO San Diego
Oct 31 ·Nov 1 Let us transform your original ideas for street clocks towers benches bollards fountains &more
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PROTECH
application. Proud to be part of the AG-KOTE'"
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Editor: Bradford McKee American Society of Landscape Architects G36EyeSt W Washington D.C. 20001-3736
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No. of Issues Published r\Jmually: 12 1-\Jmual Subscription Price: $59.00 Complete Maili ng Address of Known Office of Publication: American Society of L.-·mdscape Architects (ASLA) 636 Eye Street NW Washington, DC 20001 -37:~6 Contact: Shelly Neill Phone: 202-216-2343
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BY
Publication Name: Landscape Architecture tvfagazine
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Publication of statement of ownership required. Will be printed in the NO\·cmbcr 20 11 issue of rhis publication.
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THEBACK /DISPLAY ADVERTISER INDEX ADVERTISER
(o\ HOW TO USE THE
READER SERVICE CARD To obta in in formation about ou r advertisers ' produ cts/services: Circle a rea de r's service num be r on the pos tage-pa id reader's service card !see list a t rig ht for reader's service nu m bers!. or go to
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220 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTU RE MAGAZINE NOV 2011
Academy of Art University Acker·Stone Industries Inc.
WEBSITE academyart.edu ackerstone.com
American Hydrotech, Inc. Ameristar Fence Products Anchor Wall Systems Andrews Lefevre Studios Angelus Block Co., Inc. Aqua Control Water Features ARCAT, Inc. Archiped Classics ARCOM I MASTERSPEC Specifications Armacell LLC Atomizing Systems, Inc. Aurora light Inc. Bartlett Tree Expert Company
hydrotechusa.com ameristarfence.com anchorwall.com tefevrestudios.com angetusbtock.com aquacontrol.com arcat.com archiped.com
Baseline, Inc.
baselinesystems.com
Belden Brick Co. Belgard Hardscapes B-K Lighting. Inc. Bluebeam Software Bonjardim BRP by Bison, LLC California Landscape Contractors Assocoation (CLCAI California Products Corporation Canterbury International Cedar Forest Products Co. Center for Environmental Innovation and Leadership Charles Mayer Photography Chicago Botanic Garden Classic Recreation Systems. Inc. Columbia Cascade Company Congresswortd Conferences. Inc. Country Casual Cre8Play Cycle Safe Inc. Oanver Deep Fork Tree Farm DeepStream Designs Defore he Oeigaard Nurseries, Inc. OOGIPOT OuMor, lnc. DuPont Garden Products Dynamo Playgrounds ErcoGmbH Eurocobbte Evergreen Nursery Exploration Playgrounds by Research Casting lntt. Fire Rock Products. LLC Firestone Specialty Products FMI Products. LLC Forms•Surfaces Fountain Peopte,lnc. Gale Pacific, Inc. Garden Artisans Glenn Green Galteries Greenfields Outdoor Fitness GreenGrid · Weston Solutions GreenRock Greenscreen GRO Green Roof Outfitters, LLC Haddonslone (USA) Ltd. Hanover Architectural Products, Inc. Hendrick Mfg. Hunter Industries Incorporated Illusions Vinyl Fence International Society of Arboriculture Invisible Structures. Inc. IRG Plotters & Printers Iron Age Designs lronsmilh. lnc. Jakob Inc. James Russett Sculpture JH Baxter I TimberWood Products John Wiley & Sons Just Terraces Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet Kasco Marine, Inc. Kebony Products Kenneth Lynch & Sons Keystone Retaining Walt System Keystone Ridge Designs. Inc. Ktingstone Paths. LLC Kornegay Design Landscape Architect Bus~ness Landscape Archi tecture Foundation Landscape Forms Landscape Structures. Inc. Leatzow Insurance Lessler"s Draperies & Design, Inc. Little Tikes Commercial Play Systems Longshadow Classic Garden Ornaments, Ltd. Lumascape USA Inc. Mag lin Site Furniture Inc. Meteor Solar LED Lighting. ILOS Corporation
beldenbrick.com belgard.biz bktighting.com blue-beam. com
masterspec.com armacell.com
coldfog.com
auroralight.com barttett.com
bonjardi m ~com
brpbybison.com clca.org calprocorp.com canterburyintlcom cedarforestproducts.com ceileadersip.org cmayerphoto.com chicagobolanic.org dassicrecreation.com timberform.com congresswortd .ca countrycasual.com cre8play.com cyclesafe.com danver:com dftrees.corm deepstreamdesigns.com Deforche.be deigaardnursery.com dogipoLcom dumor.com gardenproducts.dupont.com dynamoplaygrounds.com erco.com eurocobbte.com evergreennursery.com exploratiomplaygrounds.com firerock.us firestonesp.com fmiproducts.com forms·surfaces.com fountainpeopte.com gatepacific.com gardenarttsans.com glenngreengalteries.com GreenfietdsFitness.com greengridroofs.com greenrock.us.com greenscreoen.com greenroofoutfitters.com haddonstone.com hanoverpavers.com perfscr~n .com
hunl erindustries.com illusionsfence.com
RSN 481 496 3
PAGE# 58.224 49 101.228
7
98,224
313 451
205 205 22 213 24 60 206 181 216 19 207 208
347 305 119 200 424 213 14 393 283 255 369 202 291 276 488 91 206 39 41 44 495 372 220
49 52 395 55 162 266 294 302 437 348 365 267 63 411 315 449 71 329 105 457 81 292 325
80 130 364 326 491
498 269
90 257 93 95 458 100 379
isa ~arbor.com
486
invisiblestn.tclures.com irg.com ironagegrates.com ironsmith.biz jakobstainlesssteel.com russellscutpture.com woodlightpotes.com wiley. com justterraces.com kalamazoogourmel.com kascomarine.com kebony.com ktynchandsons.com keystonewalls.com keystoneri dgedesigns.com klingstonepaths.com komegaydesign.com northstarpubs.com lafoundalion.org landscape forms.com playlsi.com tealzow.com tesslers.com tittletikescommercial.com tongshadow.com tumascape.com maglin.com meteor·lighting.com
108 341
54 109 205
330 436 306 440 319 433 101 444 115 116 307 118 48 382 126 127 129 46 133 n/a 263 136 192
84 61 , 230 197 83, 233 67 194 168 189 216 205 120 210 211 209, 233 179, 202, 224 30 8-9. 225 194 210 215 195, 232 210 88 206 211 23, 225 2-3, 232 51 , 57 74 113.230 171 214 27 32 193 6-7.21.225 87,210, 233 211
2t4 206 172 t99 197 45. 228 209 14,226 181 183 16 33 59 117 86 189 65 189 185 195,229 72 75 73,227 214 97 202 187 207, 234 109 36, 225 124 122 4-5. 29, 226(2) 43 208 62
38 C2· 1,226 209, 229 39
n
THEBACK /DISPLAY ADVERTISER INDEX ADVERTISER Metro Green Visions, Inc. Midwest Products Group
WEBSITE melrogreenvisions.com
Miracte Recreation Equipment
mirade-recreation.com moonvisionslighting.com
Moon Visions Lighting MassAcres Most Dependable Fountains
Mpengo Ltd. Mycorrhizal Applie<~llons lnc . National Building Museum Nicolock Ohio Gratings Inc.
Oxford Garden Pavestone Company Peacock Pavers Petersen Concrete Leisure Products Philips Had co Pin Foundations Inc. Pine Hall Brick Co., lnc. Plant Specialists, Inc. Planters Unlimited by Hooks & Lattice Platipus Anchors Ltd. Play Mart Playgrounds Playworld Systems, Inc. PoUgon. A Product of PorterCorp
Protech Powder, Inc. Public Restroom Company, The R. H. Peter5an Company Rasmussen Gas l ogs & Grills Read Custom Soils Robinson Iron Corporation Roman Fountains
Rosetta Hardscapes Royal Botania RUD-Erlau Safeplay Systems Selux Corporation Sitecraft
SofSURFACES. Inc. Soil Retention Products Sananee, A Division of Dana Innovations
frenosystems.com
mossacres.com mostdependabte.com mpengo.com
mycorrhizae.com nbm.org
nicolock.com ohiogratings.com
oxfordgarden.com pavestone.com
peacockpavers.com petersenmfg.oom hadco.com pinfoundations.com americaspremierpaver.com plantspecialists.com
hooksandlatlice.com platipus-anchors.com
playmart.com playworldsystems.com poUgon.com protechpowder:com publicrestroomcompany.com
mpeter50n.com/home.php rasmussen.biz readcustomsoits.com robinsoniron.com romanfountains.com discO\Ierrosetta.com royalbotania.com erlauUSA.com
safeplaysystems.com selux.com sitecraft.com
sofsurfaces.com soilretention.com sonance.com
Southwest Greens SpiderTie Sport Rock lntt. dba Park Pets & Boulders Spring City ElectriC
southwestgreens.com
Stabilizer Solutions, Inc.
stabilizersolutions.com stepstone.com
Stepstone, Inc. Sternberg Lighting Stone Forest Stonehenge Signs, Inc. StormChambers SlressCrete Group I King Luminaire, The Sunbrella I Glen Raven, lnc. Sure-Loc Aluminum Edging Synergy Pacific Engineered Timber Ltd. TAKTL. LLC Tensile Shade Products, LLC The Blue Book Building & Construction Network The Cultural Landscape Foundation Thomas Steele Tile of Spain Timber Press. Inc.
TimberTech Tapas Magazine
Tournesol Siteworks/Planter Technology U.S. Green Building Council Unilock, Ltd . United Construction Products Inc./Bison Decking
University of Virginia, School of Architecture UPC Parks UPS Valders Stone & Marble Vessel U.S.A. Inc. Victor Stanley, Inc. Virginia Horticultural Foundation, The Vortex Aquatics Structures International
Water Odyssey Wausau Tile Western Porphyry Whitacre ~ Greer
Wonderworx LLC
spidertie.com sportrockintl.com
springcity.com sternberglighting.com stonefores.t.com stonehengesigns.com
hydrologicsolutions.com stresscrete.com sunbrella.com
surelocedging.com synergypacific.com
takll-llc.com tensileshadeproducts.com lhebluebook.com tclf.org thomas·steele.com spaintile.info timberpress.com
timbertech.com callwey.de
RSI 453 462 140
PAGE II 18 119 91
5
200
21 143 9 454 50 374 12 151 188 156 158 407 331 159 321 245 165 435 164 166 298 208 280 228 373 210 242 484 73 144 51 186 287 394 201 499 383 69 463 193 195 197 324 259 497 299 246 33 204 381 477 368 366
211 213 196 216 121 215 198 212 231 , C4 26 214 69 183 195. 231 194 21JO 21J9 185 79, 230 179, 232 216 125
482 235 386
1.64
tournesolsiteworks.com
281 171 161
usgbc.org
388
unilock.corn/asla
268 91 L.01 390 65 194 343
BisonOeckSupports.com arch.virginia.edu upcparks.com ups.com
valdersstone.com architecturalpottery.com victorstanley.com
vahorLorg vortex-intlcom waterodyssey.com wausautile.com westernporphyry.com wgpaver.com wonderworx.net
222 225 226 231 310 494
64 98
89 17 21)7 55 35, 232, 233 71 , 231 13 93 21J4 99 31 , 40 203 126 212 47 76 105 100 203 204 186 201 215 193 107 111, 226 212,234 196 37 186 53 174 187 198 201 199 123 12.234 108 95 208,234 213 63 15 25 81 227.236. C3 212 115 104 85 213 96,234 215
LANDSCAPE A RCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011 / 221
THE BACK
I BUYER'S GUIDE
USE THIS INDEX TO FIND THE RIGHT PRODUCT FOR THE JOB AT HAND.
FOR FREE PRODUCT INFORMATION, GO TO WWW.ASLA.ORG/FREEINFO.
FURNITURE/SITE AMENIDES: COMMERCIAL
ASSOCIATION/FOUNDATION CaUfomia Landscape Contractors Association 916.830.2780
168
GREEN ROOFS/LIVING WALLS
Architectural Pottery
714.895.3359
224
American Hydrotech, Inc.
800.877.6125
BRP by Bison, LLC
888.438.5311
194
GreenGrid • Weston Solutions
847.918.4011
199
120
Canterbury International
513.241.4010
216
Green screen
800.450.3494
45, 228
847.835.6824
211
Columbia Cascade Company
800.547.1940 179.202.224
GRO Green Roof Outfitters. LLC
843.364.7653
209
Cultural Landscape Foundation. The
202.483.0553
174
Country Casual
800.284.832S
8·9. 225
Metro Green Visions, Inc.
631.917.0200
18
International Society of Arboriculture
217.355.9411
59
Cycle Safe Inc.
888.950.653 1
210
RooMe. A 0Msion of Skyland USA
610.268.0017
227
Teich Garden Systems
914.533.2484
228
Center for Environmentallnnovahon and Leadership
Chicago Botanic Garden
703.706.8216
landscape Architecture Foundation
202.331.7070
122
Doty & Sons Concrete Products
800.233.3907
225
National Building Museum
202.272.2448
121
DuMor, Inc.
800.598.4018
23.225
U.S. Green Building Council
202.828.7422
108
Flag Company, The
770.974.0547
227.234
Forms+Surlace-s
800.451.0410 6-7, 21. 225
IRRIGATION
BUSINESS SERVICES Charles Mayer Photography
978.369.9639
210
IRG Plotters & Printers
310.877.3331
86
Leatzow Insurance
312.930.5556
208
UPS
404.828.6231
101, 228
Gale Pacific, Inc.
407.772.7900
211
Garden Artisans
410.672.0082
214
Baseline, Inc.
208.323. 1634
208
Dig Irrigation Products
800.322.9146
228
Val\llltte Systems
818.887.1866
233
Glenn Green Galleries
505.820.0008
206
UGHTING
Greenform
310.663.3995
225
Aurora light Inc.
877.942.1179
19
Haddon stone IUSAI ltd.
856.931.7011
14.226
B-K Lighting, Inc.
559.438.5800
197
229
15 Iron Age Designs
206.276.0925
189
Bartlett Tree El
877.227.8538
207
lronsmith,lnc.
800.338.4766
65
Pin Foundations Inc.
253.858.8809
183
James Russell Sculpture
310.326.0785
185
Just Terraces
212.570.4830
75
Kenneth lynch & Sons
203.264.2831
202
Keystone Ridge Designs, Inc.
724.284.1 213
207.234
Kornegay Design
602.252.6323
36. 225
landscape Forms
800.430.62054·5, 29.226[21
Meteor Solar LED Lighting, ILOS Corporation 213.255.2060
77
lesster's Draperies & Design. Inc.
858.277.5936
62
Moon Visions Lighting
214.393.7407
200
Long shadow Classic Garden Ornaments, Ltd. 618.893.4831
C2· 1, 226
Philips Had co
800.233.7196
69
Selux Corporation
800.735.8927
99
Spring City Electrical Mfg. Co.
610.948.4000
100
CONSTRUCTION/MAINTENANCE
ORAINAGE AND EROSION
Jonite Private Limited
656.383.3788
224
Ohio Gratings Inc.
330.479.4295
198
Stabilizer Solutions. Inc.
800.336.2468
203
EDUCATION Academy of Art Unillllrsity
415.618.6576
58.224
Congresswortd Conferences, Inc.
604.685.0450
30
University of Virginia, School of Architecture
434.924.1428
213
FENCES/GATES/WALLS Ameristar Fence Products
800.321.8724
98.224
Anchor Wall Systems
952.933.8855
205
Hendrick Mfg.
800.225.7373
183
Illusions Vinyl Fence
800.339.3362
33
Invisible Structures, Inc.
800.233.1510
117
Jakob Inc.
561.404.4098
189
Keystone Retaining Wall System
800.891.9791
187
Privacylink Manufacturing
800.574.1076
224
642.168.5571
228. 229
JH Baxter /TimberWood Products
360.573.6321
195, 229
Landscape Forms
800.430.6205 4-5. 29,226[21
Lumascape USA Inc.
650.595 5862
209.229
Millstones
404.310.6490
227
Sternberg Lighting
847.588.3400
186
Old Town Fiberglass
714.633.3732
227
StressCrete Group I King Luminaire. The
800.268.7809
107
Oxford Garden
502.719.1212
212
Petersen Concrete Leisure Products
800.832.7383
214
Planters UnUmited by Hooks & Lattice
800.896.0978
200
Robinson Iron Corvoration
256.329.8486
55
RUD·Erlau
319.294.0001
93
Sitecraft
800.221 .1448
31 , 40
Stonehenge Signs. Inc.
916.201.3570
215
37
Oanver
203.269.2300
215
520.903.9005
186
Fire Rock Products. LLC
205.639.5000
27
Thomas Steele
800.448.7931
187
UPCParks
530.6115.2664
111, 226
81
WMBER/OECKING/EOGING Kebony Products
540.904.6781
97
Sure-Loc Aluminum Edging
BOO. 787.3562
212.234
Synergy Pacific Engineered Timber Ltd.
877.546.6808
196
Timber Tech
937.655.5237
199
United Construction Products Inc./
303.892.0400
208,234
Bison Decking MEOlA Blue Book Building & Construction Network, The
800.431.2584
53
John Wiley & Sons
201 .748.6000
72
Vessel U.S.A. Inc.
858.385.1960
landscape Architect Business
866.444.42 16
124
301.855.8300 227.236. C3
Timber Press. Inc.
503.205.02 12
201
Topos Magazine
490.894.3600.S
123
R. H. Peterson Company
626.369.5085
89
Victor Stanley, Inc.
Rasmussen Gas Logs & Grills
562.696.8718
17
Wausau Tile
800.388.8728
85
Royal Botania
212.812.9852
13
Wonderworx LLC
970.925.3883
215
222 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTU RE MAGAZINE NOV2011
Hunza Lighting
39
Tensile Shade Products. LLC
193
16
800.716.5506
FURNITURE/RESIDENTIAL
73.227
7611.304.7216
Magtin Site Furniture Inc.
412.816.1600
312.423.8708
74
Hunter Industries Incorporated
226
336.227.6211
866.328.4537
492.351 .5511.00
800.448.7931
TAKTL. LLC
Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet
626.443.2473
Madrax
Sunbrella I Glen Raven, Inc.
FMI Products. LLC
C. W. Cole and Co. Inc. ErcoGmbH
THE BACK
I BUYER'S GUIDE
PARKS AND RECREATION
USE THIS INDEX TO FIND THE RIGHT PRODUCT FOR THE JOB AT HAND.
FOR FRE E PRODUCT INFORMATIO N, GO TO WWW.ASLA.ORG/FREEINFO.
Wausau THe
800.388.8728
Columbia Cascade Company
800.547.1 940 179, 204,224
Wes tern Porphyry
505.603.3737
213
C~8Piay
612.670.8195
Whitacre-Greer
330.823.1610
96,234
195
DOGIPOT
800.364.7681
213
Dynamo Playgrounds
800.790.0034
51 .57
Exploration Playgrounds
613.394.7007
216
by Research Casting lntl. Greenfields Outdoor Fitness
888.315.9037
172
Landscape Structures, Inc.
800.328.0035
43
little Tokes Commercial Play Systems
704.949.1631)
38 91
85
PLANTERS/ SCULPTURES/ GARDEN ACCESSORIES Archiped Classics
214.748.7437
60
OeepStream Designs
305.857.0466
210
Eye of the Day
805.566.0778
231
Seibert & Rice
973.467.8266
231
Tournesol Sitewor1<s/Planter Technology
800.542.2282
12, 234
Trellis & Trugs
847.784.6910
231
Deep Fork Tree Farm
405.233.2000
195, 232
Miracle Recreation Equipment
888.458.2752
Play Mart Playgrounds
800.437.5297
185
Playworld Systems, Inc.
800.233.8404
79, 230
Protech Powder, Inc.
514.750.0200
218
Oeigaard Nurseries. Inc.
805.487.0696
206
Safeplay Systems
770.591.7000
206
DuPont Garden Products
248.827.0815
2·3. 232
Sport Rock lntl. dba Pari< Pets & Boulders
805.481.5686
105
Evergreen Nursery
858.720.4 728
171
Zeager Brothers, Inc.
800.346.8524
228
J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co.
800.825.8202
232
Moss Acres
866.438.6677
211
PAVING/ SURFACING/ MASONRY STONE/ METALS Acker-Stone Industries Inc. Andrews Lefevre Studios Angelus Block Co., Inc.
800.258.2353 212.667.1445 951.328.9115
Anmacell, LLC
919.593.4666
Belden Brick Co.
330.493.8866
Belgard Hardscapes
770.804.3363
California Products Corporation
978.623.9980
49 207 22 181
61 , 230 189
Mycorrhizal Applications Inc.
541.476.3985
216
Partac Peat Corporation
800.247.2326
232
Plant Specialists. Inc.
718.392.9404
194
Platipus Anchors ltd.
919.662.5516
209
Read Custom Soils
78 1.821.1111
207
Virginia Horticultural Foundation, The
757.366.0734
212
Vitamin Institute
800.441.8482
230
Deep Root Partners, LP.
800.458.7668
230
877.877.5012
113, 230
Cedar Forest Products Co.
815.946.3994
205
Fibar System I Amdex
800.342.2721
231
Classic Recreation Systems. Inc.
928.775.3307
209, 233 233
GreenRock
805.522.1546
197
Dalton Pavilions, Inc.
800.532.5866
800.426.4242
181
Deforche
251.404.519{)
88
Ktingstone Paths, LLC
773.576.2598
109
Icon Shelter Systems Inc.
800.748.0985
230
Midwest Products Group
573.635.7206
119
Poligon, A Product of PorterCorp
616.399.1963
179,232
Nicolock
484.686.0845
217
Public Restroom Company, The
888.888.2060
125
Oly-Ola Edgings. Inc.
847.853.9400
231
Paveslone Company
817.481.5802
231 .C4
Peacock Pavers
251 .368.2072
26
ARCAT,Inc.
203.929.9444
24
ARC OM I MASTERSPEC Specifications
801.521.9162
206
Bluebeam Software
626.296.2140
83, 233
195, 231
Rosetta Hardscapes
231.547.6595
71 , 231
SofSURFACES, Inc.
800.263.2363
205
Soil Retention Products
760.966.6090
Southwest Greens
877.260.7888
47
Stepstone, Inc.
310.327.7474
206
Stone Forest
505.986.8883
203
Tile of Spain
305.446.4387
200
Tri-State Stone Co. forCarderock
301.365.2100
229
Unilock, ltd.
416.646.5255
95
Valders Stone & Marble
920.775.4151
25
126
214 213
Most Dependable Fountains
800.552.6331
Roman J::ountains
800.794.1801 35. 232.233
SpiderTie
973.694.3262
76
StormChambers
703.492.0686
193
Valvette Systems
818.887.1 866
233
Vortex Aquatics Structures International
514.694.3868
115
Water Odyssey
512.392.1155
104
STRUCTURES
Hanover Architectural Products. Inc.
336.721 .7500
715.241.8227
PLANTS/ SOILS/ PLANTING MATERIALS
Eurocobble
Pine Halt Brick Co.. Inc.
Kasco Marine. lnc.
TECHNOLOGY
tvlpengo ltd.
416.840.3064
196
Sonance, A Division of Dana Innovations
949.226.5155
212
Aqua Control Water Features
815.664.4900
213
Atomizing Systems. Inc.
888.265.3364
216
WATER MANAGEMENT AND AMENITIES
Bonjardim
831.476.3079
67
Firestone Specialty Products
317.575.7288
32
Fountain People. Inc.
512.392.1155 87, 210, 233
lrrometer Company, Inc.
951 .689.1701
233
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 20 11 / 223
~ www.timberform.com
714.895.3359 www.archpot.com
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Columbia Cascade Company 800/547-1940 asla@t im berform.co m CIRCLE 52 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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FORMS+SURFACES 800.451.0410 I www.foons-surtaces.com
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Select
Poe Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Designs
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Select Designed by Brian Kane
800.430.6205
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When it comes to designing outdoor spaces that are as functional as they are beautiful, shade is essential. If trees and foliage aren't enough, it's time to consider shade structures - awnings, umbrellas, pergolas - even the whimsical placement of fabric panels. Shade structures not only ma ke patios, decks and outdoor rooms cool and comfortable, they also add splashes of color and innovative design aesthetics. With the industry's most expansive and most creative offerings, the Sunbrella® brand of performance fabrics can truly complete the scene. To learn more, visit www.sunbrella.com/asla.
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226/ LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 20 11
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Go green with a touch of color.
MILLSTONES Over 120 g enuine millstones collected from every small town in the South you never heard of. Great focal points for land scaping, millstones are symbols o f the harvest and hospitality. The online portfolio shows dozens o f landscaping examples with a full online catalog complete with individual photos, d imensions, history. We ship nationwid e
Insizes upto sixfeet and beyond, our durable planters and containers make an impact without the weight. Visit us online to see how you can transform any landscape or rooftop with our amazing selection of styles, colors and textures.
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rooflite· Certified Green Roof Media Selecting the right growing med ia is crucia l for the success of any g reen roof system . Visit rooflitesoil.com/ ASLA 1 to view our project p ho to gallery a nd to see w hy rooflite® is the Specifier's choice for green roof media .
Consistency, Quality and Experience Visit us at booth #64 2N at Greenbuild a nd Booth# 1 122 d uring the ASIA conference.
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LANDSCAPE ARC HITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011 /227
ExcaL..
Not just abrand nama. adufinitionl
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To learn more, call 800.877.6125 or www.hydrotechusa.com.
800.877.6 125 · - - - · www.hydroteci1Usa.com
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t...•1
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www.digcorp.com 800-322-9 146
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tl Keeps Fall Protection
Safely in Place. tl Lowers Maintenance Costs. tl Increases Fall Protection. tl Maintain a Level Surface.
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JH Baxter/ TimberWood Wood L1ght Poles & Bollards
Superior Performance for ove r 40 Years Grown by Nature, Engineered for Strength, Built for Durability Environmentally preferred · Green" FSC Certified lumber available which may qua lify for LEED Points
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Visit us at ALSA Expo, San Diego, Booth 918
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Meet Green.
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LANDSCAPE A RCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011 / 229
Prevent Hardscape Da mage w ith Tree Root G uides
CREATE UNFORGEITABLE OUTDOOR SPACES Call Belgard Hardscapes for an onsite appointm.ent
I-877-BELGARD or go to www.belgard.biz to order a catalog
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Durable, patented mechanical barriers guide roots down and away from hardscapes. Available in a variety of sizes for linear, surround and root pruning applications.
DeepRoot.mfo~deeproot.com '
www.deep root.com {800 458 7668
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•Has your faith in "Boiler-plate 101" ignored
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SEIBERT & RICE Fine Italian Trrm Cotta
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EYE OF J'HE DAY
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ph 847.784.6910
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w
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Our LED lig hts are s o b r ig h t
Every order includes a pair of (very cheap) s unglasses !
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Supports paving materials
for level ded<s on rooftops WOOD T I LES
lpe & Massaranduba FSC® Certified (FSC· C0134S4)
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THE BACK
I FORWARD
RESEARCH PRIORITIES BY KU RT 0. CULBERTSON, FASLA
A
s a practitioner, I am often approached by graduate students in search of thesis topics that will be of value to landscape architecture practice. I have found that, more often than not, their desire is to produce research that will have utility and value to the profession rather than simply meeting degree requirements. But the role of research in landscape architecture has always been weak relative to that of other professions such as medicine or engineering. Though practitioners investigate and gather information in their project work, most of them are not trained researchers. Education in research methods is seldom incorporated into undergraduate curricula. Many firm principals recognize the gro\vi.ng importance of research, especially given the move toward evidence-based design. Evidence-based design, now common in fields such as health care, is a design approach that emphasizes the importance of using credible data to influence the design process. But practitioners may balk at the idea of adding work in the midst of their constant need to get projects out on time and on budget. Even so, a well-grounded foundation of research is needed to ensure that evidence-based design does not fall into the realm of pseudoscience.
Evidence-based design offers a great opportunity for the profession -the chance to build a dynamic relationship between academia and practice by establishing a research agenda for landscape architecture at a national level. A national research agenda would not restrict or bias the research efforts of the academy. Rather, it would aggregate and give structure to the many issues of research important to the profession and identify a context for investigation. Although there is clearly a place for research within professional practice, it is the academy that must provide leadership. Some landscape architecture degree programs are emphasizing evidence-based design, and others have active research programs. But the profession needs a way to raise the visibility of these research efforts. Ideally, an organization such as the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CEIA), perhaps in conjunction with the landscape Architecture Foundation Performance Series, would conduct a periodic survey of the profession to identify topics of research interest and schools where they are a focus. CEIA has historically played an important role in fostering a research community, and ASIA's Professional Practice Networks have circulated and promoted research that is closely linked with practice. The new National Academy of Environ-
mental Design, a consortium of national design organizations including ASIA, will further advance research within the design professions. A national research agenda could suggest areas ripe for theses and dissertations to help stimulate graduate-level research. It might propose projects of immediate relevance, but it should also include inquiries into topics that may apply more speculatively to the profession-the kind of exploration critical to bringing new ideas to the surface. Potential solutions identified by the academy can be tested by practice. In turn, new areas of interest to the academy will emerge from practice as well. Providing a framework for the collaboration of academia and practice offers the potential for generating funding sources for academic research. Sophisticated clients are willing to pay for research that will help solve the challenges they face ifthey have confidence in the research and can see a reasonable return on their investment from the results. Some enlightened practitioners, who face common challenges across multiple projects, may also contribute to research that advances their practice areas. There are two areas of concern, however. The first is that some academicians are suspicious of plivately funded research and its whiff of potential bias. Rather than turn away private funding, we need dear standards to ensure objectivity. The second concern is tlh.at some academic programs are eliminating the requirement of a thesis for the graduate degree, substituting instead a final project that, in many cases, is not a framework for rigorous research. Graduate students are often poorly prepared to conduct thesis research because of a lack of training at an undergraduate level. Design approaches without evidence are based on theory alone. Our obligation to maintain the health, safety, and wellbeing of society demands m ore. Evidence-based design suggests a need for research in multiple areas, such as sociology, community planning, and economics, as well as traditional design issues. Our efforts must be built upon the collaborative efforts of private practice and the academy guided by a national research agenda that gives focus to our work. o KURT D. CULBERTSON, FASLA, IS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DESIGN WORKSHOP.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2011 /235
For an in-depth look at site furnishings and the qualities to look for before specification, schedule a Victor Stanley lunch & learn at your office. 1.800.368.2573 (USA & Canada)
Visit us at Booth 2017
I
I Tel: 301.855.8300 I Maryland, USA I www.victorstanley.com I Ca talog & DVD requests, LEED®info, CAD specs & Images
VICTOR STANLEY,
Oct 30- Nov 2
ASLA Annual Meeting & Expo
I
San Diego, CA
INC~
-Manufacturers of Quality Site Furnishings since 1962CI RCLE 222 ON READER SERVICE CARD
