Instead of offering yet another brochure for tourists, the site is designed to be a guide to both landscapes and design-thinking. The goal of the project is to educate the milion of visitors who come to D.C. about how landscape architects, designers of public spaces, critically evaluate the design of sites. Landscape architects will discuss the site plans, design details, interesting historic features, and sustainable design elements. Landscapes featured will include great works of landscape architects (the National Mall, Dumbarton Oaks), ecological landscapes, historic landscapes, and even post-industrial urban landscapes. Local D.C. residents and landscape architects and other design professionals are also target audiences for the site.

Responsibilities:

The summer intern will be expected to work full-time on this project from June through August.

The intern will research and write an introductory paragraph on the site’s history, using historical records and available books and Web sites; locate photographs, secure image credits, and add directional information for each site; coordinate outreach materials to ASLA members and aid in social media promotion; and directly interact with a number of leading landscape architects to gather their feedback on given sites and edit the text for publication.

Interns will also have the opportunity to attend educational and networking events at the National Building Museum, Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks, and other museums and think tanks in Washington, D.C. and write articles for ASLA publications including The Dirt blog and LAND newsletter.

Required Skills:

• Current enrollment in a Master’s or PhD program in landscape architecture.
• Excellent writing skills. The intern must be able to write clearly for a general audience.
• Proven research skills and ability to quickly evaluate the quality and relevance of many different types of Web resources.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to interact graciously with busy designers.
• Working knowledge of Photoshop, social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn), and Microsoft Office suite.

How to Apply:

Please e-mail resume, cover letter, and two writing samples by March 1 to Alice Klages, HR manager (aklages@asla.org). Phone interviews with finalists will be conducted by mid-March, with a decision made by the beginning of April. The internship is paid, with a total stipend of $3,500 for the summer. ASLA can also work with the intern to ensure they receive academic credit.

Already, the new campus has three of the 50 LEED Platinum buildings found in California, including its first super-sustainable warehouse. Beyond the buildings, though, the campus offers green roofs, which were designed to “reduce the urban heat island effect, help channel and filter storm water, and reduce the building’s air conditioning requirements;” water reclamation and filtration systems, and new employee green spaces carved out of a reclaimed substation. 

The green roofs were installed across three buildings in the BWP campus. According to the utility, “the timing was perfect as our aging roof needed to be replaced.” Adding green roofs also saved the company, which is promoting energy conservation as a key cost savings measure, a bit of money themselves, some $14,000 annually. 

AHBE Landscape Architects designed a number of filtration and stormwater capture systems that compliment each other. Green streets with permeable pavers and ”infiltration bump outs” along three city streets filter runoff before it enters the campus’ stormwater system, where it’s then captured by the built planters and trees set within silva cells, which enable the trees to grow taller. Roof runoff is filtered down to the landscape, where it’s used up by the greenery. “By California law, all projects are required to mitigate at least the first ¾ inches of rainfall. Thanks to the innovative technologies that AHBE has integrated into the design, the BWP EcoCampus already mitigates the first inch.” The end goal is zero runoff on site.

A substation structure was left in place, providing a repurposed outdoor meeting room. “The skeletal remains of the substation will soon be covered in living vines, creating a poignant juxtaposition of industry and environment.”

Calvin Abe, FASLA, President, of AHBE, made the case for transforming the utility’s industrial landscape into a productive one: “Landscape has a key role to play in the regeneration of our cities. Beyond the aesthetics, it can proactively counteract many of the problems that we face in urban environments.”

But their job was made a lot easier because their client’s vision is a bold one. Ron Davis, BWP General Manager, said: “BWP chose to do this to show that sustainability is not just about a single action or decision; it’s about the ripple effect that consistent, sustainable decisions can make. BWP’s EcoCampus is literally powered by innovation. We want this to cause a ripple.”

Watch a video about the BWP’s new campus.

Image credits: BWP

I don’t mean to say that dear old Olmsted, our cherished hero, our symbolic leader, has been acting like an overbearing parent. Our problem with Frederick Sr. is something that we as landscape architects keep bringing on ourselves by clinging to him too stubbornly. We constantly use his image and throw around his famous name and perpetuate the notion to people who don’t know better that the name Olmsted is somehow synonymous with our profession. This is not helping our cause.

Nowadays, we need to promote ourselves as innovators who look ahead, who are capable of solving complex contemporary problems. By linking our image so closely to the archaic legacy of a man best known for creating bucolic 19th-century landscapes, we look rather irrelevant in that regard.

I recently skimmed through the past seven years of Landscape Architecture Magazine—from January 2005 to December 2011—curious to see how many issues made reference to Olmsted. Out of those 84 issues, he was discussed by name in 71 of them. And of the 13 issues that didn’t mention him directly, seven talked about Central Park in New York City, and two others mentioned the Olmsted Brothers firm. That is 80 out of 84—or 95 percent—of the most recent issues of our leading professional publication talking about Olmsted, his most famous work, or the second generation of his firm. That’s a lot of Olmsted.

Several of those references are admittedly in articles I have written for LAM, which makes me not a hypocrite but rather qualifies me all the more to raise the issue. I know firsthand how easy it is to lean on the crutch provided by a good Olmsted reference. If he’s in it, it’s got to be worth reading, right?

Our preoccupation with Olmsted stems from a chronic, debilitating inferiority complex that plagues our profession. We lament that laypeople confuse us with landscape designers and horticulturists, and we envy the greater visibility that architects enjoy. All of this contributes to a feeling of inadequacy. So given that we don’t have anyone else with Olmsted’s kind of public brand identity to throw out there the way architects name-drop Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Philip Johnson, and others, we make every effort to keep Olmsted in the conversation. The fear seems to be that if people stop talking about him, they stop talking about landscape architecture. I hate to say it, but there is some truth in that paranoia.

These days, the High Line is the biggest deal to have hit landscape architecture in a long time. It had the unique potential to even out the disparity in public perception between architecture and landscape architecture. The starry design competition and the universally loved project by James Corner Field Operations should have helped begin to cure our image woes. But something unexpected happened: The media and masses celebrated the opening and subsequent expansion of the project, but that conversation has to a large extent left out landscape architecture, at least outside our own circles.

Not too long ago I was flipping through the TV channels and saw the architect Elizabeth Diller being interviewed by Martha Stewart for a series titled Women With Vision. Diller is a principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects (DS+R), who were subconsultants to Corner’s office on the High Line. When Diller was discussing the project, she spoke appropriately about the importance of the site but then neglected to mention any role played by landscape architects. No James Corner. No Field Operations. No mention of Piet Oudolf, who helped with planting design, either.

New Yorkers don’t care who gets recognized for the High Line. They got a fabulous, transformative urban space that would make Olmsted proud (see how easily that reference just slips in there?). But it should matter deeply to landscape architects that Corner’s team receives its due credit. This type of work—reconceiving the urban realm—is a critical part of the present and future of our profession. And while media bits, such as an interview with Martha Stewart, may seem like fluff, they are important in determining what our stake in the game is going to be.

We hear and read all the time about how much the world is changing. Climate change, economic instability, ecological catastrophe, and societal shifts are forcing people to look at things in new ways. This has triggered a huge shift in the design world, too. Landscape and water issues drive the shaping of cities as never before. None of this is breaking news. Such a change in the worldview will naturally lead to significantly more work for landscape architects. It has to, right? But the reality is we can’t expect such things to just fall into our laps. Architects clearly see how the playing field is being tilted in our favor, and they aren’t happy about it. They will fight for their share of the action. Probably for most of ours too.

Architecture is embedded in the media and contemporary popular culture in ways we can only envy at this point, so its voice is much louder than ours. Architects can create buzz so the world clamors to see what Norman Foster and Frank Gehry are going to produce next, although it becomes less surprising as time goes on. We, meanwhile, remain perched solidly upon Olmsted’s shoulders.

Several recent documentaries and biographies have focused on Olmsted’s life and career, so he never seems to want for attention. He had a costarring role in Erik Larson’s hugely popular historical novel, The Devil in the White City, and now may even be Hollywood-bound with a big-screen adaptation of that book in the works starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I can already picture an actor wearing a period costume, with the white beard and the cane, all reinforcing the grandfatherly image of Olmsted. This is great in that it will help landscape architecture reach the masses, but it won’t exactly enhance our image as a vital contemporary profession.

We need to actively present a wider view of both our past and present to change the misconception people have about what we do. It may not be easy, however, given that even the landscape architects we consider stars have a tough time getting us the recognition we are looking for. Case in point: A recent edition of the CBS news program Sunday Morning revolved around the famed Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, designed by the architect Eero Saarinen. The talk was all “architect this, architect that,” but when it came to discussing the landscape, which is one of the landscape architect Dan Kiley’s masterpieces, it went something like this: “The garden was designed by Dan Kiley.” Period. I was thrilled to hear Kiley mentioned by name, but there was no hint of any professional association or credentials. It was as if this guy Kiley were the groundskeeper.

And so on. I realize that many of us have collected examples of such slights to our profession. None of this is Olmsted’s fault. But we can’t just blame the media. We have a big responsibility in all of this, too.

When Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA, was recently elected into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining the exalted ranks of fellow landscape architects Laurie Olin, FASLA, Thomas Church, Lawrence Halprin, and Olmsted, among many other luminaries, I barely heard a peep about it—even from within our own ranks. This is a huge deal, not only for Van Valkenburgh, but for all of us. The more accolades that an individual landscape architect gets, the more respect our whole profession receives.

Last August 17, a public awareness event organized by ASLA gave landscape architects across the country a platform for spreading the message that we are part of a thriving profession. It was, by all accounts, a big success. Another such event is being set up for this year, and I encourage all landscape architects to get involved in some way and brag on the work you are doing. That event will be held on April 26.

That’s Olmsted’s birthday.

Mark Hough, ASLA, is campus landscape architect at Duke Univeristy.

Image credit: LAM

OLIN writes that the new City Garden will be a “reinvigorated green heart of the city,” doubling the urban core’s current size. A key concept is to reconnect the dramatic landscape of Aberdeen with the city via a “web of paths.” This web will provide opportunities for visitors to explore a diverse set of gardens harking back to Aberdeen’s rich natural and cultural history. ”The gardens’ planting palettes will mimic the regional landscape and ecology of Northeast Scotland and be supplemented with plants from its European neighbors and other parts of the world.”

Buildings and landscapes will work together to create micro-climates, offering buffers from the harsher aspects of local weather. All native plants will be used to ensure local fauna also take home in the garden city. By showing what sustainability looks like in practice, the designers hope that they can engage residents of Aberdeen in a civic dialogue about the future of their environment. ”Underlying the design of the landscape is a desire both to engage and teach.” In addition to providing sensory stimulation, the gardens will promote local horticultural skills as well.

The new green space will offer an opportunity for a new ”landmark cultural and arts centre,” which promotes the city’s historic streets, ”revealing the arches, vaults and bridge on Union Street and retaining the balustrades and statues which are part of Aberdeen’s legacy,” writes Malcolm Reading Consultants, the group that managed the competition.

In their article, Charles Renfro, the lead architect on the project, summed up the idea of the new city center: “While the City Garden is at the heart of Aberdeen, the heart has little pulse…we feel that we can make that heart throb and bring life and energy into the centre of town. By making the park greener, more accommodating to passive and active uses, more engaged at its edges, the gardens can become a magnet for this otherwise youthful and energetic city.” OLIN Partner-in-Charge on the project, Richard Newton, ASLA, added: “Our studio is truly honored to be a part of a team of such accomplished firms to transform Aberdeen’s City Garden into an accessible public space that seamlessly integrates the history and fabric of the city with the region’s remarkable native landscape, providing a unique opportunity for residents to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate their vibrant culture.”

The city, which sees going greener as central to its future economic competitiveness, worked closely with the jury and consultants that devised economic impact studies. Charles Landry, author of The Creative City and a member of the Jury, relayed some of the economic values of the project: “This is a design that can act as the catalyst to regenerate the whole of Aberdeen’s city centre with significant economic impacts for the entire city. Truly inspiring, it can put Aberdeen onto the global radar screen – very, very few designs can do this. Without this type of transformational change, Aberdeen will struggle to meet the challenges it will inevitably face in the future.”  

There are no details on the project size or budget but with the public referendum, more information is sure to be coming.

Image credits: Copyright Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The land has been cultivated for more than seven thousand years. Around 5,300 BC, the people of the Lepen Whirl culture began to expand from Djerdap, the biggest gorge in Europe, domesticating animals and starting to farm. Fields expanded, towns became cities that included small parks, and, during the middle ages, defensive castles and religious monasteries created walled gardens for aromatic and healing herbs as well as relaxation and meditation.

Turks occupied the area from 1459 to 1804, establishing large fortifications around major cities, with open spaces in the middle. After the Turks were driven out, though, many of the forts were torn down, leaving vast spaces for new parks, and green belts around towns. For example, the Kalemegdan park in Belgrade, which was constructed in 1925, offers views of both the Danube and the Sava rivers.

 
The most famous park in Belgrade, Kalemegdan was constructed in 1925. 
 
When Yugoslavia fell into civil war after the death of President Tito and Slobodan Milosovic came into power in Serbia, the federation broke apart into smaller states and ethnic enclaves like Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, with millions of people displaced from their homes, widespread slaughter, and heavy NATO bombing. Buildings, bridges, and parks all suffered and many collapsed.

After peace was restored, Serbia was left with an enormous rebuilding challenge. While there were established landscape architecture education programs and organizations, landscape architects continue to face the challenge of revitalizing damaged downtown and metro areas, restoring parks and green belts, and making urban forests more appealing to people who want to escape the pressures of a fragile economy, constant signs of the war, and an incessant media.

“Urban Gap” design for a pocket park.

Perhaps landscape architects will now be able to re-introduce healing and inspirational gardens where people who still suffer from trauma can find a quiet place to recuperate with family and friends. Landscape architects may also get involved in planning scenic routes, creating signage, and laying out rest areas for tourists, because Serbia has so much natural beauty and so few visitors.

Birds on the Tisa River.  


“Devil Towers” National monument.

This guest post is by Nevenka Milic Chavez, project coordinator for City of Albuquerque, and Maja Todorović Izquierdo, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Design, Megatrend University in Belgrade. Read the full article reprinted from the ASLA International PPN Newsletter, Winter 2012.

Image credits: (1) Povlen Mountain, Serbia / Uroš Petrović, (2) Kalemegdan /Igor Jeremićm. June 2007, (3) “Urban Gap” design for a pocket park / Youth of Serbian Association of Landscape Architects, (4) Birds on the Tisa River / Uroš Petrović, (5) “Devil Towers” National monument /Uroš Petrović

The paintings and drawings of Roberto Burle Marx, Hon. ASLA, one of the most influential landscape architects of the 20th century, are the subject of a new show by Rooster Gallery in downtown Manhattan. Tablecloth/Toalha features a number of his later works, which were created during his stay at a close friend’s house in Constância, Portugal. According to Lauro Cavalcanti, curator of the retrospective Roberto Burle Marx 100 anos: A permanência do Instável, Burle Marx “‘…painted every day in the morning and in the afternoon he did his gardens’ and did not enjoy the fact that his paintings were relegated to a secondary position.” Indeed, Burle Marx was an equally successful painter, with his works representing Brazil in the Venice Biennale in the 1940s.

In addition to the tablecloth he created to fit his friend’s table, the exhibition includes 12 india-ink works on paper that are evocative of his landscapes. “While dispensing color – something inherently his due to his activity as a landscape architect – Burle Marx still follows the same provocative abstract morphology that characterized South-American art during the second half of the 20th century, providing the viewer some hints on issues like urbanism and landscape.” 

On his art and landscape architecture, Rooster Gallery wonders which side of his work influenced which more. ”In the end, one might question whether it is the architectural grammar that is present on Burle Marx’s paintings or the pictorial language that is present in his landscape projects.”

Burle Marx, who died in 1994, had a lifelong partnership with great Modern architect and fellow Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer. However, he is often seen as simply “complimentary” to him, writes André Escarameia in an essay for the gallery. Increasingly, though, Burle Marx’s own genius in creating lush yet also very Modern landscapes is being viewed independently of any collaborations. 

According to Escarameia, when Marx died at age 84, he had completed more than 2,000 works of landscape architecture. Just a few of his famous landscape works include Flamengo Park (Rio de Janeiro, 1965), the Copacabana promenade (Rio de Janeiro, 1970), and Inhotim Park (Brumadinho, 1984).

Escarameia quotes Coelho Frota, who writes: “He was a draftsman, painter, great connoisseur of botany, set designer, musician, sculptor, and landscape architect. To appreciate any one aspect of Burle Marx’s multifaceted personality, one must bear in mind that we are dealing with an anthropological phenomenon, a cultural complex, a whole Burle Marx tribal group in which each individual was autonomous and, at the same time, relative.”

See the paintings in New York before March 4, a slideshow of some of his landscape architecture works, and learn more about his history and influences.

Image credits: (1-3) Rooster Gallery, (4) Copacabana Promenade, Rio de Janeiro / Ark Around, (5) Terrace Garden on Former Government Building, Rio de Janeiro / Lalo de Almedia, The New York Times.

So how can cities deal with their ugliest, least pedestrian-friendly aspects? For Lerner, it’s all about “urban acupuncture,” targeted, sometimes temporary, interventions that address a challenging design, economic, or social issue. These acts of acupuncture are effective because they are fast. Buildings and public spaces can be quickly retrofitted to become parks, event spaces, or sites for raves. Temporary pedestrian malls on streets formerly clogged with traffic, pop-up parks, or “portable streets” set-up in unfriendly or unsafe areas can help urban policymakers and designers “avoid getting stuck in bureaucracy” and act. Lerner added that “50 percent of all innovation is just starting something.”

These interventions can also have powerful “demonstration effects.” While planning is necessary, it also takes a lot of time, and so these interventions can help the process of planning and even guide it. As an example, Lerner pointed to Paley Park in New York City (see image above), “one of Manhattan’s most successful parks,” as an example of how a small project can have an enormous impact and even influence future planning. In this instance, Paley Park helped reinforce the value of well-designed pocket parks in any neighborhood. Lerner also discussed his “portable street” concept, a configurable, moveable piece of hardware that enables storefronts to be set up quickly. Inspired by the many bouquiniste of Paris, his portable streets are being tested in Cracolandia, a “tough” part of Sao Paulo, in an effort to bring back street life. 

Lerner is well-known among the transportation crowd for inventing bus rapid transit (BRT). As he described Curitiba’s experience launching this service, it became clear that the system fits in with his broader understanding of the value of strategic interventions that have powerful demonstration effects. At very low-cost, this system, which is basically a surface subway system, takes more passengers daily than “New York City’s new $4 billion 2nd Avenue subway,” which will take 10 years or more to get going. Amazingly, Curitiba’s BRT also comes every 40 seconds during peak times but averages no less than one every minute. He said “these systems have to have a reliable frequency and be well-operated.” BRT lanes in Curitiba also now provide cover for 120 kilometers of bike lanes, which are now lined with parks and rest areas. (See an interview with Lerner on Curitiba and check out his TED talk).

Other speakers at the conference argued that urbanization is here to stay so smart, low-cost, sustainable urban transportation investments must be a top priority for developing countries. OP Agarwal, Public Transit Advisor, World Bank Group, said that “urbanization in India is inevitable,” and policies, which once focused on promoting rural development in order to encourage people to stay out of cities, have now shifted towards improving urban conditions. ”India realized it can’t prevent people from going to cities.” Dario Hidalgo, EMBARQ, said another challenge is creating transportation systems in cities made up of unplanned “informal” developments. In Columbia, some 50 percent of all urban development is informal, and the car also largely rules, meaning “we need to re-develop what we have.” In Mexico, Carlos Mier y Teran, Mexican government, said there are now 35 cities with more than half a million people, and 60 million or 50 percent of the total population now live in cities. “The urban transportation problem is increasing. Motorization is gaining terribly.” Automobile ownership is up 8 percent, while population growth is only 2 percent.

Increasing the share of bicycle riders may be part of the solution. In one session, Tom Godefrooij, Dutch Cycling Embassy, said bicycling accounts for 27 percent of all trips in the Netherlands, making it the world leader for bicyclists. Denmark has a 20 percent mode share and Germany has 10 percent. Meanwhile, even the cities doing really well in the U.S., like Portland, Washington, D.C. would be lucky to top 5 percent. Godefrooij said some promising developments were happening in developing countries: Bogota now has 350 kilometers of cycle routes and bicycling is up to 4 percent of all trips; Santiago has a whopping 690 kilometers planned, while 250 have been implemented; and Sevilla, Spain, has 120 kilometers of lanes in place, pushing up bicycles’ share of total trips to 6.6 percent in just four years. Godefrooij added that bike share programs like the new one in Washington, D.C. are also now “fashionable” and may even help build support for more bicycle infrastructure.

A few Chinese cities may also be getting serious about undoing some of the recent damage caused by building too much infrastructure for cars. Bram van Ooijen, ITDP-China, said that while many new Chinese cities are “hostile to cycling” and most bicyclists feel very unsafe, China has had a long history with bicycles and it may be coming back. Working with Guangzhou city officials, ITDP was the key designer of that city’s new BRT route, which also opened up opportunities for new bicycle infrastructure. The protected bike lanes separated from car traffic and pedestrians have boosted bicycle use by up 53 percent in some areas. Greenways, which are linear parks along rivers and canals and are designed for walking and biking, have also taken off, with 8,200 kilometers planned by 2015 and 1,500 kilometers now in place.

Perhaps inspired by the example set by Lerner, Guangzhou, with its ever-growing population and tight resources, is simply moving forward with its own acupuncture, creating a new urban greenway model for the rest of China. “Guangzhou set the model. Now hundreds of Chinese cities want to do this,” said van Ooijen. 

Image credits: (1) Paley Park / Wikipedia, (2) Portable Street / Jaime Lerner Associated Architects, (3) Capital Bikeshare / CDM Cyclist, (4) Guangzhou greenway / Karl Fjellstrom, ITDP China

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is looking for nominations for its ongoing Landslide program, an annual list of “threatened and at-risk landscapes.” This year, Landslide’s theme will focus on the “visionary patrons and/or organizations and the sites they helped create,” with the goal of honoring their accomplishments yet also inspiring new philanthropists to take action. Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF Founder and President, said: ”In 2012 we spotlight patrons and the places they helped create because patronage is intrinsic to the creation and stewardship of great designed landscapes.”

The Landslide program, which began in 2003, has highlighted more than 150 significant at-risk parks, gardens, horticultural features, and working landscapes. These are the “places that embody our shared landscape heritage.” For details on the landscapes that made it into last year’s compendium of sites, check out The Landscapes I Love. Also inspiring is to see the many landscapes TCLF have helped save with their public awareness and advocacy work. Unfortunately, for all landscape architects and their patrons, the list of “at-risk” landscapes is still far too long.

Submit your nominations by May 31.

In other news, the U.S. pavilion in the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale is focusing on the theme “Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good.” For the pavilion, which is expected to be seen by more than 170,000 visitors in fall 2012, the U.S. team is seeking projects actually initiated by landscape architects or a local non-profit or community group that are publicly accessible, participatory, and help solve a challenging urban problem. It has to be a real project. Submit your ideas by February 6.

Image credit: Weequahic Park, Newark, New Jersey / The Landscapes I Love, 2011 Landslide®

The corporate headquarters of an international manufacturing company, a new university green space, and a children’s playground in an urban park are the first to be recognized for their sustainable land practices from among 150-plus pilot projects that began the certification process in summer 2010. These initial projects are the St. Charles, Missouri, campus of Novus International Inc.; the Green at College Park of the University of Texas at Arlington; and the Woodland Discovery Playground at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, Tennessee.

SITES is a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden. SITES was created to fill a critical need for guidelines and recognition of green landscapes based on their planning, design, construction and maintenance. The partners have collaborated since 2005 in developing a voluntary, national rating system and set of performance benchmarks for sustainable landscapes in areas with or without buildings.

The certified pilot projects are participating in a pilot program begun in June 2010 to test the four-star rating system created by dozens of the country’s leading sustainability experts, scientists, and design professionals. Projects selected to be pilots are at various stages of development and represent a diverse mix of project types, sizes, locations, and budgets. 

The SITES rating system includes 15 prerequisites and 51 additional, flexible credits to choose from. The credit options, totaling 250 points, address areas such as the use of redeveloping brownfields or greyfields; soil restoration; water conservation; use of recycled materials and native vegetation; and sustainable construction and land maintenance approaches.

Certified pilot projects are recognized with one through four stars for obtaining 40, 50, 60 or 80 percent of those 250 points. The Novus headquarters, the Green at College Park, and Woodland Discovery Playground SITES Certified Projects received a 3-star, 1-star, and 1-star rating, respectively.

Among the features Novus developed with SWT Design and others for the 9-acre headquarters was a parking lot with stormwater retention features, a walking trail that winds through restored prairie and other habitat, and a vegetable garden that staff maintain. The garden is fed by a windmill-powered well that retrieves rainwater stored underground. A detention basin captures stormwater on site and provides aquatic habitat and a scenic view from a nearby pavilion topped with a vegetated roof.

“The innovation and analytical thinking of these first certified projects is helping point the way for the next iteration of the guidelines, which will form the basis for open certification in 2013,” said ASLA Executive Vice President and CEO Nancy Somerville.

Landscape architects and engineers with Schrickel, Rollins & Associates designed sustainable features at The Green at College Park in downtown Arlington, including a gathering lawn, shade arbors and drainage gardens. David Hopman, an associate professor of landscape architecture at UT Arlington, led the effort for SITES application and worked with the designers documenting development of the roughly three-acre green space.

The site had served mostly as a parking lot, with poor stormwater drainage that flooded a nearby creek. Now the green space sits next to Arlington’s first mixed-use development and features native and adapted plants in rain gardens and a water detention system that help slow down the flow of stormwater. That process cleanses the water of impurities and captures it for re-use on the green space’s new vegetation. 

“Developing inviting outdoor spaces that make the most of precious resources such as water is critical to our future,” said Susan Rieff, executive director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. “These projects powerfully demonstrate how sustainably designed landscapes can produce environmental, economic, and aesthetic benefits.”

The conservancy that oversees Shelby Farms Park developed the Woodland Discovery Playground with James Corner Field Operations and others to restore a woodland and promote children’s health. The 4.25 acre playground with tunnels, swings and other amenities was developed based on current children’s play theories and after workshops with children and adults. It uses recycled athletic shoe material as a surface for several play areas and loose, recycled boot material as a soft landing under a playroom of nets and tree houses. The permeable surface material allows stormwater to soak into the ground to help nourish an arbor enhanced with native trees that surrounds and links playrooms within the space.

“The educational value of these pilot projects is significant. They demonstrate what a sustainable site looks and feels like and now serve as a model to others aspiring for sustainability in a designed landscape,” said Holly H. Shimizu, executive director of the United States Botanic Garden. “Having the first pilot projects certified solidifies years of work into something tangible that we hope will be replicated all around the country.”

SITES will continue to receive feedback from the SITES Certified Pilots and the remaining pilot projects until June 2012. These projects include private residences, streetscapes, industrial complexes, and other settings. Their input as well as the public’s will be used to finalize the rating system and reference guide, expected to be released widely in 2013.

Visit SITES to learn more. Any project can apply to be certified starting in early 2013. For those interested in pursuing SITES certification, start collecting documentation now.  

Image credits: (1) SITES, (2) Novus International Headquarters, Novus International / SWT Design, (3) The Green at College Park, University of Texas at Arlington / Schrickel, Rollins and Associates Inc, (4) Shelby Farms Park, Woodland Discovery Center / James Corner Field Operations.

Urban Ecological Design: A Process for Regenerative Places is a comprehensive and accessible guidebook on urban design with an emphasis on ecology and sustainability. Intended for students, design and planning practitioners, developers and public officials, it’s a good primer for those less familiar with the process and a useful reference for more experienced practitioners.

The book’s authors are both educators and practitioners in design fields. Danilo Palazzo is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Frederick Steiner, FASLA, is Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, Austin, and a guiding force in the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES). Their purpose in writing the book is to clarify the role of urban design and outline a non-prescriptive process for transforming urban space. They describe this process as “systematic, precisely linear, and highly optimistic”, but one that is never formulaic: “urban design, like other design and planning activities, not only permits but demands that different answers and different solutions are considered for a given problem.”

Their process, dubbed the “not-only-one-solution” process, is a flexible methodology consisting of ten steps intended to be applicable across a broad range of scenarios. The steps are illustrated with theories, techniques, and case studies outlining different options for “transforming urban spaces into inviting and sustainable urban places.” They draw on standard practices of the design profession as well as philosophies and methods developed by influential practitioners like Ian McHarg and Kevin Lynch. These techniques tend toward an interpretation of urban design that “favors an objective-rational process (‘scientific’) rather than an expressive-subjective one (‘artistic’) but does not reject the latter.”

Palazzo and Steiner stress the interdisciplinary nature of the process, emphasizing that “a positive role of urban design is to transcend the boundaries of the disciplines from which it draws,” including architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. They note that the term “urban design” does not generally refer to a discipline itself, but rather to an interface between other disciplines that requires a broad range of skills and technical knowledge. Urban design encompasses the design of all elements of the built environment and is interested in building new forms as well as managing what already exists. It also addresses issues at multiple scales in different urban environments and aims to be flexible enough to adapt to changes over time.

Palazzo and Steiner are especially interested in expanding the process of urban design to include ecology as a core component. By reconfiguring urban form to allow for the consumption of fewer resources and adding natural elements like trees, designers can help mitigate climate change and energy consumption. They can also foster “the integration of humans and nonhumans in functional and just ecosystems” by increasing connectivity between green spaces and cities to provide more robust habitats for urban wildlife. 

This added emphasis on ecology is part of what Palazzo and Steiner consider to be the “responsibility” of urban design in improving the built environment. They believe that urban designers have three responsibilities: a “species responsibility” to address ongoing environmental destruction; a “generational responsibility” to improve conditions for future generations; and a “competence responsibility” to design with the best possible skills, aptitudes, and intentions.

In outlining a process for urban design with an emphasis on ecology and sustainability, they hope to help practitioners design more resilient urban environments. The “not-only-one-solution” methodology seeks to foster better stewardship and provide guidance for a complex process that resists formulaic responses.

This guest post is by Shannon Leahy, Masters of Landscape Architecture candidate, University of Pennsylvania 

Read the book.

Image credit: Island Press