Urban Trees Could Reduce Summer Heat Deaths by 40 Percent

Mount Lycabettus, Athens / Public domain, Wikipedia

New research published in The Lancet has found that increasing tree cover in European cities to 30 percent could have reduced premature deaths from urban heat islands by 40 percent.

Currently, the average tree canopy in cities across the continent is approximately 15 percent. Increasing tree coverage to 30 percent would cool cities by 0.7°F (0.4°C) — showing that even seemingly small reductions in summer temperatures could save many lives.

The climate crisis has increased temperatures across Europe and led to more dangerous heatwaves. Last year, the continent experienced its hottest summer and second warmest year overall, which only increased the impacts of urban heat islands.

Heat islands form in urban environments comprised of dark, heat-absorbing materials like asphalt, concrete, and tar-covered roofs. These islands are also found in areas where is a high population density, which means a high number of air conditioners expelling heat, and a lack of trees and plants.

Urban heat islands “intensify the adverse effects of high temperatures on health,” the researchers write, particularly for heat-vulnerable populations like the elderly and those who cannot afford air-conditioning.

And this is confirmed by previous research. In a study of the West Midlands, United Kingdom cited by the authors, “urban heat islands were estimated to have contributed around 50 percent of the total heat-related mortality during a 2003 heat wave.”

“We already know that high temperatures in urban environments are associated with negative health outcomes, such as cardio-respiratory failure, hospital admission, and premature death,” explained lead author Tamar Iungman, with the Institute for Global Health in Barcelona, Spain. And hotter temperatures and deadlier heat islands will lead to an even “bigger burden to our health services over the next decade.”

The researchers used data from 2015, the latest continent-wide population study, to estimate the summer mortality rates of 57 million Europeans in 93 cities, aged 20 years and older. From June to August 2015, the cities were 2.7°F (1.5°C) warmer on average than surrounding rural areas.

The researchers first looked at a range of strategies to reduce heat islands. The majority are solutions landscape architects plan and design:

  • Green roofs and walls
  • Light-colored building roofs, walls, and landscape pavers
  • Replacing impervious surfaces with plants and soils
  • Increased tree coverage

But for this study, the researchers decided to hone in on trees. They argue that “planting urban trees offers an important opportunity to mitigate high temperatures and, compared with other strategies, is relatively simple and cost-effective to implement.”

Avenue de la Grande Armee, Paris, France / istockphoto.com, Pavilha

Trees are known to be effective at cooling cities — through the shade they provide and the water vapor they release through transpiration. A study cited by the researchers found that in 600 cities trees cooled urban neighborhoods by an average of 1.8°F (1.1°C) — and up to 5.2°F (2.9°C).

Other studies have backed the 30 percent tree canopy target, which is why many cities have set that as a policy goal as well. “Previous epidemiological studies have suggested health benefits associated with tree coverage of at least 30 percent, including reduced odds of incident psychological distress, and non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.”

Trees have other co-benefits: they can reduce air and noise pollution and increase biodiversity. Exercising in green spaces has been linked with better health outcomes than just working out in a gym. And just spending time in a spaces filled with trees offer significant benefits for mental health and well-being.

Another study found that if European city leaders met World Health Organization recommendations and ensured all their populations lived within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of a green space, 20 deaths per 100,000 people could be avoided each year. This speaks to the importance of distributing trees equitably across all neighborhoods and focusing on historically marginalized and underserved communities with lower tree canopies.

According to The Lancet study, the cities with the highest number of deaths that can be attributed to urban heat islands were in “southern and eastern Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania,” while the lowest were located in “northern Europe including Sweden, Estonia, UK, and northern France.”

Most of the cities with the worst heat islands were also the most densely populated. Dangerous heat islands were found in Paris, France; Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece; Bilbao, Spain; and Brussels, Belgium. These cities have population densities that range from 7,272 to 21,462 people per square km.

The researchers argue that denser cities with lower than average canopies can therefore see even greater benefits from increasing their tree cover than other cities. The issue is finding ways to retrofit these cities to add more trees — a challenge landscape architects can address by adding in new parks, recreational areas, green roofs, and green streets.

Madrid Rio Park, Madrid, Spain, designed by West 8 / istockphoto.com, Borja Stark

Premature deaths that can be attributed to hotter urban temperatures also vary greatly across cities. For example, there were no summer heat-related deaths in Goteborg, Sweden, but 32 premature deaths per 100,000 people in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, The Lancet notes.

Trees were also found to significantly reduce the effects of heat islands during the day because they provide shade along with transpiration. But at night, “the urban canyon (i.e., the geometry formed by a city street and its flanking buildings) more strongly determines urban heat island effects.”

“The night-time intensity of the urban heat island effect is on average three times the daytime intensity. Therefore, urban green infrastructure strategies need to be accompanied by other interventions—especially those that reduce night-time urban heat island effects—to achieve health benefits, such as changing ground surface materials (e.g., from asphalt to granite) and structural interventions that change the sky view factor (i.e., the fraction of visible sky relative to street geometry and building density),” the researchers write.

The researchers’ analysis is based in a “coarse spatial resolution” (1,600 feet by 1,600 feet squares), so it’s not precise. The researchers also note that data on urban tree transpiration rates is hard to measure at a city scale. Typical urban trees’ transpiration rates may be more limited than trees in large parks or the suburbs, because they are “often exposed to harsh conditions (paved soils, air pollution).” The researchers also didn’t factor in how transpiration rates or the shade generated differ by tree size or species. And there was no discussion on how water bodies and features in cities could help further cool communities.

Franklin Park Action Plan: Restoring Olmsted’s Forgotten Haven

Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

In 2021, the City of Boston sold one of its parking garages for $102 million, with the goal of dedicating those funds to improving Boston’s public spaces and investing in affordable housing. Some of those millions went to an effort to revitalize Boston Common, one of the oldest public parks in the country. And more of those millions went to a plan for improving Franklin Park, a neglected park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Boston’s famed Emerald Necklace.

A three-year planning process led by landscape architecture firms Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, and MASS Design Group has resulted in a comprehensive action plan that is rooted in local community priorities and meant to ensure the long-term sustainability of the 527-acre cultural landscape.

Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

“We heard from the community that they want the city to take better care of the park — to pick up trash, improve the bathrooms, reduce the pressure of invasive plants, and restore the landscape to optimal health in a thoughtful and steady way,” said Kristin Frederickson, ASLA, a principal at Reed Hilderbrand.

What the landscape architecture team created is a bold plan that balances immediate maintenance and restoration needs with steps to achieve a long-term vision of improved access, resilience, and equitable benefits. The 450-page plan will take multiple decades and more than $150 million to complete. “And the plan suggests that the city and community can’t pick and chose between addressing climate change, equity, historic preservation — these are synergistic elements, key principles meant to operate together.”

The revitalization of Franklin Park has been a long time coming. For decades, one of the city’s largest parks received little government investment and was instead left to the Franklin Park Coalition to steward and maintain. “They deserve a lot of credit — they have been holding this park together. There were times when visitors were actually driving through the park lawns,” Frederickson said.

The city’s history of racial inequities factors into this. Franklin Park is bordered by some of Boston’s most historically marginalized communities — Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roslindale — along with Jamaica Plain, a wealthier community.

Franklin Park Action Plan, Boston, Massachusetts / Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

Boston’s 2030 plan highlighted the need to invest in Franklin Park. “There was a realization that we need to stabilize the park in order to save it,” said John Kett, ASLA, principal in charge at Reed Hilderbrand.

The first step was to build trust with communities that have been promised support in the past, but didn’t see that translate into action. The first community engagement meeting, pre-pandemic, brought out more than 300 community members. “There was a lot of excitement but also skepticism,” Kett said.

Franklin Park community engagement / Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

These meetings brought up issues of representation. “Three-fourths of the surrounding neighborhoods are historically underserved. Residents from Jamaica Plain were very active and showing up, but we weren’t hearing much from the underserved communities at first.”

The Franklin Park Coalition, which had established community support and connections over decades, was key to increasing the involvement of these communities, particularly during the pandemic when the team relied on Zooms and online surveys. The coalition helped the team get hundreds of survey responses.

To build trust, Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, and MASS Design Group also participated in playhouse in the park, a long-running summer series. For years, community members have brought their lawn chairs and coolers to watch free performances.

“We set up a pop-up photography booth with Sahar Coston-Hardy, who was able to print portraits in the park, and put them up on clotheslines. People looked good, so by the end there was a line. It was a trust-building exercise with the community — and for them. They shared their stories about the park with us, too.”

Carolyn R. and family, Franklin Park Action Plan Event / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group
DeTachia Swain, Franklin Park Action Plan event / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

Brie Hensold, Hon. ASLA, co-founder of Agency Landscape + Planning, explained that additional community engagement strategies included walking tours in the park and in-depth conversations with key constituencies — the groups that cared most about improving the golf course or tennis courts, restoring the woodlands, or enhancing the playhouse and its amphitheater. And to overcome the digital divide among community members, “we also went canvassing door to door to gather input.”

The result of this equitable community engagement is a plan that calls for spreading investments throughout the park, so that all the communities bordering the park see both immediate and long-term benefits.

In her announcement of the new plan to revitalize Franklin Park, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu highlighted two priorities.

“She focused on the need to restore the ecosystems in the park and also the need to appoint a dedicated park superintendent,” Kett said.

A slew of Boston and state agencies are involved in the park and its boundary areas. Establishing a leader who can move the plan forward was a key goal for the planning and design team.

The plan explored how the park could support affordable housing protections, and build capacity, create more local jobs, and develop the workforce, particularly through city government contracts to nearby vendors. These efforts will require multi-agency partnerships across the city government, which a superintendent can help facilitate.

“Given that trust with surrounding communities has been broken for decades, rebuilding that trust will be a slow process. We focused on only promising what we could deliver,” Kett said.

“The community wants to see continuous maintenance improvements and capital investments over time,” Hensold said. “Trust is a longer-term project.”

Through their journey with the community, the team learned that Olmsted’s design is still deeply appreciated. Even with a clear lack of maintenance and investment, the park still has a “rough beauty,” Frederickson said.

Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

“People love this park; they just want it to be a better version of itself. At the core, people want the park to be taken care of.”

Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts / Sahar Coston-Hardy, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

Olmsted’s design still resonates despite the insertion of a hospital, zoo, golf course, widened circuit road, and a four-lane road that diagonally cuts through the park.

“There is the sense that Olmsted reached a logical conclusion in Franklin Park, which is one of his later parks. He did less here; it’s more about putting the land forward,” Frederickson said.

Inspired by the rock outcroppings of the area, he reinforced the edges with stone walls and slopes, creating an “interior haven.” Today, that means that some of the park boundaries are “not super porous.” The plan focuses on “improving porosity where we can” through new accessible entrances better aligned with well-lit crosswalks and supported by new street improvements, parking, and bicycle infrastructure.

Franklin Park Action Plan / Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

The core design of the park remains though. Olmsted followed the flow of “whale-shaped drumlin fields, lacing circulation through them.” The design team recommended reducing or eliminating vehicle access in parts of that circulation system to ensure the park feels safer for pedestrians and cyclists. “But the plan is not anti-car. We actually increase parking in areas,” Frederickson said.

Franklin Park Action Plan / Reed Hilderbrand, Agency Landscape + Planning, MASS Design Group

And restoring the varied ecosystems in the park, including its marshes, meadows, and woodlands, remains a top priority for the community and the landscape architects. “It’s an incredible, moving place to be. Its rough beauty is its power. It just needs support.”

New Strategies for Preventing Green Gentrification

ASLA 2010 Professional General Design Honor Award. The High Line, Section 1 New York City, NY. James Corner Field Operations (project lead) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Iwan Baan

“How do we ensure new parks don’t cause ‘green gentrification,’ which can lead to the exclusion and displacement of underserved communities? How can we ensure we don’t displace the communities that new parks are meant to serve?,” asked Dede Petri, CEO of the Olmsted Network (formerly the National Association of Olmsted Parks), during an Olmsted 200 event.

New parks are meant to be accessible to everyone, but in many urban areas, developer-driven parks mostly attract wealthier Americans. Cities benefit from increased development adjacent to these new parks, bringing in higher tax revenues, but that raises questions about whether these spaces can, in effect, lead to community displacement.

“If there really is green gentrification, what can we do about it?,” asked Ted Landsmark, a professor at Northeastern University, civic planner, and board member of Boston Planning and Development Agency, who moderated the panel discussion.

Robert Hammond, a co-founder of the High Line in Manhattan, and founder of the High Line Network, a knowledge sharing platform, said the High Line has had significant impacts, contributing to “cultural displacement and middle class displacement” in the Meatpacking District and Chelsea neighborhoods of lower Manhattan. “The High Line isn’t a failure, but a lot of mistakes were made.”

“The High Line was built for the city, taxpayers, and homeowners; it wasn’t built for the residents of nearby low-income housing.” While the city-owned low-income housing remains, most of the stores the residents relied on were driven out due to the higher rents brought on by the High Line. “We didn’t anticipate the impact on shops.”

ASLA 2010 Professional General Design Honor Award. The High Line, Section 1 New York City, NY. James Corner Field Operations (project lead) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Iwan Baan

“And many of the residents of the housing developments didn’t like our programs,” Hammond said. As a result, early community perception was that the High Line was for wealthy New Yorkers and tourists.

Over the past dozen years since the first phase of the linear park opened, “we have been rethinking our programs, and visitors to the park have become more diverse.” But in retrospect, “the High Line should have formed more diverse community partnerships early on in the planning and design process” to “shape zoning opportunities with the city and state.”

The Atlanta Beltline, which is leveraging a 22-mile railroad network to create new parks, multi-use trails, and transit connections, has also faced criticism that it has contributed to gentrification and displacement.

Atlanta Beltline map / Atlanta Beltline

Clyde Higgs, CEO of the Atlanta Beltline, admitted that “ten years ago, when the project first started, we had not expected it to be a wild economic success. We didn’t secure nearby sites for future affordable housing.” With the leadership of a new Atlanta mayor that story has changed, Higgs says. “We have now exceeded affordability goals around the Beltline by 30 percent.”

The Beltline team is now returning to the vision of the park’s framers — they had “contemplated the dangers of developing green space in a vacuum.” With any new green space, “you have to be thinking about community engagement, which is the real measure of success at the end of a project. This involves affordable housing, living wage jobs, environmental clean-up, and the arts — it’s about creating whole communities.”

Atlanta Beltline, Atlanta, Georgia / istockphoto.com, BluIz60

The High Line and early phases of the Beltline offer cautionary tales and have led to the relatively new consensus that equitable community development is integral to park making.

An “anticipatory, proactive approach” to park planning is “now required by all landscape architects at this point,” argued Jessica Henson, ASLA, a partner at OLIN. “Setting aside parcels for affordable housing, protecting existing tenants, creating land banks — this should all happen before design.”

The 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C., which landscape architecture firm OLIN is co-designing with Dutch architecture firm OMA, is a “great example of how to get into a community ahead of time.” Building Bridges Across the River, the non-profit organization leading the development of the park, set up home buyer’s clubs, created robust property protections, and increased support for local businesses and artists, so more of the community will benefit from the new park, even before it’s built.

11th Street Bridge Park / OMA+OLIN
11th Street Bridge Park / OMA+OLIN

The 11th Street Bridge Park is rightfully considered a model, but its development has been more than a decade in the making. Landsmark argued that there will be intense political pressure on state and local governments to spend hundreds of billions from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, to act fast and initiate projects that can create lots of new jobs. How can the rapid distribution of these funds avoid having a gentrifying impact?

“Before dollars are assigned, it’s important to buy parcels for affordable housing ahead of time, near where you think new infrastructure is going to go. Coordinating with community-based organizations, which tend to be more nimble, is key,” Henson said.

“Through research, we have found that you also don’t need to blanket affordable housing everywhere. Prioritize the communities most at risk. Use tools to determine where the pressures are. We can target resources to protect the most vulnerable populations.”

As part of this, planners and landscape architects must also extend greater respect to local partners, paying community members and organizations for their time and ideas, whether it’s related to the new infrastructure funds or not. Communities are expected to show up to provide input that can improve projects, but for some community members there is a cost associated with that, multiple panelists noted.

There are already models for more equitable engagement out there. At the Atlanta Beltline, the “largest department is community engagement. It’s legislatively dictated that we must hold three deep community conversations annually, but we have up to 80 community meetings per year. There are many chances for people to have their say — it’s the people’s project,” Higgs said.

And with the High Line in New York City, one clear win is a program that responded to the needs of local residents: a summer jobs program for teenagers. “High Line Teens has been successful and is in its tenth year,” Hammond said. “We provided what people want — jobs. The question with these projects needs to be: what can we do for you, besides just creating a park?”

There are growing expectations that new parks will be jobs generators for local communities. The Atlanta Beltline has a goal of creating 30,000 permanent jobs along the circular park, prioritizing access to opportunities for those who live nearby. This involves discussions with a “range of organizations, not just industries focused on technology, healthcare, or hospitality. It’s about creating whole communities where residents near the Beltline can access work, church, restaurants, and medical care,” Higgs said.

And Henson noted that in their work on the Los Angeles River Masterplan with Gehry Partners, OLIN has focused on how to create more opportunities for local artists in the 51-mile river corridor revitalization. All panelists called for employing public artists of all kinds — dance, interactive, musical, sculptural, and visual — to create the cultural programs that can connect communities with each other and a new park.

New Orleans’ Equity-driven Reforestation Plan

Surface temperatures in New Orleans (2019-2021) / Spackman Mossop Michaels

New Orleans experiences the worst urban heat island effect in the country, with temperatures nearly 9 F° higher than nearby natural areas. The city also lost more than 200,000 trees from Hurricane Katrina, dropping its overall tree canopy to just 18.5 percent.

The non-profit organization Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL) partnered with landscape architects at Spackman Mossop Michaels (SMM) to create a highly accessible, equity-focused reforestation plan for the city that provides a roadmap for achieving a tree canopy of 24 percent by 2040.

But more importantly, the plan also seeks to equalize the canopy, so at least 10 percent of all 72 neighborhoods are covered in trees. Currently, more than half of neighborhoods are under the 10 percent goal.

Tree canopy coverage by neighborhood / Spackman Mossop Michaels

Wes Michaels, ASLA, a founding partner at SMM, explained that some communities in the city are almost entirely concrete and asphalt and have canopies as low as 1 percent, while others, like the famous Garden District, have nearly 30 percent.

This causes an inequitable distribution of heat risks. “With Hurricane Ida, the foremost cause of death wasn’t flooding but heat. The storm knocked out electricity, so people were in their homes without air conditioning,” explained Emily Bullock, ASLA, a principal with SMM.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, trees and plants really do have a significant cooling benefit. “Trees and vegetation lower surface and air temperatures by providing shade and through evapotranspiration. Shaded surfaces, for example, may be 20–45°F (11–25°C) cooler than the peak temperatures of unshaded materials. Evapotranspiration, alone or in combination with shading, can help reduce peak summer temperatures by 2–9°F (1–5°C).”

The New Orleans Reforestation Plan offers a new, more equitable model for reducing dangerous extreme heat — the number one climate killer — and flooding, while also lowering energy use.

“Conventional urban reforestation plans are focused on achieving an overall canopy percentage, and there is often an equity component. But this plan centers equity so that it frames all goals,” Bullock said.

Planting Cypress trees as part of New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s alternative strategies for vacant lots program / Spackman Mossop Michaels

“The plans we reviewed from other cities were all similar, kind of boilerplate. We needed a plan that recognizes the unique neighborhoods of New Orleans,” said Susannah Burley, executive director of SOUL. “We wanted to find a local firm that understood the context of our city.”

Restoration of a vacant lot as part of New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s alternative strategies for vacant lots program / Spackman Mossop Michaels

Burley, who has a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Louisiana State University (LSU), spearheaded the complex reforestation planning effort over the past two years.

With Traci Birch, a LSU professor and planner, SOUL organized four round table discussions with local stakeholders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and seven community meetings.

“Spackman Mossop Michaels was a stakeholder in those early conversations. We knew they were already invested in the plan and understood the steps taken,” Burley said.

The firm was then hired to analyze the complex GIS data gathered by SOUL, facilitate more meetings across the city, and develop the plan.

“Landscape architects know the challenges and how to intersect with utilities. We helped facilitate concrete conversations with stakeholders. We examined city regulations and came up with recommendations so that these systems can work a little better. The goal is to make planting trees a smoother, easier process,” Bullock said.

The firm’s community engagement experience also helped SOUL frame the conversations.

“Not everyone in the community is 100 percent behind planting more trees. Landscape architects know that trees = good, but we can also meet communities where they are. We heard concerns like: ‘what if a tree falls on my house or leaves clog up my gutters? What if their roots break up my driveway?'”, Michaels said.

Research shows that trees increase property values. But SMM didn’t hear concerns that more trees could lead to gentrification or displacement. “The questions were more about: ‘who will maintain the trees in rights of way? Where will the maintenance funds come from?,'” said Bullock.

In the historic Garden District, tree roots can transform sidewalks into jagged small hills, making them inaccessible. And in other older parts of the city, sidewalks are very narrow, leaving little room for trees. How will the city fit in more?

“We didn’t get into these kinds of issues, which were beyond the scope. We want to make sure we don’t repeat the current issues, including with overhead and underground utilities. The goal is to create a unified tree policy with stakeholders, including the utilities providing power, water, sewage. The idea is to create a new policy together,” Michaels explained.

The plan outlines detailed steps SOUL, other organizations, and the city can take to build capacity and ramp up tree planting to achieve the 2040 goal. But before scaling up, the plan calls for a full-year of community engagement. “This will help educate communities about the benefits of trees and lay the groundwork for the planting programs to come,” Michaels said.

Prior to tree planting, 2014 / Spackman Mossop Michaels
After tree planting, 2022 / Spackman Mossop Michaels

In five diverse, underserved neighborhoods, pilot tree planting efforts will be rolled out over coming years. In some of these neighborhoods, planting more trees will be fairly straightforward given there are open green spaces available. In other more difficult neighborhoods, which already have lower tree canopies, additional funds and support will be needed to break up and remove concrete rights of way.

According to Burley, the biggest barrier to implementing the plan is lack of funding. “In New Orleans, the Department of Parks and Parkways is extremely underfunded. The plan is an advocacy tool — it shows what can be done with additional funds and how to make it happen.”

Prior to tree planting, 2014 / Spackman Mossop Michaels
After tree planting, 2022 / Spackman Mossop Michaels

And this is why the team focused on making the plan so easy-to-understand. “Most reforestation plans I saw were missing the human component. Our plan is meant to be highly accessible, so it can be picked-up by any city government official or neighborhood association.”

This plan also offers an approach other landscape architects can apply. “Reforestation plans are in landscape architects’ wheelhouse. These plans are at the intersection of ecology, culture, and public health. It’s not just about overall tree canopy numbers. But how to plant the most trees in places where they are needed, and in the shortest amount of time, with limited resources,” Michaels said.

New Biden-Harris Blueprint for Decarbonizing Transportation

ASLA 2022 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. Shirley Chisholm State Park. Brooklyn, New York. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates / Lexi Van Valkenburgh

The Biden-Harris administration has released the U.S.’s first comprehensive blueprint for decarbonizing the transportation sector. To reach the administration’s goal of a net-zero economy by 2050, nearly all greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, which accounts for a third of total emissions, will need to be eliminated. The plan will leverage funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act and be jointly implemented by the U.S. Departments of Transportation, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The blueprint calls for “improving community design and land-use planning” in order reduce emissions — areas that landscape architects identified as key priorities in the recently released ASLA Climate Action Plan and Field Guide to Climate Action.

The plan focuses on the carbon, health, and equity benefits of denser development connected by safer and more accessible sidewalks, bike lanes and trails, and public transit.

ASLA 2022 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. Midtown Park. Houston, Texas. Design Workshop, Inc. / Brandon Huttenlocher – Design Workshop, Inc.

“More compact cities and towns with a mix of commercial, residential, and civic uses close to each other reduce the distances between where people live, work, and recreate, which makes active modes of transportation and transit even more viable and allows people to spend less time sitting in traffic,” the plan states.

Other priorities of landscape architects that are included: equitable transit-oriented development, affordable housing, and leveraging rights of way (ROWs) for climate benefits. The blueprint specifically calls for enabling federal, state, and tribal ROWs to be used for renewable energy generation, energy transmission infrastructure, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and stormwater management.

In addition to reducing emissions through the design of communities and transportation systems, the blueprint calls for building out electric vehicle (EV) networks and swapping out fossil fuel vehicles for EVs, with the goal of half of all vehicles being zero emission by 2030, which will also yield real economic and health benefits.

At the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 2023 Annual Meeting, Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of the Department of Transportation, zoomed in on the EV part of the story.

Last fall, the U.S. Department of Transportation approved electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans submitted by all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. These plans will leverage $5 billion to build EV chargers every 50 miles along 75,000 miles of U.S. highways, creating the backbone of a new national network.

An additional $2.5 billion in grants will be provided to spread EV chargers more equitably through both urban and rural communities.

“We can use these funds to put chargers in front of multi-family housing developments in low-income communities,” Buttigieg said. “And rural drivers need to cover larger distances, which means they can get even better gas savings. Most rural people live in single-family homes, so they can charge their vehicles at home. We want to meet people where they are.” (What he didn’t mention is EV chargers can also be co-located next to public parks, like Canal Park in Washington, D.C.)

Canal Park, Washington, D.C. / © OLIN / Sahar Coston-Hardy

At TRB, Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, also highlighted the cost savings EVs can provide all Americans. “To charge an EV — to ‘fill it up’ for a 300-mile range — costs about $12. In comparison, filling up a gas tank averages $49. That saves more than $35 every time. If you are filling up your tank once or twice a month, that’s huge savings.”

In addition to making EV chargers more accessible, the administration is focused on reducing the cost of EVs overall.

“With new incentives, drivers can save $7,500 on a new EV at dealerships. So a $25,000 Chevy Volt becomes a $17,500 vehicle.” There are also $4,000 in incentives for used EVs.

The administration is also investing in electric public transit, with the goal of zero emission buses, light rail, subways, and trains. “This will mean healthier air and cost savings for communities,” Buttigieg said.

New policies are designed to ensure more of the net-zero transformation is home-grown. “We are also focused on the supply-side with new manufacturing and industrial policies that will put more people to work,” Granholm said.

The U.S. has seen more than 75 EV battery companies set up shop in the U.S. With new incentives, they are moving into EV battery manufacturing and processing critical rare earth metals. “We will rely on China and other countries less because of these policies.”

The administration is expecting energy demand to increase with more EVs. One potential strategy is to leverage the batteries of millions of parked, plugged-in EVs to supply energy back to the grid. EV batteries could increase the resilience of the energy grid by providing an additional distributed power supply, forming virtual power plants. “There are virtual power plant pilots, and utilities are super interested.”

Still, to meet increased demand and climate goals, an additional 25 gigawatts of renewable energy must be added to the grid in coming years. This new energy is needed to ensure “those EVs aren’t powered by coal-based electricity.”

New utility-scale solar and wind power plants mean more opportunities for landscape architects and planners to better integrate facilities into communities, reducing scenic impacts, and ensuring they support pollinators and ecological restoration efforts. Transmission lines also need to be sited in consideration of existing scenic, cultural, and ecological assets.

Purdue solar headquarters / courtesy of Fresh Energy, Rob Davis

Buttigieg argued that the country is shifting to renewable energy and EVs, and this transformation can’t be stopped. The Biden-Harris administration has been trying to further optimize this shift, focusing on: “Will this transformation happen fast enough to address the climate crisis? Will this transformation be made in America? Will the benefits be distributed equitably?”

Above all, Buttigieg and Granholm see the climate and infrastructure investments as significant economic development opportunities. Improving communities and building new transportation, energy, and EV infrastructure will lead to “good paying jobs.”

And equity remains a core focus. For example, companies that build renewable energy facilities in underserved communities, including legacy fossil fuel communities, can receive up to 60 percent off their taxes. “Through the IRA and infrastructure act, we can structurally correct structural inequities.”

Landscape architects can help local governments and communities fully connect the dots with these funds, so that renewable energy and EV investments can be a driver of denser, healthier, and more multi-modal communities.

Carbon-First Design: The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park in Athens

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

A 600-acre park in development in Athens, Greece shows the value of prioritizing carbon. The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park is being designed by landscape architects at Sasaki to significantly increase carbon sequestration, avoid emissions, and reuse embodied carbon on a massive scale. Leveraging Sasaki’s Carbon Conscience App, Climate Positive Design’s Pathfinder tool, and Atelier Ten‘s carbon analysis, the project will cut emissions by 45 percent in comparison with a business-as-usual scenario. By designing for the climate first, the project is expected to become carbon neutral in 35 years.

What will be the largest urban coastal park in Europe is taking form on top of the old Athens International Airport, which was decommissioned in 2001.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Over the past twenty years, the city and national government have devised an approach that will keep the majority of the 1,200-acre site public through a combination of the 600-acre park, other spaces, and roadways but also ensure long-term financial sustainability. Through a 99-year lease agreement, Lamda, a Greek developer, will cover the cost of designing, constructing, and operating the park in return for revenues from new residential and commercial developments. “Making this happen required a presidential decree that superseded local regulations and created a unique permitting authority,” explained Michael Grove, FASLA, chair of landscape architecture, civil engineering, and ecology, and principal landscape architect at Sasaki.

The grand new park will be approximately 70 percent of the size of Manhattan’s Central Park and built in three phases. A comprehensive plan and framework by Foster + Partners set the boundaries of the park, which extends to the Saronic Gulf.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Within the existing landscape are layers of history: remnants of prehistoric settlements, agricultural lands, an abandoned airport, and dilapidated Olympics venues, which have inspired novel and sustainable reinterpretations.

“It’s been a joy to be able to plug into this ambitious context — on a site with so much potential to realize what I hope sensitive landscape design can achieve in the 21st century,” said Chris Hardy, ASLA, senior associate at Sasaki and Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Leadership and Innovation Fellow.

According to Sasaki, Athenian society has been changing, and the new park aims to fill a cultural void. “Historically, Athenians returned to family farms in the countryside on weekends. Core to the Athenian identity was a relationship to the Greek landscape. But as the Greek diaspora grew abroad and more multi-generational families stay in Athens, many contemporary Athenians no longer have access to a rural ancestral home, displacing a traditional cultural relationship with nature and resulting in a growing disconnect between urban residents and the landscape.” In addition, the majority of the open spaces in Athens don’t help reforge that connection — they are “either passive landscapes adjacent to ancient ruins, or hyper-urban plazas and streetscapes.”

Much like Central Park, the goal of Ellinikon Metropolitan Park is to bring nature back to the city in a big way. This will occur by creating natively Greek ecological landscapes that will not only resonate on a cultural level but also be designed to store vast amounts of carbon.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

The new park will include over 3.3 million Greek-sourced plants; among these are 31,000 new trees, representing 86 species. The team will also collect seeds from the site’s existing ruderal grasses and geophyte species, weaving novel ecosystems back in. More than 70 percent of the park will be designed as a demonstration of Greek landscape restoration.

And all of these landscapes will be nourished by 100 percent reclaimed water, which will be captured from sewage mined from a treatment plant that will be constructed by Lamda. In addition, “a 3.7-acre lake, repurposed from an Olympic kayak and canoe venue, will serve as an emergency stormwater reservoir, filling in the winter and slowly drawing down in the summer. The lake will be refilled with excess reclaimed water and treated through a large-scale flow-through recirculating wetland,” Hardy said.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Working with Atelier Ten and engineering firm LDK, the team also calculated expected future energy use in the giant park, which will include playgrounds, gardens, farms, and event spaces. That enabled the team to determine what size an on-site solar energy facility has to be to meet 100 percent of energy needs.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Hardy explained in detail how early planning and design decisions enabled them to design for carbon while achieving their other goals:

The single most important step to reduce the project’s carbon impact was to “swap out imported soil for amended soil.” Alone, this step is estimated to save approximately 43,000 metric tons of carbon across all phases of the project.

“The second biggest factor is we reduced the need for new concrete,” saving another estimated 41,000 metric tons of carbon across all phases.

Instead of specifying new concrete-based paving, Sasaki designed in stone or salvage concrete slab over aggregate base, so there is no concrete sub-base. In other places, there are just stabilized aggregate surfaces.

The third biggest carbon reduction comes from the reuse of 100 percent of nearly 310,000 cubic feet of concrete from airport runways and tarmac in the new park. The team will bring in concrete mining equipment, which will be operated on-site.

The highest quality concrete will be saved for fountains, retaining walls, custom furnishings, and various hardscapes. “Much of the concrete has marble and quartzite aggregate,” Hardy said, which means it will look appealing once polished and re-used.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Medium quality concrete will either be used as road base or riprap. And the lowest grade salvage will be crushed up to fill in new landscape forms. “Our use of salvage hardscape is saving nearly 12,000 metric tons across all phases.”

The goal was to “upcycle in a conspicuous way,” which will convey a public message of sustainability, Grove added. Ellinikon shows that landscape architects redesigning abandoned infrastructure can find opportunities to reinvent legacy concrete. But he acknowledged there is a cost to mining and crushing concrete on site, which can only be reduced through economies of scale. In projects where this isn’t feasible, “landscape architects can help grow a marketplace for recycled concrete products that can be specified.”

While these strategies outline how Sasaki has reduced or avoided new emissions, the other side of the equation are the approaches for drawing down more carbon from the air.

One core approach is to simply increase the percentage of the project that is covered in plants and soils and only strategically use hardscape in highly trafficked central areas.

Among natural areas, “the highest carbon sequestering land are the wetlands. Those include rain gardens, daylighted culverts, green infrastructure corridor, and a demonstration salt marsh. However, these areas are less than two hectares and will only reasonably sequester approximately 500 metric tons. The highest total individual sequestering landscape is our 11-hectare Dry Mediterranean Mixed Forest, with an estimated 3,300 metric tons sequestered in the study period,” Hardy explained.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

“We can expect a total emission global warming potential (GWP) of 40,800 metric tons across all phases, which would reasonably take about 35 years for our softscape to offset. In 80 years, when the project’s landscapes will mostly reach their total ‘carbon carrying capacity,’ we will likely net sequester an additional 37,000 tons.” This means the project will become carbon positive, storing more carbon than it emitted, and then continue to function as a carbon sink far into the future.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park shows the importance of calculating estimated carbon emissions from the get-go and letting the carbon priorities — the essential need to reduce emissions and increase sequestration — guide the design.

For Hardy, the support of the client has been critical. “Their exceptional commitment to be on cutting edge of sustainability from the beginning of the process and ‘leap frog’ other developments in Greece” enabled Sasaki to establish a climate-responsible framework for the project.

“The important part of the story is that through this process we were able to advocate for big moves towards a climate positive direction. Now we are better prepared to advocate for low-carbon strategies as we move into construction.”

With ETM Associates and LDK Waste Management, Sasaki’s team developed a low-carbon operations and maintenance manual that includes “recommendations for an all electric fleet of maintenance vehicles and landscape maintenance machinery, a large scale compost tea and composting program, and integrated pest management standards.”

Foster + Partners’ master plan also established important guiding principles. The park will integrate with the surrounding new developments, which will include a “waste management facility, enabling a source for our compost and compost tea.” In addition, a large-scale wastewater treatment plant will generate safe, treated water for irrigation.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Light-rail networks along the coast and through the park, along with a new bicycle network, will help get residents and visitors out of their cars, reducing transportation-related emissions.

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park / Sasaki

Most Read DIRT Posts of 2022

ASLA 2021 Professional Urban Design Award of Excellence. Repairing the Rift: Ricardo Lara Linear Park. Lynwood, California, United States. SWA Group / SWA Group / Jonnu Singleton

Before looking ahead to what’s happening in landscape architecture in 2023, we also look back to learn what was of greatest interest to readers over the past year.

Readers wanted to know how landscape architects can best advance climate action through advocacy, planning, and design. Popular posts sought to answer the questions: What does the Biden-Harris administration’s ambitious climate legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — mean for landscape architects and communities? How can landscape architects best design nature-based solutions to climate change?

In a similar vein, the most read contribution from ASLA members explored the significance of the Green New Deal Superstudio, with its focus on “decarbonization, jobs, and justice” and its call for landscape architects to become more engaged in national, state, and local climate policy development (and politics). wkshp/bluemarble, a collective of emerging professionals, argued that “it is crucial for landscape architecture to change if we are to have a meaningful contribution toward a habitable future.”

2022 was also the height of Olmsted 200, an exploration of the life and legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted, who is considered the founder of the profession of landscape architecture. He set the field’s DNA as he leveraged a mix of advocacy, planning, and design approaches to achieve his goals.

Readers were interested in the contemporary reframing of Olmsted led by Sara Zewde, ASLA, Ethan Carr, Rolf Diamant, Kongjian Yu, FASLA, and many other landscape architects and academics. Olmsted’s letter writing, journalism, planning, and design work were all part of his life-long mission to create democratic infrastructure, improve public health, and abolish slavery. But his exclusion of Native Americans in early National Park planning also left lasting destructive impacts.

ASLA members: Want to write an op-ed about a topic important to you? Please reach out and tell us what you are passionate about at info@asla.org.

The Inflation Reduction Act Prioritizes Landscape Architecture Solutions to the Climate Crisis

The Act recognizes and funds landscape architecture approaches to address climate change — from active transportation projects like Complete Streets and recreational trails, to nature-based water infrastructure, community tree planting, ecosystem restoration, and more. Additionally, the legislation makes significant strides in addressing environmental and climate justice and ensuring underserved communities receive resources to adapt to a changing climate.

Inglewood’s New SoFi Stadium Upends the Old Sports Arena Model

Nestled between the runways of Los Angeles International Airport, the bold SoFi Stadium by landscape architecture firm Studio-MLA and architecture firm HKS sets a new standard for sports arenas, breaking the conventional “suburban fortress” model by opening up the arena to the sky, air, and nature, and blurring the lines between stadium, botanical garden, and public park.

A Moveable Forest in the Netherlands

“We asked ourselves — if we could move 1,200 trees through a city center for over 100 days, then imagine what else we could do,” said Bruno Doedens, a Dutch landscape architect and land artist, who created the wonderful Bosk public art installation in the city of Leeuwarden with his collaborator, the late Joop Mulder.

Best Books of 2022

Over the holidays, delve into new books on history, design, and the environment that inform and inspire. Whether you are looking for the perfect gift for your favorite designer or something to read yourself, explore THE DIRT’s 12 best books of 2022.

Presidio Tunnel Tops: Infrastructure Designed for 360 Views and Fun

“It’s a new vision for this area of the Presidio — open public parkland. Before, the perception was the Presidio was a kind of commercial office park. Our goal was to invite the public in with disarming and sometimes obvious elements. On opening day, there were over two thousand children in the playground,” said Richard Kennedy, ASLA, with Field Operations.

To Climate Proof Notre-Dame, Paris Looks to a Landscape Architect

“What we are doing is using shade, humidity, wind, and water to lower the temperature in the heart of Paris,” explained Brussels-based landscape architect Bas Smets, who has won an international design competition to redesign the landscape around Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.

Yosemite Shaped Olmsted’s Vision of Public Parks

In a new book, Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea, Ethan Carr, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, and Rolf Diamant, a professor at the University of Vermont, argue that the work and writings of Frederick Law Olmsted, the founder of American landscape architecture, inspired the creation of parks to benefit the public.

Interview with Sadafumi Uchiyama: Designing Peace and Harmony

Uchiyama: “An object is tangible — visible and touchable. We conceive what it is and generate feelings. But a void, or nothing, makes us think. In some ways, it actually frees us to change the mode, or forces us to change the mode of thinking, by not thinking. If you have all objects, there is friction. Having the void space provides lubricant for our thinking.”

The Green New Deal: What’s Next for Landscape Architects?

wkshp/bluemarble: “The Superstudio marks an inflection point for landscape architecture. Grounded in policy and the context of climate change and social unrest, the Superstudio is the landscape architecture community’s public acknowledgement that our work is deeply intertwined with politics.”

Nature-based Protection Against Storm Surges

“Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was a wake-up call for NYC and made the city realize it needed to better prepare for climate change,” said Adrian Smith, FASLA, vice president at ASLA and team leader of Staten Island capital projects with NYC Parks. Due to storm surges from Sandy, “several people in Staten Island perished and millions in property damage was sustained.”

Landscape Architecture in the News Highlights (December 1-15, 2022)

Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts / Sahar Coston-Hardy, Affiliate ASLA, courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand

Mayor Wu Announces Release of Franklin Park Action Plan – 12/13/2022, City of Boston
Developed by a design team led by landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand along with Agency Landscape + Planning and MASS Design Group, “the Action Plan is a comprehensive vision for the future of the 527-acre park, widely considered landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s crowning achievement and the conclusion of a trilogy of great parks that includes Manhattan’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.”

Palm Beach Town Council To Review Plans for Phipps Ocean Park Redesign – 12/10/2022, Palm Beach Daily News
“[The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach] underwrote the $160,000 cost for a phased master plan for the project, and is working closely with Miami-based landscape architect Raymond Jungles, Inc. on design development.”

New York City’s Popular Online Tree Map Gets a Big Update – 12/9/2022, Bloomberg News
“The online tool now shows granular, tree-level data that highlights the public health benefits and economic contributions of urban trees.”

LA County Board Adopts Updated Park Needs Assessment – 12/6/2022, Spectrum News 1
“The LA County Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously adopted a countywide assessment of park needs identifying priority areas for development of recreational facilities, and calling for efforts to transform ‘degraded lands’ such as landfills and oil fields into open spaces, especially in lower-income communities.”

Boston City Hall Plaza Reopens – 12/6/2022, World Landscape Architect
Sasaki partnered with Shawmut Design and Construction and Skanska to implement the City of Boston’s vision of an inclusive, welcoming front yard for downtown Boston.”

Nations Must Link Climate and Nature Crises, or Risk Failing to Address Both – 12/5/2022, American Progress
“As the U.N. conference on biodiversity begins, participating nations must do what those at the recent climate change conference failed to accomplish: acknowledge the link between the climate and nature crises, setting up governments to take bold action on both.”

Trust is the Foundation of Milwaukee’s Equitable Playspace Program

Dream Build Play community engagement / Milwaukee Recreation

“Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the most segregated city in the U.S. One third of Black residents face extreme poverty. It also has the one of the highest rates of Black incarceration,” explained Pamela Zimmerman, FASLA, who runs the Dream Build Play program with Milwaukee Recreation, at the ASLA 2022 Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Francisco.

As part of the innovative Dream Build Play program, playground and playfield renovation projects were selected from a data-driven equity map that identified the most underserved communities. The city found that 62 percent of its public play spaces were either in “fair or poor” condition — and all of these were in communities that had experienced a history of redlining and predatory lending. Worst-off play spaces were put first in line for renovation.

Ensuring Equitable Access to Milwaukee’s Playfields / Milwaukee Recreation
Map of historic redlining in City of Milwaukee / courtesy of Milwaukee Recreation

“We are tackling playgrounds in communities with high levels of poverty and crime, with growing populations that are adding pressure to schoolyards,” Zimmerman said.

In their tours of the sites, Zimmerman and her team found many of the fair-to-poor sites had no shade and cracked asphalt. “We can’t do our programs, can’t feed kids in these spaces.”

Six years ago, Milwaukee initiated Dream Build Play with a budget of just $1.8 million; today, that’s up to $49 million in completed and in-progress projects.

“We now have four full-time landscape architects, work with 37 landscape architects in six firms, initiated 73 community engagements, completed seven renovation projects, and have eight in the works.”

Dream Build Play community engagement / Milwaukee Recreation
Dream Build Play community engagement / Milwaukee Recreation

Looking back on the first years of the redesign effort, Zimmerman also relayed one core lesson: “it’s hard to build credibility but easy to lose it.”

For example, one mailing error for a community engagement flyer meant that community members didn’t receive word until two weeks after the public hearing happened. Zimmerman walked for 10 miles one weekend, going door to door with new flyers to rebuild trust.

She also opened new lines of communication, hiring additional staff to answer phone calls and listen to concerns from community members.

These conversations often go beyond playgrounds. “In a community dealing with trauma from violence, schoolyard renovations become a much different situation.”

Her engagement is also personal: a number of community members Zimmerman has collaborated and engaged with have been murdered in shootings.

Amid the many struggles these communities are facing, “it’s important to keep building something positive,” she said.

Site design group, ltd., a Chicago-based landscape architecture firm, has been designing many of the updated playgrounds for Milwaukee.

ALBA School, one of the first projects from 2017, included a “vivid painted play surface,” explained Brenda Kiesgen, a project manager with the firm.

ALBA School, Milwaukee / Milwaukee Recreation

“While simple and low-cost, it has been successful.” Parents and students participated in the design process, and students use it to play a range of games, Zimmerman said.

For Greenbay Playfield, which was redeveloped in 2019, Zimmerman’s team ramped up community engagement efforts. “We had 125 people in person and showed images of alternatives. We asked the community which they preferred. We found ways to connect and listen.”

Greenbay Playfield, Milwaukee / Scott Shigley, courtesy of site design group, ltd.

As the pandemic started, community involvement in the planning and design process was re-envisioned to ensure equitable engagement. “We were on the phone, used the Internet; we re- crafted our approach.”

At the same time, with the growth in the program’s budget, schoolyard renovations became increasingly more sophisticated, weaving in more equipment, adding texture and materials, and stormwater management systems.

In one instance, community engagement involved back-tracking to maintain that community trust.

The community-approved design for the Carmen Playfield originally included a basketball half-court, splash pad, playground, and a Tuj Lub court.

Carmen Playfield, Milwaukee / site design group, ltd

Some of the community had wanted a half-court because of concerns about illegal gambling that could come with a full court. But later, other community members argued that a full court was needed for it to be a positive, inclusive space. “So we pivoted and redid the design,” Kiesgen explained.

Worth noting: the renovated public spaces includes Milwaukee’s first court for Tuj Lub, a 5,000-year-old sport played by the Hmong immigrant community. “It is kind of like shuffleboard with hard plastic tops. It had no precedent in Minneapolis. We talked to tons of suppliers and explored samples.”

“People ask us: why so much public work?,” said Bradley McCauley, ASLA, managing principal at site design group, ltd. “We want to do something for communities. But we have to do a lot of public projects to make it work.”

The firm, which was founded by Ernie Wong, FASLA, is focused on sustainable and equitable public spaces. “It’s important that a community loves what we do, because if they don’t, it won’t last.”

This focus on bottom-up design is particularly important with communities that have experienced purposeful disinvestment. Involving these communities can help create a sense of identity and positivity.

McCauley said his firm seeks to “design artful play spaces that weave in exploratory learning,” natural materials, and stormwater management systems.

Greenbay Playfield, Milwaukee / Milwaukee Recreation
Stormwater management systems at a renovated playfield / Milwaukee Recreation

“Universal access is also a focus. We design for children on the spectrum so they have places of reprieve and get away from the activity. For children who have been traumatized by violence, it’s also important they have a place to go.”

Greenbay Playfield, Milwaukee / Scott Shigley, courtesy of site design group, ltd

The Q&A brought up a question about how to manage the emotional toll of work in communities grappling with violence and poverty.

“If a community engagement doesn’t work, try something else. What is important is to have relationships in the community,” Zimmerman said.

“Keep the focus on the end goal — the change you are making — or it can rip your heart out. Self care is good,” McCauley added.

Landscape Architecture in the News Highlights (November 16-30, 2022)

Ellinikon Metropolitan Park. Athens, Greece / Sasaki

Abandoned Greek Airport To Be Transformed Into a 600-Acre Coastal Park – 11/28/2022, CNN
“Designed by US architecture firm Sasaki, the design aims to provide much-needed green space to the Greek metropolis.”

Hood Design Studio Creates an Inhabitable Landscape for NVIDIA’s Campus in Santa Clara – 11/28/2022, The Architect’s Newspaper
“We wanted to move away from an ornamental function to create more usable space connected to the daily practice of work,” explained studio director and principal Alma Du Solier, ASLA.

Snøhetta Brings Fresh Air into a 1980s Landmark – 11/25/2022, Architectural Record
“The Snøhetta team, which included landscape architect Michelle Delk, ASLA, was inspired by Manhattan’s small pocket parks that are integrated with the urban fabric but act as welcome retreats from it.”

Surfacedesign Introduces a Lush Garden with Native Vegetation to an Underused Backyard in San Francisco – 11/18/2022, The Architect’s Newspaper
“’More and more, there is a move away from tamed, manicured landscapes towards something more connected to a larger ecological condition,’ Surfacedesign partner Roderick Wyllie, FASLA, told AN.”

Voters Pass Historic Climate Initiatives in ‘Silent Surprise’ of US Midterms – 11/18/2022, The Guardian
“While the economy and abortion rights drove momentum behind the midterm election this year, voters in cities and states across the US also turned out to pass a number of climate ballot initiatives.”