Archinect - News

SCAPE Wins Lexington Town Branch Commons Competition

2013-02-06T18:36:00-05:00

A five-member jury has selected the winner of the Town Branch Commons Design Competition in Lexington, Kentucky. The brief calls for the creation of a long, serpentine park following the path of a historic stream in downtown Lexington. From a shortlist of five finalists, the entry "Reviving Town Branch" by SCAPE / Landscape Architecture team was chosen as the winning proposal.

Other finalists were Coen+Partners, Minneapolis; Civitas, Denver; Inside Outside: Petra Blaisse, Amsterdam; and JDS / Julien De Smedt Architects, Copenhagen.

Previously: Five teams shortlisted for Town Branch Commons in Lexington, Kentucky

There is water that far down

2012-12-02T18:23:00-05:00

"You need to get concrete out of your head and replace it with greenery," Bödeker had thundered at the head of planning at the urban planning authority. The gruff German made such an impression that to this day, Saudi authorities continue to hire and recommend him. Image by Susanne Kölbl / DER SPIEGEL

Susanne Koelbl introduces the work of Richard Bödeker, a German landscape architect who has been working in Saudi Arabia for nearly 40 years. Bödeker Partners has played a key role in introducing green spaces to Riyadh and has pushed the limits in terms of making the desert bloom. However, one does wonder how green all that green really is, in a desert?

Seven Teams Shortlisted for New Art-Themed Park at West Kowloon Cultural District

2012-11-08T14:09:00-05:00

The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) announced today a shortlist of seven design teams that have been invited to submit technical proposals for the development of Hong Kong's first art-themed park, 14 hectares of landscaped public space for arts and culture at the West Kowloon Cultural District, by the waterfront in Kowloon.

The seven shortlisted design teams (in alphabetical order) are:

Cook Robotham Architectural Bureau and VOGT Landscape
Dennis Lau & Ng Chun Man with Grimshaw, West 8 and ACLA
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Olin and Urbanus
Grant Associates / Wilkinson Eyre / WSP
Gustafson Porter / Michel Desvigne Paysagiste / Foster + Partners
Hargreaves Associates with Ennead Architects
James Corner Field Operations

“Brick Garden” by PBC+L

2012-11-01T15:35:00-04:00

North Carolina architects Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee (PBC+L) recently received a 2012 Certificate of Recognition from the NC chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for their project, "Brick Garden," designed for the Triangle Brick Headquarters in Durham, NC.

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Biophilia" Pinterest Board

2012-10-12T14:28:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Biophilia.

↑ Cabbagetown Garden in Toronto, Canada by PLANT Architect Inc.

↑ Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, MD by GWWO Architects

↑ Galileo's Pavilion; Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS by Studio 804 (team member: Nathan Jarvis)

↑ Pine Creek Pavilion in Pine Creek, MT by Artemis Institute

↑ The Offices of Buck O'Neill Builders, Inc in San Francisco, CA by jones | haydu

↑ AEA Headquarters in Bronx, NY by Future Green Studio

↑ Home in the Hills in the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA by Geoffrey Holton and Associates (team member: David Waldorf, Photo: Muffy Kibbey)

↑ Tree Adventure in Philadelphia, PA by Metcalfe Architecture & Design

↑ Pelter Residence in Los Angeles, C...

Washington’s landmarks get an landscape architectural guide

2012-09-20T16:35:00-04:00

Smith is one of 20 landscape architects who have helped create a new online guide to the city’s important outdoor spaces, some world famous, others, such as the Civil War memorial at U and Vermont Avenue NW, not as well known. The Web site, The Landscape Architect’s Guide to Washington, D.C., was launched Sept. 13 by the American Society of Landscape Architects, and there is a version for mobile devices.

James Bond-style Pond and Parking Garage Entrance by HOSPER

2012-07-26T18:07:00-04:00

Earlier this week, we featured the urban square design GENK C-m!ne by Dutch landscape and urban design firm HOSPER. Here's another project by them we really enjoyed: an almost 8,000 square foot ornamental pond on top of an underground parking garage which rivals any James Bond supervillan lair. The fascinating garage entrance, which has won multiple design awards, is part of the larger urban and landscape master plan HOSPER drew up for the land of the historic Hageveld Estate, near Amsterdam.

Downtown Los Angeles' new Grand Park inspires grand hopes

2012-07-25T12:38:00-04:00

This week, after a $56-million renovation, that 12-acre rectangle from the top of Bunker Hill to the base of City Hall will be christened as L.A.'s Grand Park, providing downtown with its first sizable amount of open space.

How Thomas Jefferson Made L.A.

2012-07-09T15:48:00-04:00

Another bigger picture repercussion of the Act is the cognitive and cartographic dissonance that occurs in Los Angeles where the Jeffersonian city grid abuts a pre-existing Spanish or French grid.

KCET's Jeremy Rosenberg continues his column Departures with a running theme "Laws That Shaped LA" with Rhett Beavers, ASLA, who elaborates on the conjunction of several grid types as they have influenced the way Los Angeles constructed and experienced.

AllesWirdGut Wins Bauhaereprais for LUX - Place de l’Académie

2012-06-28T18:17:00-04:00

Viennese architecture practice AllesWirdGut has just won the prestigious Luxembourg Bauhaereprais (builders award) in the category 'Space and Landscape Design.' At a festive gala this week, the firm was presented the award for its project LUX - Place de l'Académie, the architectural design on a former steel mill in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.

The Trash Heap of History

2012-05-01T19:35:00-04:00

As contemporary governments and citizens increasingly demand that reclaimed landfills be many things to many people — energy producers, social nodes, memorials — and also that they interface with local infrastructure, we would do well to study the historical precedent of Monte Testaccio... [whose] longevity and vitality make it an ideal model of what a landfill can become: an agent of civic engagement and an urban catalyst. This is the promise of landfill reclamation.

The reuse of waste and remediation of landfills have inspired some of the most innovative contemporary landscape and urban design projects. On Places, Michael Ezban looks back two millennia and explores Monte Testaccio, the great garbage dump of imperial Rome. In this enduring landform — "a mountain of detritus in a city of storied hills" — he finds a dynamic precedent for landfill reclamation.

Finalist Entries of DC’s National Mall Design Competition now on Display

2012-04-10T20:48:00-04:00

This week, the Trust for the National Mall opened the exhibition featuring the twelve final design concepts of the National Mall Design Competition in Washington, D.C. [...] The submissions, created by ten of the country’s design heavy hitters, re-envision three prominent National Mall locations: Union Square, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and Constitution Gardens.

60 Seconds With Lily Jencks

2012-04-09T14:44:00-04:00

When she was Growing up in Scotland, Lily Jencks's parents would hold weekend seminars for their circle of academic friends. "At age 5, I had to define my generations' attitudes on topics such as 'feminist spirituality,'" said Ms. Jencks, who, at 31, runs two London-based landscape design firms: LJA + Land, which she founded in 2008, and JencksSquared, a new company through which she collaborates with her father, the architectural theorist and designer Charles Jencks.

Kathryn Gustafson Receives Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture

2012-03-26T13:40:00-04:00

Kathryn Gustafson, director of Seattle landscape architecture practice Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and partner of London design firm Gustafson Porter, is the recipient of the annual Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This honor is given to a preeminent architect from any country who has made a significant contribution to architecture as an art. Gustafson is only the third landscape architect in 57 years to be awarded the prize.