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ASLA survey finds increased demand for nature-based solutions to climate change among landscape architects

2024-05-31T08:00:00-04:00

The latest survey of landscape architects released Wednesday by the American Society of Landscape Architects includes updated information on incumbent design trends and project valuations, indicating a further shift in priorities nationwide under the looming threat of climate change.

According to the survey, significant (10% or more) increases in the demand for climate-based solutions have been recorded by at least 70% of all respondents. State and local governments are the most common source of demand in terms of clients. Stormwater management and reduced carbon emissions transportation alternatives such as walkability improvements and bicycle infrastructure make up the leading list of solutions, and almost half of those surveyed said their construction costs were more expensive than that of traditional projects.

Comparing these findings to the ASLA's 2021 survey, the most popular solutions for ecosystem degradation, extreme heat, wildfire, flooding, sea-level rise, and drought rem...

James Corner Field Operations announces name change and restructuring

2023-09-11T15:53:00-04:00

James Corner Field Operations will be continuing under a newly-announced partnership renamed Field Operations after 24 years in reflection of what it says are the diversity, character, and experience of its new leadership team and staff members.

The newly branded firm announced its transition from a sole proprietorship and has named Sarah Weidner Astheimer, Richard Kennedy, and Lisa Switkin as new Partners. They join Founding Partner James Corner and new Associate Partners Megan Born, Isabel Castilla, Tatiana Choulika, Matt Grunbaum, Jayyun Jung, Veronica Rivera, Karen Tamir, and Hong Zhou in the new partnership model, which they hope continues the success built on projects such as the New York High Line and San Francisco Presidio Tunnel Tops, among many others.

“This new structure elevates some of the field’s most skilled and experienced professio...

The ASLA Fund selects ten women as 2023-2025 Women of Color Licensure Advancement Program recipients

2023-09-08T18:28:00-04:00

The Fund of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has just announced its second class of the Women of Color Licensure Advancement Program recipients for 2023-2025.

The program provides each with a $3,500 stipend to cover the costs related to the Landscape Architectural Registration Exam (LARE), along with exam prep, other resources, and 1-on-1 mentorship experience from a licensed professional landscape architect.

Cornell AAP Associate Professor Valerie Aymer, Curtis + Rogers Design Principal Aida Curtis, and Alexandra Mei of the St. Louis-based Christner Architects selected ten winners of the program’s second cycle, which is funded by a $100,000 donation from former ASLA President Wendy Miller and three others from the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB).

“[The] ASLA has steadfastly supported and defended licensure across the country, and the Woman of Color Licensure Advancement Program is a natural extension of this commitment,” CEO Torey C...

Landscape architecture is now officially a STEM discipline, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

2023-07-12T17:03:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has designated degrees in landscape architecture as a science, technology, engineering, mathematics (or STEM) discipline upon the advice of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), announced by the organization today (July 12).

The designation helps both academics and practitioners in the expanded field gain recognition for the scientific nature of their work, which increasingly helps both government and private interests mitigate against the impact of climate change while performing other tasks that are critically important to the health and safety of the environment for citizens throughout the country.

"The STEM designation finally reflects the reality of the discipline of landscape architecture. Our work is fully dependent on science and technology, from understanding soils at the level of microbial interactions and nutrient exchanges, which keep our urban canopy alive, to coastal adaptations informed by continuously evolving ...

ASLA will send two observer delegates to UN's COP27 for the first time

2022-11-03T17:51:00-04:00

A two-person delegation from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will be present as observers of next week’s COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in an unprecedented move first announced yesterday by the organization.

Landprocess founder Kotchakorn Voraakhom and Climate Positive Design founder/CMG Landscape Architecture principal Pamela Conrad will travel to the conference in order to present the ASLA Climate Action Plan to attendees, which is set for publication on November 12th.

The plan is an extension of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) Climate Action Commitment that was announced at last year’s summit. The 27th edition is taking place under a rather unique set of circumstances colored by an ongoing land war and a recent UN report that called for up to $6 trillion in annual green investments in order to combat its updated prediction indicating the world is now on track to warm between 2.1 to 2.9°C by the end of the century.

Related O...

The ASLA calls on members to support new congressional funding for heat mitigation effort nationwide

2022-10-24T16:06:00-04:00

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is now soliciting support for a new congressional effort aimed at bolstering heat mitigation strategies in vulnerable communities across the country.

The bill, formally titled H.R. 7534, was introduced by Democratic Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego and would enhance the ability of landscape professionals to design solutions that will mitigate the effects of heat on urban areas across through the establishment of a new grant program to be administered by HUD and the EPA.

Project types that will be eligible for funding after the establishment of the new act include pavement cooling, shade structures, cooling centers, green roofs, drought-tolerant vegetation planting, and other techniques.

Earlier on Archinect: Op-Ed: A Unique Moment for Landscape Architects

Further technical assistance will be provided to communities that meet the criteria outlined in the bill’s Environmental Justice rider, with each applicant required to produce doc...

Meet the first class of ASLA's new Women of Color Licensure Advancement Program

2022-06-06T12:38:00-04:00

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced its first class of Women of Color Licensure Advancement Program participants.

Ten women from across the country were selected to take part in the two-year program, which was created to provide support and mentorship opportunities to BIPOC women working towards their professional landscape architecture licensures. The aim of the program is to increase racial and gender diversity within the profession as taken from ASLA’s 2020 Racial Equity Plan of Action.

Launched in February, the program crucially provides up to $3,500 to cover costs related to the Landscape Architectural Registration Exam (LARE) for each participant in addition to the mentorship opportunities and preparatory coursework for each section.

“We are proud to take this first step to lift up women of color in our landscape architecture community, by providing them with the support network they need to achieve licensure,” ASLA President Eugenia Martin said i...

Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann on how she got her grimy informal title

2022-06-02T12:47:00-04:00

I am obsessed with resourcefulness. Maybe it’s because I’m from a big family. So when construction business as usual sends debris off to Maine because landfills are closed in Massachusetts, I call that out. I still can’t stand the word “sustainability” — it’s just common sensibility. I’m especially in love with concrete. One person sees it as debris. I see this wonderful patina. I picture who stood on that, I see the work on that surface and think, how beautiful is that?

Bargmann cited Robert Smithson and Eva Hesse as influences and pointed to a road trip as an early turning point in her career, saying that afterward she “launched into a holistic approach to my work.”

The University of Virginia School of Architecture professor and D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) Studio founder described her reaction to winning the Oberlander Prize in October, defending its namesake as a paragon of the same causes she herself has pursued within the world of landscape architecture and academia.

“The prize has really made me feel proud, pretty profoundly,” Bargmann told the Times for its new Visionaries series. “It kind of said, ‘Please do this.’ I think the jury did a pretty amazing job looking not necessarily at the number of built works but the impact that someone’s work has had, also in design education, and how willing someone is to take risks. Cornelia Oberlander was a pioneer. She was a risk-taker. It doesn’t happen enough in our discipline.”

...

The TCLF will honor Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture, with a new digital guide ahead of his 200th birthday

2022-04-14T15:20:00-04:00

In honor of the 200th birthday of perhaps the most revered figure in the history of American landscape architecture, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has produced a wonderfully illustrated digital guide to more than 300 of Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape designs.

Featuring landscapes from Maine, Massachusetts, Illinois, Canada, his home state of Connecticut, and 26 others, the guide offers a mapping system and database with important biographical information about his myriad employees and even more detail about the outsized impacts of his successor firms.

A daguerreotype of Olmsted writing in winter 1858 at Brookline, MA. Olmsted was an accomplished literary journalist during the Antebellum period before turning to landscape design full-time. Image courtesy National Parks Service.

The 20th in the TCLF’s series of “What’s Out There” guides, this edition gives equal weight to the 30 National Historic Sites and hundreds of other lesser-known designs associated with Olmsted, ...

NYC Parks invites landscape architects to reimagine greenspaces across the city

2022-03-23T17:25:00-04:00

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has issued a Request for Proposals in search of at least ten firms that will provide landscape architecture services for upcoming park improvement projects.

“We are seeking experienced design firms to advance projects that improve parkland across the five boroughs with a focus on equity, sustainability, and access,” said NYC Parks Deputy Commissioner for Capital Projects Therese Braddick. “The landscape architecture firms selected through this RFP will have the chance to make a lasting impact on New York City's park system by reimagining greenspaces for the communities they serve.”

While NYC Parks designs about 70% of landscape architecture projects in-house (its capital division employs nearly 500 team members, including more than 100 landscape architects), the department also works with consultants on a number of projects. The selected landscape architecture consultants will help ensure that various capital projects maximize th...

Nine architecture firms are currently hiring landscape architects, environmental impact specialists, and other sustainability focused positions

2021-07-15T14:03:00-04:00

Increased climate change issues have greatly influenced changes in architecture and design approaches. So how can homes, commercial buildings, and land exude better sustainability practices?

This week Archinect highlights nine firms that specialize in sustainable design measures to help improve land use and commercial and residential design projects. Whether you are a landscape architect, environmental impact specialist, or sustainability coordinator, don't miss these employment opportunities below.

*If you want to stay up to date with the latest job listings featured each day, be sure to visit the Archinect Job board. Interested in finding the latest job listings? Follow Archinect Job's Facebook, Twitter, and Architect Jobs Instagram for new job opportunities posted with 150 architecture jobs posted every week.

Chengdu Tianfu City Landscape. Image courtesy of Sasaki

Sasaki seeks a Sustainability Coordinator
Location: Boston, MA

Description: Sasaki's ange of projects with ambitious e...

American Society of Landscape Architects creates activity book to help kids learn about landscape architecture

2020-03-24T14:15:00-04:00

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recently created a fun activity guide to help children who are stuck at home during nationwide quarantines due to COVID-19 social distancing.

While many parents and guardians are adjusting to the changes these quarantines have made towards academic learning, the ASLA is providing families with a way to keep kids busy by introducing them to the world of landscape architecture. This free, downloadable activity book provides children ages 9-12 "the opportunity to see and sketch the many drawings, places, and landscapes created by landscape architects."

Aiming to provide additional ways to keep children engaged and busy during this challenging time of remote learning, the ASLA hopes the activity book will inspire new ways a younger generation can look at landscape architecture and its importance.

Landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels turn vacant Detroit parking lots into thriving parks

2019-08-23T09:00:00-04:00

Detroit natives can recall the neighborhood of Fitzgerald and its transition from a lively community to a vacant and foreclosed part of town. Today, the neighborhood is poised for change again, as landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels (SSM) work to help revitalize the community alongside the Fitzgerald Neighborhood Revitalization Plan with a series of design strategies that populate the neighborhood's vacant lots. In a recent Metropolis article, writes, "it’s a unique model for Detroit—or anywhere else—because it rebuilds equity not only by restoring what was taken but also by deepening residents’ relationships through the new landscapes."

With the aim of piecing together 26 lots connecting to and surrounding the Ella Fitzgerald Park, the plan is to create a linear greenway filled with native meadows and larger orchards within the neighborhood. Mortice writes, "the Fitzgerald Neighborhood Revitalization Plan weaves together refurbished single-family homes within a network o...

American Society of Landscape Architects publishes guide to universal design

2019-08-21T18:00:00-04:00

If we want everyone to participate in public life, we must design and build an inclusive public realm that is accessible to all. Public life can’t just be available to the abled, young, or healthy. The sizeable global population of people with physical, auditory, or visual disabilities, autism or neurodevelopmental and/or intellectual disabilities, or neuro-cognitive disorders will face greater challenges if we don’t begin to more widely apply universal design principles

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has published a guide to universal design meant to set the bar for universal accessibility in the landscape architecture realm beyond the largely quantitative requirements stipulated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

A statement announcing the guide written by Ian Dillon and Jared Green explains: “ADA standards, because of [their] focus on technical aspects of accessibility over experiential quality, often result in spaces that are still very challenging for people with disabilities to access, leaving them physically and mentally disconnected from public life,” adding, “Landscape architects and designers can apply universal design principles to create more inclusive spaces for underserved communities.”

According to the guide, “All public spaces should be physically accessible to everyone, regardless of their physical, cognitive, or mental ability. Specific areas of public spaces shouldn't be designed for people with spe...

Exhibition examines the social concerns underpinning the works of Frederick Law Olmsted

2019-07-01T17:25:00-04:00

Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform, an exhibition currently on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, examines how landscape architects and photographers concretized contemporary social critiques through their work in American cities during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Plan of Existing and Proposed Parks and Boulevard drawn by Daniel Burnham. Image courtesy of Harvard Libraries.

The exhibition highlights city plans, maps, photographs, and other archival materials to showcase how seminal urban design efforts by Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux, Charles Eliot, and Daniel Burnham were inspired and shaped by the photographic works of Lewis Wickes Hine and by the cultural concerns of social reformer Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine showing children playing in a tenemenet alleyway. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago.

Included in the exhibition are Olmsted and Vaux's plans for New York City's Central Park, Boston's Emerald Necklace, and Ch...

Charles Birnbaum, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, Gary Hilderbrand among 2017 ASLA Award honorees

2017-06-13T19:31:00-04:00

The American Society of Landscape Architects has bestowed their highest honors to a distinguished group of landscape architects, practices, and organizations in recognition of their influential contributions to the profession. This year's ASLA Award recipients include The Cultural Landscape Foundation founder Charles Birnbaum, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies for the Community Service Award, to name a few. Winners will be honored at the president's dinner on October 23, during the 2017 ASLA Annual Meeting & EXPO in Los Angeles.

ASLA Medal: Charles Birnbaum - highest medal bestowed to an individual landscape architect

Photo via The Cultural Landscape Foundation/Facebook.

The Landscape Architecture Firm Award: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol - in recognition of distinguished work that influences the profession

The National Museum of African American History and Culture. Landscape architect: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. Photo via GGN/Facebook.

(Clockwise...

Steve Saling, retired landscape architect with ALS, designs residence he can control by blinking

2016-07-08T13:38:00-04:00

Unwilling to accept a life utterly dependent on caretakers, [Steve] Saling designed a series of systems that let patients with ALS control their environment in the assisted living center with ...blinks and facial twitches. “The notable impact that ALS had on my ability to design is speed,” he said. “I am a lot slower. [But] Because much of my profession had been computerized and I excelled in computer-assisted drafting, I was still able to convey my ideas with a lot of precision.”

Read more about amazing architects who never let their disabilities get in their way:

Working out of the Box: Francis Tsai

Francis Tsai, previously featured on Archinect's Working Out of the Box, passes away

Building Voice: Visually impaired architect, Christopher Downey, lectures in Downtown Miami

The nuanced design of deaf spaces

First commemorative statue of Frederick Law Olmsted to be unveiled in North Carolina

2016-04-15T21:01:00-04:00

The first statue commemorating landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted will make its public debut in time for Earth Day at The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville next Friday, April 22. One would assume that Olmsted already has statues of himself in public parks across the U.S., considering that he is regarded as “the Father of American Landscape Architecture” and is the co-architect of New York City's fiercely loved Central Park, which he and Calvert Vaux were selected to design after winning a competition in 1858.

Finally achieving their long-time vision of building a statue of Olmsted, the Arboretum commissioned Philadelphia-based figurative sculptor Zenos Frudakis to design the 8-foot-tall bronze statue of Olmsted, who is portrayed holding an abstract topographic map. Frudakis spent the last two years working diligently to create a sculpture that embodies Olmsted's lasting significance in American landscape design.

Oil painting of Frederick Law Olmsted by John Singer Sargent, ...

People-streets link small L.A. neighborhood and $325MM Shenzhen transformation

2014-09-09T15:09:00-04:00

"Giving the boulevard back to the people... makes the streets habitable again," says Sean O’Malley of SWA.

How does a 10-block neighborhood intervention of volunteers in Highland Park, Los Angeles link to a $325 million streetscape and storm water infrastructure transformation in Shenzhen, China? “This is about giving the street and the boulevard back to the people,” says Sean O’Malley, Managing Principal of SWA, the landscape architecture, planning and urban design firm. Throughout history, China has been a country connected by the intimacy of village life: the chance encounter on the street, the smile of a passerby. Small streets that were once filled with people are now large boulevards of traffic, noise, and pollution. As China has grown rapidly, it has lost much of its connection to its past. “We aim to make the streets habitable again,” says O’Malley.

A major focus of the commission from the City of Shenzhen is the revision of a street system in the new urban core that was designed strictly for automobiles just a few decades ago. As part of a winning competition proposal, SWA stres...

Business Is Blooming For Landscapers

2014-04-24T13:45:00-04:00

“[...] data show the construction sector and many related industries are among the fastest growing private-company industries,” said Sageworks analyst Libby Bierman. “In the last year or so, the housing market really started to pick back up, which means more people employed real estate agents and construction firms for new or existing homes and buildings. [...] started to refresh the exteriors of residences and commercial real estate, using the services of professional landscapers.”

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?

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.

Work Increasing for Landscape Architecture Firms, Survey Shows

2011-07-28T18:56:04-04:00

Three in four landscape architecture firm leaders reported steady or improving billable hours and inquiries in the Q2 2011 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Business Quarterly survey. The national survey findings reflect continuing optimism for recovery in a key sector of the design and construction industry.

Economic conditions improve for landscape architects

2011-05-03T10:53:34-04:00

Market conditions continued to improve for landscape architecture firms, with firm leaders reporting renewed optimism for billable hours, inquiries and hiring in the first quarter of 2011, according to an American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Business Quarterly survey.

Shining a spotlight on L.A.'s landscape architects

2011-04-20T12:40:53-04:00

How to explain, much less minimize, the relative obscurity of L.A.'s landscape architects? There's no easy answer but our open spaces and preservation efforts give the issue added urgency.