The memorial to Mexico’s victims of violence looks like it has been dropped from the sky by an angry God. Welcoming it is not, with its rusted slabs the size of movie screens standing next to a busy intersection.

Nor is its mission clear. [...]

But then, you walk a little closer and the slabs begin to speak. — nytimes.com

“What I find so fascinating about the Presidio is that, in the heart of this military machine, there was a huge planting programme,” Goldsworthy says, referring to the fact that the park’s 300-acre forest was planted by the US military between 1886 and 1900. “They had quite a sophisticated sense of landscape,” he says. “They read the landscape in the way that sculptors do—or at least the way I do.” — theartnewspaper.com

Earlier this week, we published the winners of the 2013 AIA Institute Honor Awards with eight projects from around the world being recognized in the category "Regional and Urban Design." One of the lucky award winners is Superkilen, an urban park master plan in Copenhagen designed by BIG in collaboration with landscape architects Topotek1 and artists' group Superflex. — bustler.net

The design is based on the universal notion that you need to sacrifice something in order to make something new. Every product is a compound of different pieces of nature, whether it is a cell phone, a car, a stone floor or a wood board; they have all been harvested in one way or another. Our project is about trying to harvest something as gently as possible so that the source of what we harvest is displayed in a pure, pedagogic and respectful way... — Visiondivision website

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. — bustler.net

Corner’s plan identifies five main areas in Freshkills, each with distinct offerings, designed and programmed to maximize specific site opportunities and constraints. Planned features include nature preserves, animal habitats, a seed plot, walking and bike paths, picnic areas, comfort stations, event staging areas, and every other amenity you could possibly ask for in a public park. — blogs.smithsonianmag.com

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. — latimes.com

Rotterdam-based landscape architects West 8, together with local practice IROJE architects & partners, have recently won the international competition for the master plan of Yongsan Park, Korea. The park will be the first national park inside a South Korean city. More importantly, it will give ultra-dense Seoul some badly-needed green space and will be similar in size to New York’s Central Park. — bustler.net

The team led by James Corner Field Operations has been selected as the winner in the international Navy Pier Redesign Competition. The Pierscape concept is part of the larger vision for Chicago's famous Navy Pier called The Centennial Vision, which seeks to make the "People’s Pier a truly iconic and world-class destination as it approaches its 100th anniversary in 2016." — bustler.net

What’s the best place to build a wetland? How about at the site of an old MTA bus lot in South Los Angeles? It took more than $26 million and nearly three years to complete the transformation from parking lot to urban wetland. Open to the public as of February 9, the new South Los Angeles Wetland Park that doesn’t only efficiently process storm water runoff–it also provides crucial community green space. — blog.archpaper.com

Des Moines Water Works, working in partnership with Iowa State University Department of Landscape Architecture, recently announced that Sasaki Associates, with RDG Planning & Design and Applied Ecological Services (AES), is the winning team of the Water Works Parkitecture Competition. — bustler.net

Dutch firms LOLA landscape architects, Deltavormgroep, and Piet Oudolf have won the commission for the extension of the historical park Groot Vijversburg in the north of The Netherlands with their submission “Star Maze”. The team has won the commission through a national tender, for which five teams were selected. — bustler.net

Diller Scofidio + Renfro have won the Aberdeen City Garden Project design competition which seeks to transform the center of Aberdeen, Scotland. New York City-based DS+R collaborated with local Scottish architects, Keppie Design and landscape architects OLIN, on this project and emerged as winners from a head-to-head race with another finalist team led by Foster + Partners. — bustler.net

International design collective HAO / Holm Architecture Office, in collaboration with New York-based VM Studio, has received first place in a competition for the re-design of the Coleman Oval Skate Park in Manhattan.
Nine New York design firms were invited to participate in the competition, which was sponsored by Architecture for Humanity and a Gamechangers grant from Nike [...]. — bustler.net