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Adrian Fisher is the world's leading maze designer, having created more than 700 mazes across 32 countries since 1979.
"I really do love my job," says the 65-year-old. "It's like I'm a big kid, and creating things that people can play in all day long - who wouldn't want to do that?"
— bbc.com
For 38 years, Adrian Fisher has been designing mazes from his southwest England-based studio. From classical hedges, to carnival mirrors with special effects, Fisher works with a variety of forms and in a variety of scales. His road to becoming the world's leading maze designer was unexpected. He... View full entry
The most important question related to the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side doesn’t have that much to do with its architecture.
It is instead: What kind of landscape stewardship can a presidential museum and library offer? To be located in Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Jackson Park, the project already has a heap of canonical landscape history to contend with. So can the Obama library make a great park greater?
— landscapearchitecturemagazine.org
"So this new landscape has the potential to improve upon the already very good. But for whom?," Zach Mortice asks in his piece for Landscape Architecture Magazine. "Will these grounds remain public and accessible for all South Siders and Chicagoans, free of charge?" View full entry
Even in this relentlessly vertical city, famous for walkways that feel like aerial labyrinths, you can’t levitate forever. Where the mountain rises up faster than the towers, you bump into a hillside and come back to earth. In Hong Kong, the ground is everywhere. — Places Journal
The terrain that weaves between streets, through public spaces, and beneath buildings in Hong Kong reminds observers of the tenuous relation between the city and its geology. Karl Kullmann photographs these zones of contact between the multilevel metropolis and the mountain, reflecting on the... View full entry
The University of Virginia School of Architecture has appointed Bradley Cantrell as the new chair of Landscape Architecture. Currently an associate professor of landscape architectural technology and director of the Master in Landscape Architecture degree program at Harvard University’s... View full entry
Just off the Columbia River, the Wanapum Heritage Center is a home for Wanapum culture and artifacts. The building form weaves solidity and light, from a protective repository enclosure that references traditional cliffside cave storage spaces to the glazed welcome area that evokes traditional fishing lanterns. The entry path aligns with the equinox sunrise, a Wanapum 'marker'. The center houses archival items alongside recording studios for oral history, and new gathering spaces. — Mithun, an integrated design firm
In response to the all-too-familiar “nature-deficit disorder” in society these days, participants in this year's competition had to create inventive “Playsages” that would inspire, if not remind, today's tech-savvy kids — and adults — to spend more time outdoors. Out of 162 proposals from 30 countries, six lucky designers had the winning schemes that will be exhibited during the 2017 International Garden Festival starting June 23. — Bustler
Here's a glimpse of the winning projects:↓ LA CHRYSALIDE by landscape architects Gabriel Lacombe & Virginie Roy-Mazoyer↓ PAYSAGE EUPHONIQUE by MANI↓ L'ESCALE by Collectif EscargoHAIKU by architects Francisco A. Garcia Pérez & Alessandra VignottoSOUNDCLOUD by Johanna Ballhaus... View full entry
The Trinity River Park, which will be 10 times the size of Central Park in New York, will be made up of 7,000 acres of the Great Trinity Forest, 2,000 acres of space between the Trinity River levees and 1,000 acres of already developed space.
MVVA’s design will build on municipal efforts to connect the river with the city. It envisions the space as a “beautiful and naturalistic network of trails, meadows and lakes living in harmony with the river”.
— globalconstructionreview.com
Related stories in the Archinect news: Results of the Dallas Connected City Design ChallengeA look at some cities revitalizing their blighted riversNational Geographic takes a closer look at the world's great urban parks View full entry
Landscape architect and innovative urbanist Diana Balmori has died at age 84, as announced by her firm's website. The Spanish-born Balmori, who founded her own firm in New York City at age 58, was known for her site-defining and inventive landscape architecture works, including the Abandoibarra... View full entry
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.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
The latest survey from ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, reveals that the 188 landscape architecture firms that responded to the survey are planning to hire fewer people and seem to have fewer stable billable hours than they did the previous quarter. Only 78.38 percent of... View full entry
An unmistakable irony creeps vinelike through Olmsted’s landscape theory: It takes a lot of artifice to create convincing “natural” scenery. Everything in Central Park is man-made; the same is true of most of Olmsted’s designs. They are not imitations of nature so much as idealizations, like the landscape paintings of the Hudson River School. Each Olmsted creation was the product of painstaking sleight of hand, requiring enormous amounts of labor and expense. — The Atlantic
For more on Olmsted and his parks today, check out some past articles:First commemorative statue of Frederick Law Olmsted to be unveiled in North CarolinaObama chooses Jackson Park as the site for his Presidential CenterAlbright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion... View full entry
The diversity of landscapes is fascinating. The northern edge is a meadow with wild grass, nut trees, poplars and elms, but venture deeper into the park, towards the three interconnected lakes at its heart, and the vegetation becomes denser and more characteristic of wetlands: various types of willow, Johnson grass and water lilies. — the guardian
"The wild wetland of Văcărești is a symbol of nature’s resilience. Without human interference, wildlife has reconquered this abandoned lake and transformed it into a green oasis in the middle of one of Europe’s densest cities" View full entry
The Pershing Square Renew initiative revealed Agence Ter and Team as the winners of the competition to redesign Downtown L.A.'s oldest public park, exactly two weeks after the four finalist teams delivered their final presentations. The winning consortium is led by French landscape practice... View full entry
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... View full entry
One thing, though, is different this time around. These days the city and county are busy investing money and lavishing attention on public spaces across L.A. — and even producing some from scratch...In a range of ways, Southern California is beginning to make up for neglecting its public realm for the bulk of the postwar era. — L.A. Times
With two park design competitions currently underway (linked below), Downtown L.A. is eager to boost its amount of green space. But will those ambitious plans pan out in a tricky cityscape? Christopher Hawthorne gives his two cents on the potential of each park. Previously on Archinect: Take... View full entry
