Three landscape architect-led teams have been named finalists by the city of Minneapolis to design the new two-block long park called the Commons near the new Vikings stadium. [...]

The three finalists are:

The Olin Studio, Philadelphia and Snow Kreilich Architects, based in Minneapolis
Hargreaves Associates, San Francisco, Damon Farber Associates, Minneapolis and VJAA, Minneapolis
WORKSHOP Ken Smith, New York and Perkins + Will, Minneapolis — bizjournals.com

Taking place on the island of Sandhornøy in the Arctic Circle region of Norway, SALT will host its opening festivities this weekend, starting August 29 to September 1. Founded in 2010 by acclaimed curator Helga-Marie Nordby and cultural entrepreneur Erlend Mogård-Larsen, SALT celebrates the rarely traversed arctic landscape and promotes Norway's contributions to art and design history. — bustler.net

Sprinkling city parks with recycled water may create a breeding ground for hard-to-treat microbes [...] Even after the recycled water is treated in a sewage plant, it may carry microbes, drug-resistance genes and antibiotics that had washed down the drain. Sprayed into the environment, that water can spread microbes that could cause difficult-to-treat infections, the researchers say. — Science News

When five of the nation's leading landscape architects gathered before their peers last weekend in Berkeley, the projects they discussed were located in Massachusetts and Minnesota, China and Spain. [...]

The issues and ambitions on display can be applied to any 21st century metropolitan region like ours, where the most challenging frontiers for growth lie in struggling with issues of growth and change; where the land in question is high-profile and politically charged. — sfgate.com

Team Lord of Toronto was announced today as the winner to design the new Canadian National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, Canada's capital.

The team's proposal, titled "Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival", was selected out of six finalists who were invited to present their concepts to a jury of professionals and then to the public during the national design competition. — bustler.net

Landscape architects — and anyone else who works directly with vegetation — need to acknowledge that a wide variety of so-called novel or emergent ecosystems are developing before our eyes. — Places Journal

Most people are not completely clear on what a landscape architect does, but according to Susannah Drake, founder of interdisciplinary design firm dlandstudio, it boils down to a mix of art, science, and politics.

“I care very deeply about the practicality and the sustainability, and I care about smart design detail. But fundamentally I think that design work, particularly in an urban setting, is about creating comfort, and beauty, and livability,” Drake said. — theepochtimes.com

There is an argument, however, that view anxiety is just indulgent, naive sentiment. Nostalgia, after all, was originally defined as an illness. The English may have invented the idea of the picturesque, which gives us a special attachment to an 18th-century notion of visual delight. [...] And what exactly is the difference between the hated wind turbine [...] and the delightful 18th-century windmills that John Constable painted? His were industrial scenes. Constable was a modern man. — telegraph.co.uk

"In short, the "Aqueduct Futures" exhibit provides a cogent and highly educational opportunity to learn about this important topic and history -- one that this author believes would positively serve anyone and everyone partaking of its waters to peruse and study" - Kim Stringfellow — KCET - ARTBOUND

A team consisting of Mecanoo, Michael van Gessel, DELVA Landscape Architects and Jojko Nawrocki Architekci has been selected to design the new Garden of the 21st Century with integrated exhibition pavilion at the Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw, Poland. [...]

Mecanoo will be planning the exhibition pavilion, while Michael van Gessel and DELVA Landscape Architects are in charge of the garden design. — bustler.net

Have a closer look into the Zaryadye Park design scheme by TPO Reserve with Maxwan Architects + Urbanists, Latz + Partner, and Buro Happold. The team recently won second place in the international Zaryadye Park competition in Moscow. — bustler.net

Diller Scofidio + Renfro has won the Zaryadye Park competition in Moscow. Set in the historic district of Zaryadye in downtown Moscow, the design competition was established to find an architecture and landscape plan to transform the 130,000 sq.m. former site of Hotel Russia into a multi-functional public park.

Coming in second and third place are TPO Reserve and MVRDV, respectively. — bustler.net