Landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and London's Gustafson Porter recently received the eighth annual Obayashi Prize in Tokyo. Established by the Obayashi Foundation, the prize is awarded to a recipient whose work is in tune with the Foundation's mission of supporting interdisciplinary design research in relation to cities and urbanism. — bustler.net

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