Working outdoors: Landscape architect Katherine Simmons enjoys the community perspective that drives local government.

Design of open space around buildings and infrastructure should not be an afterthought it should be considered at the start of projects, the principal landscape architect at Wyong Shire Council, Katherine Simmons, says.

"Landscape architects should be involved right from the site planning and analysis stage of a projectso there is a good balance of professionals involved in urban design," she says.

Simmons and her team at Wyong take a systematic approach to the development and integration of open space in the New South Wales central coast municipality and it has brought them national recognition.

A redesign of land at Blue Haven to form the multi-use Bamayi Reserve won a State Play Space award of excellence and a new park at Canton Beach, which is designed for use by children of all abilities, won a Playspace award in the 2014 Parks and Leisure Australia awards.

Advertisement

Simmons, who studied landscape architecture at the University of New South Wales, says people in her profession are involved in the design of anything other than buildings. This can include urban and public space, areas around commercial buildings and along freeways and foreshore reserves.

She chose her degree in a quest for a profession that would allow her to pursue interests in art, design, science and the natural environment.

After working in consultancy in Australia and Britain, she worked for Newcastle and Lake Macquarie councils, discovering she enjoys the community perspective that drives local government.

When she joined the staff at Wyong eight years ago, she began work on an assessment of parks, playgrounds and open space in the area.

Read more from the original source:
Government: Making the most of Wyong's open spaces

Real Estate News

Fashion designer Sarah-Jane Clarke and her landscape architect husband Dan Baffsky are kicking off what is widely anticipated to be a busy start to the year with the sale of their Vaucluse home.

Clarke, who with Heidi Middleton left the Sass & bide brand they co-founded last July, is hoping to trade up closer to the waterfront once she sells the 718-square-metre property.

An early-stage price guide of more than $6 million has been offered by Elliott Placks and Ashley Bierman, of Ray White Double Bay, ahead of the February 26 auction.

Sarah-Jane Clarke.

Formerly a duplex, it last traded a decade ago for $3.5 million but has been transformed since then into a five-bedroom sanctuary with a spacious parents' retreat, swimming pool and level lawn that manages both privacy and panoramic views to the city with all the style you'd expect from the creative couple.

Advertisement

Originally posted here:
Fashion designer Sarah-Jane Clarke selling her Vaucluse home

At least one member of the original committee that helped create the Moore County Veterans Memorial in Carthage thinks it is time to renew efforts to transform that area into a park.

Controversy erupted in the spring of 2012 when county officials disclosed that they had been approached by a company wanting to buy land next to the memorial for a Bojangles restaurant. Local veterans and veterans groups demanded that the county preserve land around the memorial and prevent development near it.

That summer, the county commissioners appointed the Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee to discuss the memorials future and how best to use the land around the site.

Meetings often resulted in clashes between county officials and veterans, ultimately leading to a stalemate over two competing plans to create a veterans park. That was in March 2013. The committee has not met since.

Last Tuesday, county commissioners dissolved the group. Board Chairman Nick Picerno, who proposed the action, said the county has no plans to do anything with that property. He called the committee an overreaction to a non-issue.

Rudy Hendrick, who served on the advisory committee and is secretary of the committee that led efforts to build the memorial in 2006, agreed that the advisory committee should be eliminated and that it was probably ill-fated from the start.

To me, it was a frustrating thing from the get-go, Hendrick said. I am not sure it was handled right. It was at a standstill. Daggers were being thrown in both directions.

But Hendrick said it is in the official minutes of a county commissioners meeting that nothing would be done until both sides are satisfied.

I am not going to be satisfied until it is developed into a park, she said.

Hendrick said supporters gathered signatures on petitions in support of developing the entire property into a veterans park. She said they have garnered about 6,000 signatures so far.

Here is the original post:
Memorial Remains Unresolved: Veterans Still Support Park Expansion

Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR
Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR http://landscapersportlandoregon.com/ Did you understand that many landscaping experts provide numerous more services than just ...

By: Best Portland Businesses

Here is the original post:
Landscaping Portland Oregon - Landscape Design Portland OR - Video

M. Paul Friedberg Biography: Becoming a Landscape Architect [7 of 7]
Like several events in Friedberg #39;s life, becoming a landscape architect was a response to circumstances. Interviewed by Charles A. Birnbaum, October 2006. Fo...

By: tclfsteward

Originally posted here:
M. Paul Friedberg Biography: Becoming a Landscape Architect [7 of 7] - Video

Description of the Head of the Harbor Project
Presented by Earl Goven, Landscape Architect, Blades Goven, Fairfield, Conn.

By: Nancy Chapman

Read this article:
Description of the Head of the Harbor Project - Video

An article in The Wall Street Journal listingThe Best Architecture of 2014includes UBs Solar Strand, calling the 3,200-panel, ground-mounted photovoltaic array a small but telling model of landscape architecture at its most forward-thinking.

Envisioning energy as part of the cultural and built landscape, the Solar Strandstands at the main entrance to UB's North Campus and provides a striking but practical campus gateway. The 750-kilowatt array generates enough energy to power hundreds of student apartments while offsetting the emission of nearly 400 tons of greenhouse gases annually.

At a time when fields of PV panels and wind turbine farms are a reality, planted in vast undifferentiated arrays that assault the eye, not to mention birds and other animals, Solar Strand offers a thoughtful alternative, writes Julie V. Iovine, the Journals architecture critic.

The array was designed by the celebrated landscape architect, artist and educatorWalter Hood, who was selected through an international design competition sponsored by UB.

The design competition, which attracted an initial field of 23 artists and landscape architects from around the world, called for a solar array that would be integrated into the campus landscape, accessible to students and the community, and representative of a new design vocabulary for solar installations around the world.

The project got its start in 2009 when the New York Power Authority approached UB with an interest in funding the construction of a conventional, ground-mounted photovoltaic array across several acres at the North Campus entrance. University leadership took the project to the next level, with NYPAs support, proposing to elevate design standards for the project through an international design competition.

Robert Shibley, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, UBs campus architect and chair of the selection committee for the competition, reflected on the design process in a recent article inDomus, an international architectural publication:

To transform a simple utility field into a land art installation, we mounted an international design competition that asked artists to consider solar panels as their medium and our campus gateway as their canvas. We were presenting the opportunity to make art from something that tended to be somewhat pedestrian, and that was increasingly subject to not-in-my-backyard obstruction. I think for some artists thats a very interesting challenge.

Hoods winning vision was to build the installation into the campus landscape. The 15-acre site features regenerating meadows, a meandering creek and vernal pools. Set in the background are the universitys chilled water plant and generator system.

The Solar Strands design logic is based on the strand concept: a linear landscape formation and DNA fingerprint. Groups of photovoltaic panels are mounted at staggering heights onto supports that stretch in three rows. Walkways run between the rows of panels, connecting the array with local roads, UBs Center for Tomorrow and naturally regenerated meadows and wetland areas that the public can enjoy.

More:
Solar Stand on Wall Street Journal list of Best Architecture of 2014

Jericho Contractors - Landscapers Auckland - Professional Landscape Design Auckland
(09) 537 6662 (021) 170 7547 Jericho Contractors have got all your landscaping needs covered thanks to their 20 years experience in the field. They offer quality work always delivered on...

By: Nice Traffic

Read more from the original source:
Jericho Contractors - Landscapers Auckland - Professional Landscape Design Auckland - Video

Landscapers Challenge Part1
Mark Brightwell is a well-respected and licensed landscape architect. His notable skill in conceptual design has earned him a reputation as one of the premie...

By: DianaH

See more here:
Landscapers Challenge Part1 - Video

Orlando Comas, Landscape Architect
2014 Award of Honor Video shown during the awards ceremony at the American Society of Landscape Architects Convention.

By: Orlando Comas, ASLA

Read the original:
Orlando Comas, Landscape Architect - Video