Three sites in California the Watts Towers, Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Desert Museum in Joshua Tree and the"Bay Lights" installation on the Oakland-Bay Bridge have been named to a list of 11 "at-risk" sites by The Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, D.C.

These places join eight other at-risk sites around the United States, including the Wells Petroglyph Preserve in northern New Mexico, which is facing problems of erosion, as well as the garden at the Frick Collection in New York City, under threat due to proposed expansion plans at the museum.

"Landscapes often die quiet deaths when you're dealing with the elements," says foundation President Charles Birnbaum. "It can be wind or it can be earthquakes. Unless landscapes are cared for, they can reach the tipping point. What this list does is to try to prevent that from happening."

Begun in 1998, the foundation raises awareness about issues of landscape design.

"Lots of institutions will have information on their websites about the architect of their building or their collections, but when it comes to landscape there often is nothing," Birnbaum says. "What we want to do is teach people how to see and value landscape and the people who shape those landscapes."

The at-risk list was launched in 2003 as a way of drawing national attention to places that are threatened with neglect, demolition, poor maintenance or lack of funding. This year's theme revolves entirely around land-based art and includes art installations and other projects in California and New York, as well as Iowa, Washington and Michigan.

Watts Towers and Purifoy's outdoor museum were included because they face preservation challenges and for the unique qualities they bring to the landscape.

"What's so inspiring about Noah Purifoy and [Watts Towers creator] Simon Rodia is that they're driven, they're unrelenting, they're passionate," says Birnbaum. "What they created was of a singular vision."

The Watts Towers are under the conservation stewardship of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has been overseeing repairs and maintenance on the site in conjunction with the city of Los Angeles and the Department of Cultural Affairs. Last year, the museum secured a grant to bring in engineers from UCLA to study the stability of the structures, which have been plagued by cracks and loose bits of mosaic elements.

Purifoy's Outdoor Museumpresents its own challenges. Namely, weather and vandalism damage to the sculptures, which are on 10 acres of open land in Joshua Tree.

Read more from the original source:
California's 'at-risk' cultural landscapes include Watts Towers

MLA Applications

We are still accepting applications for the Master of Landscape Architecture program.

Eight University of Minnesota members of the ASLA-MN Student Chapter visited Toronto, Canada August 24 through August 29th.

Although Toronto is double in size compared to the Twin Cities, there are important similarities, including a cold climate, post industrial waterfront urban city. It boasts of new world-renown landscape architecture projects by leading international firms.

The students visited these projects, varying in scale, form, and type, rural to urban. They researched these sites prior and made a booklet including the history of Toronto, and background information on each site to be visited.

Firm and site tours by professionals added to the excitement of the trip. Janet Rosenberg, from Janet Rosenberg & Associates, gave the students a firm tour and explained her HTO Park, one of the waterfront projects the students had visited. Roberto Chiotti, principal of Larkin Architects, generously offered a tour of his off-the-grid straw bale house, and his expertise as he walked the waterfront with the students. Dennis Winters, principal of Tales of the Earth, gave a tour of Evergreen Brick Works Park and explained his recent project associated with the Don River Valley.

Check out the blog the students kept each day: http://www.aslamnsc.tumblr.com.

Thanks to the many donors who made this trip possible: ASLA-MN, Metropolitan Design Center, donors to the GoFundMe website, and all who participated in the two fundraisers at Damon Farber & Associates and the lovely home of Chris Behringer.

On Sunday, March 10 students of the University of Minnesota MLA program made their Netherlands rendezvous to commence their field studies for The Cultural Ecology of Water in the Netherlands traveling studio. With backpacks and bikes, sketchbooks and snapshots, for the next four weeks students are immersed (get it?) in a direct experience of how the Dutch landscape is a symbiosis of culture and water. Follow their blog to experience daily narrative and photographic accounts of their progress.

Nearly three years after traveling to Itasca State Park and commencing their MLA program of study, 25 MLA students are currently focused on their capstone studio projects. The spring semester LA8555 Capstone Studio is the culmination of the MLA educational process and is the first step in transition from the academy to a professional role in Landscape Architecture. The studio allows students an opportunity to pursue an independent course of inquiry into a variety of contemporary issues and project sites, of their choosing, within the discipline of Landscape Architecture.

Originally posted here:
Department of Landscape Architecture

Artist Janet Zweig will reveal her plans for the Westmoreland Museum of American Art's Bridging the Gap project at two public meetings this week.

The museum is working with Zweig, landscape architect Fred Bonci, PennDOT and the city of Greensburg to renovate the North Main Street and North Maple Avenue bridges in tandem with an $18 million renovation and expansion of the museum building between the two streets.

The fences on the bridges will be rebuilt to include viewing windows, which will allow pedestrians to look out toward the museum.

We're working with (Zweig) to incorporate her artwork into our landscape, said Bonci, who is heading landscape architecture for the museum. We want to make those bridges kind of a highlight as people drive by.

The public meetings revealing the artwork will be held 6-7 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30-4:30 p.m. Wednesday in room 003 of Greensburg Salem Middle School.

Zweig, a Brooklyn artist whose work can be seen at the Mellon Park Walled Garden in Pittsburgh, said she was given a clear mission by the museum.

They want to bridge the gap between downtown Greensburg, local residents and the museum on the hill, she said.

Two of the viewing windows on the bridges will look out onto anamorphic illusions artworks on the museum grounds that will appear in their intended form only when viewed from the bridges. They will look different from any other perspective.

You're going to notice some kind of three-dimensional imagery that draws your eyes to the museum, Bonci said.

Zweig is keeping the nature of the works secret until next week's meetings, but she dropped a few hints.

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Artists plans to bridge the gap in Greensburg to be shown this week

LITTLE ROCK A landscape architect and an auto refinish technician who performs shows as Elvis Presley are challenging Arkansas incumbent land commissioner.

Republican John Thurston, 41, of Little Rock has served as state land commissioner since 2011. He was formerly employed as a staff member at Agape Church in Little Rock and a certified religious assistant in the Arkansas prison system. He and his wife, Joanna, have five children.

Democrat Mark Robertson, 60, of Little Rock is the head of MESA Landscape Architects. A landscape architect and land planner, he previously worked as a surveyor for the U.S. Forest Service and in the construction industry. He and his wife, Le Ann, have one child.

Libertarian Elvis D. Presley, 48, of Star City is an auto refinish technician at Camps Custom Paint and an entertainer who performs shows as Elvis Presley. He legally changed his name in 2006. He ran for governor as a Libertarian in 2010. He and his wife, Valerie, have five children.

Candidates were asked three questions and allowed up to 150 words for each answer. Each responded via email.

What in your background qualifies you to be land commissioner?

Presley: I will answer your question with a question. Are there any qualifications for the office? I think if a person can balance a checkbook, then he or she could be qualified in a sense. I do believe that honesty is a start.

Robertson: I have over 35 years of experience working with Arkansas lands and land-based issues across Arkansas as well as globally. I have a real understanding of the communities within our state, and how our land can be used as an asset to help communities, and public education, thrive. As a citizen advocate Ive worked with the state Legislature on issues with significant importance to our local communities, bringing both sides of the aisle together to get things done for Arkansas. This experience will be invaluable in establishing policy to benefit Arkansas.

Thurston: I am the current land commissioner and have served since 2011 with a proven record of honesty, integrity and transparency. I set out four years ago to make this office a leader of ethics and transparency and I have done just that. Aside from my duties in the office I also serve as president of the Western States Land Commissioners Association and have received support from the Arkansas Realtors Political Action Committee.

If you are elected or re-elected, what plans to do you have for the office?

Read the rest here:
Q-A: Democrat, Libertarian challenge land commissioner

LITTLE ROCK A landscape architect and an auto refinish technician who performs shows as Elvis Presley are challenging Arkansas incumbent land commissioner.

Republican John Thurston, 41, of Little Rock has served as state land commissioner since 2011. He was formerly employed as a staff member at Agape Church in Little Rock and a certified religious assistant in the Arkansas prison system. He and his wife, Joanna, have five children.

Democrat Mark Robertson, 60, of Little Rock is the head of MESA Landscape Architects. A landscape architect and land planner, he previously worked as a surveyor for the U.S. Forest Service and in the construction industry. He and his wife, Le Ann, have one child.

Libertarian Elvis D. Presley, 48, of Star City is an auto refinish technician at Camps Custom Paint and an entertainer who performs shows as Elvis Presley. He legally changed his name in 2006. He ran for governor as a Libertarian in 2010. He and his wife, Valerie, have five children.

Candidates were asked three questions and allowed up to 150 words for each answer. Each responded via email.

What in your background qualifies you to be land commissioner?

Presley: I will answer your question with a question. Are there any qualifications for the office? I think if a person can balance a checkbook, then he or she could be qualified in a sense. I do believe that honesty is a start.

Robertson: I have over 35 years of experience working with Arkansas lands and land-based issues across Arkansas as well as globally. I have a real understanding of the communities within our state, and how our land can be used as an asset to help communities, and public education, thrive. As a citizen advocate Ive worked with the state Legislature on issues with significant importance to our local communities, bringing both sides of the aisle together to get things done for Arkansas. This experience will be invaluable in establishing policy to benefit Arkansas.

Thurston: I am the current land commissioner and have served since 2011 with a proven record of honesty, integrity and transparency. I set out four years ago to make this office a leader of ethics and transparency and I have done just that. Aside from my duties in the office I also serve as president of the Western States Land Commissioners Association and have received support from the Arkansas Realtors Political Action Committee.

If you are elected or re-elected, what plans to do you have for the office?

Continued here:
Q&A: Democrat, Libertarian challenge land commissioner

Landscape Architect Carolyn Ramsbottom has graduated from Lincoln University but a special piece of design work she did while studying there two years ago will be coming to fruition on Labour Day.

While at the School Of Landscape Architecture (SoLA) in 2012 she and fellow student Gerrard Thomson won a competition to design reflective, cultural-based gardens for the Places of Tranquillity project.

These will being publicly unveiled next week at 3pm by project partners Lincoln University, Healthy Christchurch and Greening the Rubble. It has taken time to find suitable land, but they have finally been built on the corner of Manchester Street and Cambridge Terrace.

Both former students have gone on to careers as landscape architects but the design was their first public project and they are excited to see it come to reality.

Ms Ramsbottoms garden has a South East Asia theme and she has been involved in the layout right down to digging holes and putting in the plants.

"It had to be (at the time) a 'temporary garden', able to be done by hand where possible and to be transferable to a permanent site later down the line. Working within these constraints as well as trying to create a tranquil space, and a great design was a challenge," she said.

"It's amazing really and I still can't quite believe it. The prospect of seeing a design placed in the city centre is a real privilege and I can't wait to see it completed."

"I just hope that it does what it says on the tin and gives a feeling of tranquillity, whatever that may be for an individual. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so time will tell whether it's a success," Ms Ramsbottom said.

She now works as a landscape architect and nursery assistant at a tree nursery and has free rein to design projects.

Mr Thomson said his design was for a South Pacific Garden with a brief to create a tranquil place for both native and immigrant Maori and Pacifica people to relax and reflect.

See the rest here:
Former Lincoln students' garden plans finally bear fruit

2014 Pinnacle Award 2013 Top Landscape Design Luxury Pools Magazine by NJ Landscape Contractors Residential & Commercial Landscape & Pool Architecture Firm Located in Bergen County NJ -14X International Award Winner. Worldwide Design Services

Cipriano Landscape Design is a 14X international award-winning residential and commercial landscape architecture firm. Since 2006, our NJ design firm has earned 80 design awards for extraordinary works of landscape architecture, including swimming pool, landscape, and masonry projects of all sizes and styles. William Moore, NJ Certified Landscape Architect #823 heads the design team of Cipriano Landscape Design. Bill provides internationally acclaimed design services from our Mahwah, NJ office for homeowners all across the globe. Whether it is a custom pool design, or estate landscape ideas, Bill uses creativity, resourcefulness and experience to come up with innovative designs and intelligent site plans for our clients.

Bill joined our staff in 2004 and has excelled in producing functional luxury designs that not only look amazing but also meet every need of the homeowner. He possesses a real talent for gaining approval under challenging or strict municipal regulations in addition to his award-winning landscape and pool designs. Bill is 15 for 15 in various zoning, building and environmental variance approvals. To further ensure that you receive the backyard of your dreams, Cipriano employs a Certified Building Professional with the APSP, expert horticulturists, heavy equipment operators, master stonemasons and estate management professionals. Together, all of these services and skills allow Cipriano to design, build, and maintain luxury inground pools, landscapes, patios, outdoor kitchens and every other backyard amenity you can imagine.

Our 14-year-old design and build model for complete swimming pools and landscapes offers a convenient solution for busy homeowners looking to trust one qualified company with their entire project. The process preserves the intent and quality of the project as it passes from the design stage to the critical phase of construction. We do not simply design a pool, patio and landscape and leave you to do with it what you will. We offer homeowners the option of allowing us to make that design a reality with experienced, technical and detailed construction techniques. Numerous design awards are testimony to Ciprianos more than two decades of landscaping experience, and over a decade of custom inground pool construction, which we gladly pass on to our clients.

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Landscape Architecture Firm Bergen County NJ-2014 Pinnacle ...

Imagine a tour of Portland offered by landscape architects. They would probably take you off the beaten tourist path, perhaps to narrow Vera Katz Park.

Here, they would explain that the greenery was cleverly designed alongside the Portland Armory annex, the first building on the National Register of Historic Places to earn the highest green building certification, and the repurposed home of Portland Center Stage.

Yes, smart use of existing buildings, energy, water, nature and transportation are top topics for a profession focused on sustainable, urban design.

And landscape architects are in heaven here, according to the Landscape Architect's Guide to Portland, Oregon, a new digital guide to the city that can be viewed on a smartphone, tablet or computer screen, with links to downloadable maps and bike routes.

It's a great guide for visitors to become acquainted with Portland's five "quadrants" and for residents to be reminded of the city's leading role in providing parks and plazas, as well as less scenic waste management systems. There's even a nod to theMississippi Avenue Food Cart Pods and the Pearl District Brewery Blocks.

The free guide was researched and written by members of theOregon Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects to educate city leaders, urban planners and designers around the world.

At the Oct. 7 launch party at the urban-oasis Lan Su Chinese Garden, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said, "ASLA is one of the secret weapons for livability. The profession blends the built environment with the natural environment. This guide is a visual portrayal of the unique elements that we are so proud of here."

Portland's landscape architects -- from those who established grand parks in theearly 20th century to those creating waterfront parks and bicycle infrastructure today -- have played a crucial role in making the city a better place to live, said Mark A. Focht, president of ASLA and first deputy commissioner of Philadelphia Parks and Recreation.

"Landscape architects have long played a major role in designing the city's public realm, and the key spaces between buildings that serve as the connective tissue for communities," said Focht.

Lloyd Lindley, who heads his eponymous Portlandurban design, planning and landscape architecture firm, introduces the guide by explaining Portland's evolution since agrarian Native Americans civilizations and speculates about the future of sustainability, including renewable energy efforts.

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Guide to sustainable Portland: American Society of Landscape Architects applaud PDX successes

Landscape Architecture Drawing Skills
Why are Autocad and hand drawing skills so fundamental to landscape architects? If you want to increase your income and job placement rates listen to the compelling reasons why drawing is so...

By: Karen Kesteloot

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Landscape Architecture Drawing Skills - Video

Photo courtesy Lawrence Halprin Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin conducting a Driftwood City Discussion at Sea Ranch during a July 5, 1966, workshop.

Fifty years ago, a breathtaking, 10-mile-long, mile-wide strip of the California coast, 105 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was declared a privately-owned model community and opened for radically eco-friendly residential development. Owned and managed for 42 years as a sheep ranch, the new town was named The Sea Ranch (the The is mandatory).

Al Boeke, manager of The Sea Ranch for its new owners (Oceanic Properties, a division of Hawaii-based Castle & Cooke), enlisted the advice and support of Larry Halprin (who died in 2009), now regarded as the countrys most idealistic, farseeing, nature-loving landscape planner, to come up with a strict set of guidelines to prevent his dream development from turning into one more piece of suburbia-by-the-sea. Halprin, in turn, picked two architectural firms he trusted to realize his ideals, and demonstrate to subsequent designers, builders, and homeowners what could be done the integrate their buildings with this unique setting. Joseph Esherick was the most respected architect of the Bay Region Tradition at the time. MLTW (Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, William Turnbull, and Richard Whitaker) was a young Berkeley-based group of friends who had designed a couple of small but remarkably innovative houses in northern California, which had attracted Halprins favorable attention.

MLTW was invited to design what was called Condominium I: an interlocked redwood cluster of 10 individual homes under one common roof sloping down to the sea, punctured by mineshaft modern towers facing south. Each distinctive unit manipulates a common kit of parts, and has a different orientation to the ocean.

Finished in 1965, Condo I seems to grow out of the land, like a pile of elegantly shaped and assembled wooden boulders facing rock formations that rise out of the sea, forever washed and sculpted by climbing ocean waves. It went on to become the most famous building of its time in the country. Eshericks contribution was a family of six natural houses tucked under one of the many old cypress hedgerows that divide the grassy meadows, perpendicular to and behind the steep oceanside bluffs. They were designed in such a way that one is almost unable to say where landscape ends and building begins, particularly now that the hedgerows have grown to embrace the houses. Some even had sod roofsa conceptual statement found in later Sea Ranch housesto help hide their intrusive existence. As Esherick wrote, The ideal kind of building is one you dont see. Along with Eshericks welcoming village store, bar, and post office (signposted with Barbara Stauffachers stylized rams-head logo), these model buildings reflected Halprins kibbutz-bred ideals of an egalitarian, democratic community, with people and houses living lightly on the land.

Fifty years later, there are about 1,800 houses and 1,300 permanent residents at The Sea Ranch, California, 95497. Many non-residents also own property here, which makes them members of The Sea Ranch Association (TSRA), which became the legal owner of about half of the original 3,500 acres. When people buy a lot at The Sea Ranch, they simultaneously become members of the Association and legal owners of a parcel of the commons land open to all memberswhich includes many acres of legally protected ocean-fronting hedgerow and meadow land, as well as forested land east of the highway. Oceanic Properties saw its $27 million investment on the Sonoma County coast driven underwater by a nearly 10-year-long moratorium on building new houses and (effectively) selling new lots, the result of a 1972 California law designed to keep the states public coastline open to all. Oceanic decided to sell its unsold share of The Sea Ranch to the incorporated non-profit owners association it had created. Many of the nonresident owner/members today use their properties as second or vacation homes, which they rent out to visitors between their own stays. In recent years, some houses here have changed hands for a million dollars or more.

After generating a great deal of controversy and hostility (and many lawsuits) among property owners, the moratorium was ended in 1981-82 by a complex compromise agreement, which satisfied few. Even after 1982, disputes continued, occasionally becoming hostile and divisive. What have they been arguing about for more than 30 years, in what was intended to be a challenging but Utopian demi-paradise?

Many of Halprins original guidelines have been respected, and a common (perhaps too common) design language did emerge, one of irregular but simple wood-faced buildings that merged with or at least respected the landscape and their neighbors. But Halprins hopes for clustered housing, which left clear the meadows and bluffs, were overridden early in the day by Oceanic Properties decision to realign building lots to obtain maximum ocean views. By the end of the 1960s, Halprin had been dismissed by Oceanic. In 1969 Boeke quit, leaving planning and management in the hands of less idealistic administrators. This, as architectural critic and editor Donald Canty wrote in 2003, marked the beginning of the end of the heralded Sea Ranch plan.

Both Halprin and his principles for the development of The Sea Ranch had been all but canonized, if often disregarded, by 1983, when he held the first of three day-long workshops to re-educate residents about those principles, discuss benign, malign, and unavoidable changes over time, and (he hoped) put a stop to unorthodox and wayward growth. Halprin conducted similar workshops in 1993 and 2003. Sea Ranch residents apparently need to be reminded of the founders ideals once a decade.

Excerpt from:
The Sea Ranch at Fifty