Landscape Architect: Sam Caswell
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Architecture Spotlight #40 | Eichler Elegance BY by Elemental Design Group | Palo Alto, California
Specializing in custom garden design, award-winning landscape architect, Rhadiante Van de Voorde, principal of Elemental Design Group, shares her design phil...

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In its current form, Memorial Park doesnt feel like 1,500 acres, planning consultants say. But it could, if a renewal-minded master plan under development successfully resolves natural and man-made barriers to a more cohesive, connected environment thats ecologically sound.

That a park divided cannot thrive was one of several messages about Memorial Parks future shared last week, at a public reveal of early design concepts. Technical experts from a range of specialties have teamed up to develop a long-term design proposal and strategy to restore, preserve and enhance the park experience for all Houstonians, not just those residing near it.

The planning phase is a third complete, too early to expect a final design for the parks renewal and management, consultants said. They did acknowledge how Houstons get er done tradition might find the timeline a bit confounding.

Still, the vision is sharpening its focus after a years worth of robust public input, park-related research, open houses, data gathering and analysis, interviews, digging (both literal and figurative), polling, workshops and outreach efforts, now assessed and considered.

Were listening...We really want to get this right for the city, landscape architect Thomas Woltz said. His award-winning firm, Nelson, Byrd Woltz, is spearheading a consortium of about 70 experts, most of them local, as they seek a healthy, sustainable future for the park.

The ongoing collaboration to plan, implement and, importantly, fund a new master plan teams up Memorial Park Conservancy, Houston Parks and Recreation and Uptown Houstons TIRZ. The latter has bankrolled many of the studies so far and plans to contribute $100 million to $150 million toward the projects implementation.

Preliminary findings and early design concepts floated at the meeting included one very ambitious one that would dramatically alter the landscape: a land bridge formed above an 800-ft. section of double tunnel accommodating Memorial Drive, which currently separates the parks northern and southern sections.

Renderings showed how new acreage atop the tunnels could support more prairie, ponds and pathways while reconnecting some of the parks fragmented sections. Its implementation would signify the park rising triumphantly over the road, Woltz said.

There are, however, other impediments to park connectivity.

Currently, the 1,500 acres fall into 24 segments formed over time by an assortment of infrastructure and concentrated pockets of designated activities. Woltz said a more integrated use of acreage and amenities would improve park use and enjoyment.

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Memorial Park Makeover

Serene scene: Lake Burley Griffin provides a haven for many species of bird. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Keep the hard-edged clutter away from Lake Burley Griffin and respect this designed urban lake as a national rarity.

These are the aims of Juliet Ramsay, who has nominated the lake for the National Heritage List.

"There is no other city lake in Australia that has such a central designed lake and landmark feature," says Ms Ramsay, who has a background in landscape architecture and heritage, and specialises in cultural landscapes.

Ms Ramsay's nomination is on behalf of Australian members of the International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes, of which she is a member. The committee is a non-government organisation for cultural heritage professionals.

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The nomination captures the outstanding planning, engineering and landscaping that create Canberra's magnificent centrepiece.

The proposed heritage listing notes Walter Burley Griffin's knowledge of natural geography and appreciation of space in design. The Molonglo flood plain's natural terrain needed only a little help from the designer to transform it into outstanding ornamental waters, and change the gentle slopes of the foreshores into parklands.

Inspired by the great US landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted,Mr Griffin loved geography and botany.

"He gave to Australia a unique landscape vision to make a city where landscape features, low-level buildings and an abundance of spaces are the most significant features," Ms Ramsay writes.

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Lake Burley Griffin a national rarity

Art meant for public enjoyment was stolen for private profit. When San Francisco revamped the Embarcadero, the project included bronze plaques and figures. Some of those have gone missing.

"Public property goes missing, I guess that is stealing," said Dan Hodapp, landscape architect with the Port of San Francisco, which owns the waterfront stretch of property. "There are very resourceful people in the city from all walks of life. We ask that they respect public property for the enjoyment of others."

The missing items include bronze discs embedded in the sidewalk that depict San Francisco Bay animals and birds, and rectangular strips with words that tell the story of the waterfront. When one is missing, it's a like a page torn out of a book. You don't get the full story.

"Some of the components have a recycling value to some individuals." Hodapp explained. The bronze fabricator for the project, Gil Hernandez from South Bay Bronze, told KTVU a stolen bronze plaque that weighs about eight pounds can get about $1.50/lb at a scrap metal recycler. Hernandez said he's replaced dozens of stolen bronze items along the Embarcadero.

"How do they even pry them up from the ground," asked Steve Busichio as he ate lunch on a sunny Wednesday afternoon along the Embarcadero. "I didn't know you could possibly do that!"

The Port is working with the San Francisco Arts Commission to take inventory of what public art is there and what is missing, and figure out better ways to keep public art from getting into private hands. "We go back to the fabricator, have these re-poured. When we do, we look at stronger ways to put them in," Hodapp said. "We try to learn from the experiences we have on the waterfront to make this as good as we possibly can."

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Bronze artwork stolen along the Embarcadero

The sky will be the limit during the initial planning stages to restore the LSU lakes, the project's lead planner said Thursday (Sept. 25).

Kinder Baumgardner, a landscape architect with SWA Group in Houston, answered questions from reporters in Baton Rougefrom a spot overlooking the six-lake system's biggest water body, University Lake.

Cost, of course, will steer what can be accomplished. But Baumgardner said the first goal is to pinpoint exactly what the community wants from the lakes and then deliver the vision. Cost analysis and sorting out who pays for what will come next, as well as a potential paring down of the design elements in necessary.

Many cities "would kill" to have such a beautiful natural environment perched in the middle of an urban environment, he said. But the challenges that brings with it are complicated ones, which his team will explore to find solutions that meet both the ecological needs of below thelakes' surface and the community's needs for the recreational space around them.

Part of his firm's task is to identify funding sources to execute the plans. Those may include a bond issue, donations or a combination of public and private funds. Most projects like this one, he said, are done these days through such a combination of public and private dollars.

"I'm guessing that's probably going to be the answer," he said.

Baumgardner joined Jeffrey Carbo of Lafayette in Baton Rouge Thursday to begin formal work on a master plan to restore the ecological soundness of the lakes and design 45 acres around them for recreational use. BRAF, which raised $750,000 in private fundsto hire theplanning team, along with other stakeholders,selected the team in June among a number of candidates for the project.

They will meet with leaders from LSU, the city-parish government, BREC and an advisory committee established by theBaton Rouge AreaFoundationcomprised of a number of stakeholders.

Plans will include:

-Recommendations for shoreline improvements with dredged materials, such as a trail system.

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LSU lakes restoration project planners begin work in Baton Rouge

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Best new residential building: Cabin 2 by Maddison Architects embodies the idea that a house can be landscape. Photo: Will Watt

Rooted among the Mornington Peninsula's melaleuca trees, Cabin 2 embodies the idea "that a house can be landscape", according to its architect, Peter Maddison. With blackbutt plywood floors and stringyback internal lining and cladding, the Blairgowrie building that "grows out of the land" won the best new residential building at this year's Australian Timber Design Awards, announced on Thursday.

Maddison's landscape metaphor complements the house's dominant building material. Indeed we regularly invoke allusions to timber when we describe the city as the "built environment" and the street having a "fine grain". Optimistically, it perhaps suggests a renewed appreciation for this precious yet richly diverse natural resource.

Today we prefer to express the materiality of the grain and its natural colour and are less likely to paint or mask our weatherboards. Preservatives can maintain a particular shade of spotted gum brown or jarrah's almost black red or it can be left to weather and go permanently grey. In Maddison's case, he chose to lime the stringybark "to take the honey-colour out and to make it all softer on the eye".

The interior of last year's award winner, the Fairhaven residence, employed just one timber. It was as if the house had been carved from the heart of the tree itself. Architect John Wardle exposed blackbutt's subtleties: its clear fine grain, its lack of knots and its consistent colour. "It's often more powerful to use one material purposefully and strongly, rather than having a series of materials that need to compete," he says.

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Consistency is also at work in the House in the Woods, which gave Wilson Architecture this year's award for best renovation. On a large, heavily forested block in Donvale, the architects integrated the interior spaces with the landscape.

"They used spotted gum's durable nature as decking and carried it through inside for continuity," says Stephen Mitchell, sustainability program manager from the Timber Development Association. "It's the same timber, just polished inside."

Timber's ability to withstand the elements is rated on a durability scale from one to four. Hardwood timbers such as iron bark and spotted gum are class one timbers that last longest. Coating timbers can protect them from moisture impregnation and fungus.

"In Victoria, where the environment is not as tough [as Queensland], it's cooler and there's not so much sunlight so you can get away with lower durability timbers when you use them externally," says Mitchell.

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Cabin 2 by Maddison Architects "grows out of the land" to win Australian Timber Design Awards

By - Associated Press - Wednesday, September 17, 2014

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) - Shreveports long awaited dog park is closer to fruition now the city has entered into a contract with landscape architect Lloyd Overdyke.

Shelly Ragle, Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation director, tells The Times (http://bit.ly/1mewCUS ) the contract - with a budget of about $26,000 - was finalized at the end of last week.

The public will be presented with Overdykes working concept once hes met with the Shreveport Dog Park Alliance and the contract is routed through city purchasing and mayoral offices. The latter process is expected to take 10 to 15 days.

The city council approved moving forward with selecting a dog park designer in January, and bids opened May 8. Despite past contentions, Ragle says dog park plans are moving forward.

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Information from: The Times, http://www.shreveporttimes.com

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Shreveport dog park 1 step closer to reality