Alex Skolnick rehearsing with Yacouba Sissoko - Planetary Coalition
Planetary Coalition is a world music project started in New York City by jazz, metal, any-style guitarist and writer Alex Skolnick and his artistic collaborator - architect landscape architect...
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Alex Skolnick rehearsing with Yacouba Sissoko - Planetary Coalition - Video
Strolling through Maggie Daley Park, stubble on his face and a yellow hard hat covering his graying red hair, Michael Van Valkenburgh paused before the contours of an undulating ice skating loop that will weave through a stand of evergreens.
"I see little Olympians in production here," said Van Valkenburgh, the park's chief designer, as his brown eyes settled on the concrete path for the "skating ribbon" in the emerging park. "That's gonna be, like, crazy popular."
You could say the same for Van Valkenburgh, 62, except he already is crazy popular, at least by the standards of his under-recognized profession. Revered for turning marginal pieces of urban land into magnets for people, the Brooklyn-based landscape architect is on a tear in Chicago.
Besides Maggie Daley Park, parts of which will open this fall, Van Valkenburgh and his firm have designed the 606 bike and pedestrian trail on the Northwest Side; a science quadrangle at the University of Chicago; and a just-announced park that will sit alongside a proposed 67-story Streeterville residential tower. The trail and the quad are expected to open next year. The park is sure to come up Monday at a public meeting on the skyscraper.
Van Valkenburgh, who got his master's in landscape architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a key player in the explosion of new parks that's transforming cities from New York to Seattle. It's been called America's second great wave of park building. The first came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shaped by such giants of landscape design as Frederick Law Olmsted.
"No one will have ever experienced anything like (Maggie Daley Park) in Chicago," said Chicago landscape architect Peter Schaudt, Van Valkenburgh's former student at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. "He makes growth one of his design elements. He doesn't put trees in a static composition and just wait 20 years. He likes to use plant material as an organic growth material that changes constantly."
Named for the Chicago first lady who died at 68 in 2011 of breast cancer, the 27-acre, $60 million Maggie Daley Park replaces Daley Bicentennial Plaza, a banal 1979 park built atop a parking garage in Grant Park's northeast corner. In 2012, the old park was torn off like a bad toupee, a move necessitated by the need to redo a failing rubberized membrane that protected the garage from groundwater. In Daley Bi's place is Van Valkenburgh's design, which incorporates the Cancer Survivors Garden and Peanut Park to the east. The piano-shaped park also offers some pointed contrasts with Millennium Park to its west.
Instead of straight paths and noisy throngs, the new park will have meandering walkways and quiet places for picnicking nestled in gently sloping "lawn valleys." Yet it will also harbor state-of-the-art play areas, including the skating ribbon, jagged climbing structures that will rise as high as 40 feet and a 3-acre play garden brimming with wood towers and other equipment you won't find in your local park.
Can Van Valkenburgh resolve these potentially conflicting identities one pastoral, the other almost carnivalesque?
Schaudt thinks so. Maggie Daley Park is "what Grant Park needs. It gets relentless after a while," he said, referring to a Versailles-inspired, Beaux Arts landscape that, while impressive from the air, can be intimidating on the ground.
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Architect brings fresh spin to Maggie Daley Park
Mandevilla can be grown on a trellis to add landscape privacy.
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Do you need some landscaping ideas that will allow you to enjoy privacy and quiet in your yard and garden?
It is not entirely possible to eliminate all of the annoying disturbances that are irritating, but there are solutions to minimize, filter and reduce many outside noises.
Here are some landscaping techniques to help reduce noise from traffic, pedestrians and noisy neighbors.
Sound barrier
One approach to decreasing the sound from nearby traffic is a sound barrier wall like the one you see along major highways. Made of stone or concrete, these are tall, large barriers that often can be unattractive and aesthetically unappealing.
However, they can be transformed to an attractive sound barrier with good design and the correct materials. Planting vertically with thick growing vines going up and over the wall, or incorporating an eye-catching design with stone or concrete can be pleasing to you and passers-by.
Fencing
Another alternative for minimizing irritating noises is attractive fencing. A fence made of wood with plantings growing on the fence will help break up light, irritating sounds that interfere with enjoying your yard.
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Creating privacy with plants
YUKON, Oklahoma -
This time of year begs for us to do more than just wiggle our toes in the water. We are jumping in pools any chance we get with this heat.
So, we went in search, and found some of the best in the state. Here's what we're calling the high-dollar dives of Oklahoma.
There is a little slice of heaven is in Yukon, where a family of six enjoys a backyard built for kings. The waterfall is the first thing to notice with an island right smack in the middle of one luxurious swimming pool.
They wanted this island in the middle of the pool where they could raft race around it. Its 85 feet long by 45 feet wide. So they wouldn't have to re-plaster the pool, they decided it would be a great upgrade to lay glass tile through the entire pool, Kelly Caviness said.
It's a rare choice to glass-tile an entire pool because of the extreme cost of it. The tiling alone was a two-and-a-half month project. But Kelly Caviness makes his clients dream designs come true, although, patience is key.
Most of our clients are like, 'hey, are we ever gonna get this thing finished?' It just takes forever, Caviness said.
Caviness Landscape Design has caught the attention of many TV networks with their extreme backyard pools and their features. This particular spot in Yukon boasts a deluxe outdoor kitchen and breathtaking scenery throughout.
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High-Dollar Dives Of Oklahoma: Yukon Luxurious Swimming Pool
A 24-home development is being proposed on Perry Hill Road, near Walnut Avenue.
The yellow line indicates where a 24-home development as well as two existing homes would be located, with Perry Hill Road on the right and Walnut Avenue on the top.
Perry Hill Estates is being described as cluster type of housing, and would be built at 88 Perry Hill Road, near the Block Farm and Highland Golf Club.
Two parcels totaling 13.5 acres would be combined to create a rectangular site. Two existing houses on the properties off Perry Hill Road would remain and became separate lots.
All the houses in the new development would be on individual lots, with an association formed to oversee some common areas, including the roads.
The land now is zoned for residential use and has about 1.5 acres of wetlands, including a watercourse. A sanitary sewer line runs through part of the property.
It also is hilly, with about a 50-foot drop in elevation from the Walnut Avenue side on the east to the Bridgeport Avenue side on the west. The land contains both fields and woods, and most of it was used for farming in the past.
James Swift, an engineer and landscape architect, and developer Ben Perry recently presented initial plans for Perry Hill Estates to the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC).
The developer is seeking IWC approval for the project before going to the Planning and Zoning Commission to apply for creation of a Planned Development District (PDD).
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A 24-home development is proposed for Perry Hill Road in Shelton
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An Elevated Ferret Alert
Posing as an interior designer, Michael stumps his new assistant who can #39;t escape the ground floor of a home due to a disappearing staircase. Then in an office waiting room, he frustrates a...
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An Elevated Ferret Alert - Video
Preview - An Elevated Ferret Alert
Posing as an interior designer, Michael stumps his new assistant who can #39;t escape the ground floor of a home due to a disappearing staircase. Then in an office waiting room, he frustrates a...
By: truTVEps
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Preview - An Elevated Ferret Alert - Video
