Tags: landscape architecture

Design Observer runs an interview with Adriaan Geuze, principal of landscape architecture firm West 8, on its approach to designing Governors Island Park.  He discusses the master plan for the park and how it accentuates the island’s natural attributes, location, and views, and how topography plays a pivotal role in the vision. 

Kerb, a progressive landscape architecture publication produced by the RMIT University School of Architecture and Design in Melbourne, Australia, is looking for submissions for its next issue, Paradigms of Nature: Post Natural Futures.

Are we steering in an ‘un-natural’ direction, or taking the evolutionary leap necessary to establish a more integrated mode of co-existence?

Dwell profiles Freshkills Park in its March 2011 “We Love New York” issue.  Land Use and Outreach Manager Carrie Grassi features as the story’s heroine, speaking candidly about the site’s transformation.  The writing and narrative of this piece, in particular, really resonate with our experience of the site and its shifting identity: it has a storied and contentious past, yes, and it makes for a complex sell, but it is also enormously beautiful, always evolving and full of such promise that it pushes us on in support of an ambitious vision.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15225376 w=500&h=300]

A follow-up (or preface) to Dana Gumb’s lecture: as part of its series of sustainable design videos (including the brownfield remediation piece we featured recently), the American Society of Landscape Architects has produced an animated video on designing landscapes to assist in stormwater management. 

The Freshkills Park Talks lecture series continues at the Arsenal on Tuesday, January 25th, with a talk by Dana Gumb, Director of the Staten Island Bluebelt at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.  Dana will be talking about sustainable and ecologically sound approaches urban stormwater management, through the lens of the Bluebelt, one of the most ambitious stormwater management efforts in the northeastern United States.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/17292335 w=500&h=400]

A simple video called From Industrial Wasteland to Community Park, produced by the American Society of Landscape Architects, demonstrates how contaminated brownfield sites can be returned to productive and public use through site clearance and phytoremediation of contaminated soils. 

The Winter/Spring issue of the Freshkills Park newsletter, Fresh Perspectives, is up on the official Parks homepage for Freshkills Park.  In this issue are a walk-through of the design for the first phase of South Park, a primer on composting toilets and how they work, and a history and guide to wetlands at the Freshkills Park site.

The NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and the Fellows of the Design Trust for Public Space have prepared and released a manual called “High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC.”  It’s a comprehensive design and construction manual for sustainable parks and open spaces and will henceforth guide the design, construction and maintenance of New York City parks, in alignment with Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030.

A beloved cultural landmark, Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport was the world’s first passenger airport and the site of airlifts during the Berlin Blockade.  After the site was closed to air traffic in 2008, the city held a design competition to solicit proposals reimagining the site as a public space incorporating the existing runways and beautiful terminal buildings. 

Landscape architecture and urban design firm James Corner Field Operations, designers of the master plan and early projects for Freshkills Park as well as of the High Line, have garnered another high-profile commission: designing a new nine-acre park on Seattle’s waterfront. 

Sneak Peak was a huge success!  About 1800 people joined us at the Freshkills Park site on Sunday to make and fly kites, canoe in the creeks, walk the site with an expert, ride a pony, pet a goat, make a bag or a birdhouse, learn about composting and recycling and energy efficiency, receive a free bike helmet or fitting, enjoy the fun music, cool crafts and awesome food and generally celebrate the potential of this fascinating and amazing site. 

One of the things we’ve learned over the course of this park project is that the Freshkills Park site has been a part of many, many people’s careers: Sanitation workers, engineers, equipment manufacturers, scientists, policymakers, designers, artists, philanthropists—we are constantly astonished to discover a new realm of expertise on this site with which we’re so familiar. 

We’ve been hard at work putting together the first open, public event EVER at the Freshkills Park site, which will take place Sunday, October 3rd!  ‘Sneak Peak at Freshkills Park‘ will not only be a chance to see the site’s hills and wetlands in all their autumn glory, it will also be a hybrid kite festival/street fair/series of special site tours! 

The annual meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is in Washington, D.C. this weekend, September 10-13.  The design and planning of Freshkills Park will be presented in one of many ‘Education Sessions’ by Ellen Neises, Associate Principal at James Corner Field Operations, and Tatiana Choulika, FO’s Project Manager for Freshkills Park. 

Open House New York, the weekend look inside what are normally closed doors of New York City’s architectural and design fascinatia, takes place Saturday and Sunday, October 9th and 10th this year.  Volunteers are needed.  Volunteers would assist with the weekend’s many programs, including tours, site-specific performances and discussions. 

The American Society of Landscape Architects has put together an online exhibition called Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes.

[The exhibition] highlights real-life examples of sustainable landscape design and its positive effects on the environment and quality of life. These spaces use natural systems to clean the air and water, restore habitats, create healthy communities, and ultimately provide significant economic, social, and environmental value.

The new exhibit at Wave Hill in the Bronx, called Remediate/Re-vision: Public Artists Engaging the Environment, opened on Sunday.  It showcases remediation- or sustainability-based public art projects since 2002 that have either been completed or are in the planning stages for parks and gardens. 

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/13491802]

The Olmsted Legacy is a one-hour documentary about the contributions of urban planner and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, visionary designer of many of America’s first great parks.  It features the voices of Kevin Kline and Kerry Washington. 

Urban Omnibus offers a review of two newly opened New York City skate parks, the 16,000 sq. ft. “street” course in Corona Park and the 15,000 sq. ft. “flow” course at Hudson River Park’s Pier 62.  Designer and skater Buck Jackson gives both parks the thumbs-up as replacements for the recenly closed Brooklyn Banks and Unisphere Fountain skate areas, thought he notes some concerns about early surface wear, need for additional shading and the use of more environmentally responsible construction materials.

Thanks to Connie Fishman and all who attended her talk in our Freshkills Park Talks series two weeks back.  It was an entertaining and educational look at the history and development of Hudson River Park, including a look at the never-realized Westway project and its legacy in the civic discourse about the park.