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Mill River Park designed by The Olin Studio in collaboration with the Mill River Collaborative. Many people dream of cultivating their own garden after retirement, but the chairman of the not for profit organization Mill River Collaborative (MRC) is turning that into reality but in a much larger scale after he accepted the challenge to implement a world class park in his hometown of Stamford, in New England, US. Arthur Selkowitz had just retired from a successful career in the advertising industry when he was asked to manage the revitalization of the downtown area, crossed by Mill River. According to him, this non paid job has become his full time occupation. Although public investments are funding this improvement for Stamford, the government cannot afford the total cost of such a complex...Read More

This week’s Sketchy Saturday sees some of the regular artists feature along with several new entrants staking their claim to be featured to our rapidly growing Sketchy Saturday weekly feature. We always try to keep the judging process as fair as possible but have to admit with so many styles it is almost impossible to judge everyone with the same criteria, however that’s what I believe makes Sketchy Saturday so interesting, no two sketches are the same and the diversity on display always keeps things spicy. Congratulations to all of you who featured in this weeks Sketchy Saturday top 10, and you are all encouraged to submit more of your work, week in week out, giving your talent the world wide acknowledgment it so truly deserves. 10. Sushmitha.N,  a student of 2nd year architec...Read More

When Frederick Law Olmsted unveiled his plans for Central Park in 1858, the young profession of landscape architecture made its debut onto the world stage. Few projects since then have made such an impact on the meaning of parkland until the opening of the High Line five years ago this month. The 1.45-mile linear park (1 mile completed to date) has literally ‘elevated’ the concept of integrating cities and nature to mainstream status. Where Olmsted established the notion of a municipal park system to serve the needs of city dwellers to enjoy the outdoors, James Corner and his cohorts have proved that the natural and built environment can co-exist on an even more intimate basis. This seamless meshing of architecture and nature has long been a vision of landscape architects, but it took the ...Read More

A designer’s work influences other designers — and this is as true in the landscape architecture community as it is anywhere else. Because noticing creative projects is a key part of finding fresh inspiration, it’s helpful to observe some of the most influential landscape designs in the recent market and see what other designers are seeing. Checking out innovative designs provides new ideas and inspires new ways of creating outdoor spaces. With that in mind, here are a few of the most interesting and inspiring landscape designs currently out there, along with thoughts on why they’re important to landscaping architecture and design. 1. Lincoln Park SoundScape in New World Symphony Campus, Miami Beach, Fla. by West 8 With its trapezoidal pergolas and lacey palms, Lincoln Park Soundscap...Read More

Washington D.C.’s 11th Street Bridge Project Jury recently selected four outstanding design teams to develop designs for the city’s first elevated park. With some of the top landscape architecture firms at the helm, these teams will develop a concept to creatively reclaim an unused bridge spanning the Anacostia River between the Capitol Hill and Anacostia neighborhoods. The four teams, which are made up of landscape architects, architects and structural engineers, each received $25,000 to create full renderings and plans to be delivered by September. The teams are:  •       Balmori Associates / Cooper, Robertson & Partners / Guy Nordenson Associates •        OLIN / OMA / Arup •        Stoss Landscape Urbanism / Höweler + Yoon Architecture  / Robert Silman Associates •      ...Read More

In my home country of Brazil, landscape architecture is considered part of a five-year architecture degree and not as a separate discipline. In fact, landscape architecture is usually just the subject of two or three courses covered over two or three semesters. This means that in Brazil, we usually don’t have the opportunity to learn the many aspects of landscape architecture, such as planting, ecology, biodiversity and so forth. Because of this learning structure and my understanding of landscape architecture before moving to New Zealand, I have been predominantly against the idea of separating landscape architecture from architecture. My views, however, have since changed.  In New Zealand, landscape architects have largely different skills from architects. Here, architecture, archi...Read More

Innovative glow in the dark pathways, changing the way we experience the landscape. Imagine riding a bicycle at night on an unlit path that seems to glow from within. What if this energy saving path could be installed in a matter of hours instead of days? How about using this new material for playgrounds, roofs, and paths? Does it sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not. This revolutionary surface, appropriately named Starpath, has been developed by Pro-Teq Surfacing in the UK and was originally tested on a footpath in Cambridge, England. The 1,614 square-foot path took 30 minutes to cover and was able to be used in less that four hours. How to create a Starpath Starpath is applied in three layers: first, a polyurethane base, then a coat of light-absorbing particles and finally a durable...Read More

When I started teaching the University of Maryland’s landscape architecture digital drafting and mapping course, I scoured the web for the best resources and tutorials for my students. Since digital renderings have now become standard practice in landscape architecture, it’s important that students and professionals stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest time-saving tips and tricks. Below, I’ve curated a list of top ten websites that I’ve recommended to students over the years as the best web resources for realistic renderings. 10. PhongWith only a few tutorials, Phong makes our list because of the unique method he uses to create cut outs. You wont find this method anywhere else, but it has some dramatic effects. 9. ARCHIvitiminsArchivitimins’ main attra...Read More

Community leaders bound together and take on the initiative to turn an old unused industrial site into a thriving public park. Along the banks of the Bronx River, there once was a concrete-mixing plant that operated for more than 40 years. By the mid-1980s, the plant had closed. In the late 1990s, the fate of the site was to be determined at a public auction. Fortunately, visionary community groups, leaders, and partnerships came together to make sure that the site became a public park. With concrete molds everywhere, old factory-like structures occupying much of the real estate, two to three feet of concrete covering the site, and 32,000 tons of soil contaminated with petroleum, it might have been difficult to embrace the land’s potential. But community groups did not give up. A group tha...Read More