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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

Architectural commissioners on Friday will review plans for the custom house that seasonal Palm Beach businessman Peter Wood has commissioned to replace the one where Buffett and his wife, Jane, lived for years.

The Buffets sold the 1920s-era house at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. in 2010 to billionaire philanthropist Jon Stryker, who in turn, passed it on to Wood for a recorded $22.9 million last May. Wood wants to replace that house with a two-story Palladian-style residence featuring a partial basement and a two-story guesthouse. Harold Smith of Smith and Moore Architects executed the design. The propertys address, by the way, has been changed to 101 Via Marina, reflecting the name of the side street alongside the 1.6-acre lot.

The Estate Section property changed hands simultaneously with two others three months ago in a 2.6-acre deal that saw Corcoran Groups Paulette Koch and Dana Koch as the listing agents. Broker John O. Pickett III was on the buyers side of the negotiating table. Companies controlled by Englishman Wood and his business partner, British homebuilder Ken Parker, bought the three properties.

Under the auspices of Royalton U.S. Holdings, theyre planning a new spec house for the other oceanfront lot at 530 S. Ocean Blvd. Details havent yet been released.

Meanwhile, Pickett reports that an off-the-market sale is pending for a third property Tre Fontaine, the landmarked 1924 house at 61 Middle Road that Stryker restored and used as his personal residence. It was designed by society architect Marion Sims Wyeth, who lived there for 15 years. Stryker sold it and the vacant lot at 530 S. Ocean Blvd. for a combined $20 million.

Pickett had planned to list Tre Fontaine for sale, but he never got the chance. The house went under contract within a week after the big sale closed in May. Brown Harris Stevens agent Ben Stein brought the unidentified buyer to the negotiating table. No word yet on the amount that will change hands or when the sale will close.

Buffet fans, by the way, can still drive by the North End house he and his wife bought in late 2011 on Garden Road as well as properties he owns on Root Trail.

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And speaking of Jimmy Buffett The mayor of Margaritaville himself is featured in the Corcoran Groups new national Live Who You Are ad campaign. Celebrity lenser Annie Leibovitz photographed a barefoot Buffett at one of his Palm Beach homes, standing next to a vintage car in a yard that looks straight out of Key West.

Noted landscape architect Mario Nievera whose work can be a selling point in local real estate listings also is part of the campaign. Liebowitz photographed the principal of Nievera William Design partially submerged in a lushly landscaped swimming pool.

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Custom oceanfront home planned for Estate Section

Ask the Pool Guy: Meet John from XTier {Legendary Escapes}
Our friend John from XTier is a landscape architect, and we invited him to a recent open house at one of our newest pools. He was inspired by the creativity and artistry of the project, and...

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Ask the Pool Guy: Meet John from XTier {Legendary Escapes} - Video

The fall architectural calendar is packed with major events in Chicago, New York and Shanghai. Here are 10 worth watching.

Reclaiming the lower Manhattan skyline: More than 13 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the 104-story One World Trade Center will open and officially replace Chicago's Willis Tower as America's tallest building. The new skyscraper, designed by David Childs of the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, rises from a square, security-conscious base to a faceted, light-reflecting tower consisting of eight tall isosceles triangles. Billed as a symbol of American resilience, One World Trade Center will contain an observation deck in addition to its office space. The first tenants are expected to begin occupying the tower in November.

Lucas Museum China designs Chicago: In a much-anticipated unveiling, whose date is not yet set, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas will make public plans for his controversial Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Chicago's lakefront. Beijing architect Ma Yansong is designing the building, while Chicago architect Jeanne Gang is responsible for the landscape of the 17-acre site and of a pedestrian bridge linking the museum to nearby Northerly Island. The open-space advocacy group Friends of the Parks, which claims the site for the museum violates Chicago's lakefront protection ordinance, has threatened to file a lawsuit against the project.

Shanghai Nature Museum Chicago designs China: In the latest chapter of the Chicago-China architectural exchange, the Shanghai Nature Museum, designed by Chicago architect Ralph Johnson of Perkins+Will, is expected to open in the fall or early winter. The most distinctive feature of the nautilus-shaped building is a bowing metal-and-glass wall that suggests a cluster of human cells. The building's interior revolves around a light-filled, multilevel atrium in which the museum will display one of the prize items of its collection, a dinosaur skeleton that is almost 20 feet high by 80 feet long.

Maggie Daley Park and the city that plays: The first phase of Maggie Daley Park, a 27-acre public space that combines playful and pastoral areas, will open to the east of Millennium Park in late fall. Designed by New York landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, the new park will include an undulating ice skating loop that will double as a walking path, sculptural climbing structures and a 3-acre "play garden" with a miniature lighthouse and other things for children to explore. The park will also have quiet places for picnicking, nestled in gently sloping "lawn valleys." Final plantings will be put in place next year, according to the Chicago Park District.

From God to Mammon at U. of C.: The University of Chicago has converted the former Chicago Theological Seminary building into the new home of its economics department and the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. Boston architect Ann Beha has remade the red-brick, Collegiate Gothic building at 5757 S. University Ave. and linked it with two neighboring row houses and a sleek new modern building that she designed. The complex's classrooms will get their first regular use with the start of the U. of C.'s fall quarter on Sept. 29, according to a university spokesman.

"The God Box" has a second coming at IIT: Its official name is the Robert F. Carr Memorial Chapel of St. Savior. Its irreverent nickname, bestowed in recognition of its simple, rectilinear geometry: "the God Box." On Oct. 1, the Illinois Institute of Technology will rededicate the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed chapel, which has been restored by Chicago architect T. "Gunny" Harboe. The chapel, completed in 1952, is Mies' only ecclesiastical building. The Mies van der Rohe Society raised nearly $1 million for the project.

Coverup at Northwestern's new garage: Many Evanston residents were furious when Northwestern University cut down a stand of trees to make way for a new parking garage and visitor center at the southeast end of its campus. Now, that building, designed by Perkins+Will's Johnson, is here, and it is no ordinary parking garage. On the south and west sides of the building, glass walls camouflage the garage's interior. On the north and east facades, lightweight fabric does the screening. The garage is open; the visitor center is likely to make its debut in late September, according to a university spokesman.

A peek at Navy Pier's new face: Illinois' most popular attraction is dialing down its Coney Island commercialism as it remakes itself for its 100thth anniversary in 2016. Visitors may have noticed changes to its south dock promenade, including new trees, a new pavement material (herringbone-patterned concrete), clean-lined pavilions that will house a variety of pier-related uses and a new, curving grand stairway (complete with glass risers) that connects the promenade and the Ferris wheel. These changes, from a design team led by New York landscape architect James Corner, won't be done until next summer, according to a pier spokesman, but we'll take a first look in the fall.

The Auditorium turns 125: Chicago's Auditorium Building, a masterwork of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, will celebrate a major milestone with a Dec. 9 concert, to be precisely 125 years after the Auditorium Theatre's original opening night. Among the performers: Broadway star Patti LuPone, whose great-grand aunt sang from the same stage at the original opening.

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Fall architecture: Several grand openings on deck for major cities

By Gord Bowes, News staff

Work to preserve a central Mountain archeological site could be completed next year. Cynthia Graham, the city landscape architect overseeing the project at Olmsted Natural Open Space, said a consultant is working on an archeological management plan to submit to the province. The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport must approve then approve the plan. I will move forward with it as quickly as I can and my hope is that it can be done next year, said Graham. The long-term plan is for preservation in situ, she said. If approved, the site will be capped in such a way that mitigates the chance of items coming to the surface through natural freeze-thaw cycles. A layer of soil on top will allow for a mix of non-invasive native and prairie plants to be established. The long-term plan is for there to be meadow on that site. Its not going to be short, cut turf at any time, said Graham. Whats out there now is not the end game for us. The Olmsted is in the Ryckmans neighbourhood, north of Rymal and east of Upper James. It is essentially a field of weeds with an asphalt pathway that runs through it from Dicenzo Drive to Tevere Place. Area residents have complained that the weeds provide shelter for nuisances such as ticks and coyotes. At a meeting of residents last week organized by councillor Scott Duvall, a public health official said there is no reason to fear contracting Lyme disease, saying the type of tics found there do not carry the disease. Graham said the coyote factor should be taken care of with the the final plan for the site and new housing in the area. The city does not disclose what artifacts were found at the site. In a 1994 newsletter, the Ontario Archaeological Society Inc. said the artifacts date back to a 13th century Iroquoian settlement. First Nations officials have told the city they do not want the site highlighted in any way.

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Olmsted Natural Open Space preservation plan nearly complete

Belvedere Landscape Designer and Belvedere Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes, Belvedere
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/ - Mystical Landscapes in Belvedere. Mystical Landscapes is a Marin based design and installation company that assists clie...

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Bolinas Landscape Designer and Bolinas Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes, Bolinas
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/ - Mystical Landscapes in Bolinas. Mystical Landscapes is a Marin based design and installation company that assists client...

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Fairfax Landscape Designer and Fairfax Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes, Fairfax
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