Boxwood Garden at Greenville Country Club - Wilmington, DE
Greenville Country Club, previously known as "Owl #39;s Nest" was the home of Eugene du Pont Jr. Landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman designed the garden and tea house. It is a popular location...

By: Wanda Kaluza

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Boxwood Garden at Greenville Country Club - Wilmington, DE - Video

Frederick Law Olmsted, god of 19th century landscape architecture, is coming to the small screen. Olmsted, who shaped some of the earliest park systems in the country, will be the subject of a new documentary premiering on PBS next month.

Olmsted was a founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and he transformed parks, parkways, and college campuses across the country. Perhaps most famous for Central Park, he was also responsible for the park system in Buffalo, New York, and the landscape around the U.S. Capitol Building. He designed the midway for Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (a story made infamous in Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City) as well as campuses for Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. He made significant inroads in the early conservation movement in the U.S., campaigning to preserve the natural beauty of Yosemite, Niagara Falls, and the Adirondack region.

"Most folks, when they're walking through the park, they go, 'Wow, this is a really pretty landscape,'" as one expert in the trailer for Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America explains. "They have no idea that every nook, every cranny of these landscapes were laid out intentionally."

Watch the latest trailer from PBS.

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We Can't Wait To Watch This Frederick Law Olmsted Doc

The City of Coral Gables Green Task Force is looking for a local landscape architect who would like to serve on this 11-member volunteer group.

The Green Task Force advises city officials on environmental issues that support a sustainable community and it requires the participation of a landscape architect, a planner, a person interested in historic preservation, an engineer, an architect, a member from the University of Miami, one from the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce and another from the Garden Club, as well as three city residents two appointed by the city commission and one by the city manager. Nominations have been received for other categories but are still needed for the Landscape Architect category.

If you are interested in serving, submit your rsum, along with a cover letter, to the Office of the City Clerk, 405 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, FL 33134. The information received will then be forwarded to the city commission for consideration. You must be a resident of Coral Gables to serve on the Green Task Force.

Short URL: http://www.communitynewspapers.com/?p=82923

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Green Task Force looking for a landscape architect

FROM THE MOMENT he laid eyes on it, landscape architect Brooks Kolb was captivated by a unique property in North Beach. Garden paths, patios and walkways, as well as the house itself, were built of stone, timber and clinker brick found on site. The ambience was more Hansel-and-Gretel cottage than 21st-century Northwest.

Owners Maureen and Tim Brillon bought their 1925 Tudor and overgrown garden in 1999. The house was falling down, the garden was a jungle and the entry was as dark as a cave, says Maureen of the place when they first saw it. Yet they, too, were drawn in by its storybook charm.

The Brillons remodeled the house, then turned their attention to garden renovation. They interviewed several landscape architects, then selected Kolb, in part because they were impressed that he asked to look at the garden from inside the house.

While he left plenty of big cedars and firs for privacy and scale, Kolb opened up the cavelike entry by removing a number of trees and a huge Portuguese laurel. He designed the half-acre garden around the three remaining old lampposts. Yet this wasnt a period restoration.

The garden was a hodgepodge, explains Maureen. We wanted a thoughtful, well-planned garden with good lighting, safe walkways and low-maintenance plantings. She describes her husband as the gardener, a real do-it-yourselfer. But with a steep hillside and a mix of new and mature plantings to contend with, an easy-care garden was a major criterion for the renovation.

First, Kolb needed to deal with the infrastructure. Broken, heaving stones made the front walkway uneven. I call it anti-social paving, says Kolb of the treacherous approach to the house. He replaced walkways and patios with stone and brick that look as if they could be original to the place. He reused the old stone in new retaining walls around the entry terrace, capping them with thick slabs of bluestone.

Kolb added a layer of shade-tolerant plantings beneath the trees, including golden Japanese forest grass, nandina and lots of native foam flower (Tiarella trifoliata). Now that the curving new borders are filled with flowering shrubs, grasses and perennials, its hard to believe the property was once a cherry orchard.

What are Kolbs low-maintenance strategies for the garden? He left healthy, older shrubs like rhododendrons, azaleas and mock orange as a backdrop. Then he filled in with masses of small shrubs like mahonia, fothergilla and leucothoe, and low-growing evergreens such as Yak rhodies, sword ferns and hellebores. Ribbons of short, showy ornamental grasses and variegated brunnera brighten up all the green. Still, you have to keep on top of the weeding; you cant let it get out of control, Kolb cautions.

The garden is terraced down to where it drops away into a forested ravine, with lawn on the lower level for the kids to run and play soccer. Mountain beaver from the ravine have been working over the crisp line of hebes hedging the lawn. The chewed-up hebes have been replanted, and copper electrical lines strung around them to protect the plants from predation.

While the old house exerts a force field of European charm, the lower garden on the edge of the wild ravine has its own magnetism. The stone steps down into the garden are flanked with intensely fragrant variegated Daphne transatlantica Summer Ice. Grassy, mower-width paths meander down the slope. The little tool shed is shingled like the house, and Adirondack chairs beckon visitors to stroll the pathways down into this fairy tale of a garden.

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1920s Tudor gets a stately garden to go with

Tips for Planting Bulbs for Spring -- Miranda #39;s Garden - Vogue
Landscape architect Miranda Brooks and her assistant Elizabeth Boyle plant the bulbs they will plant for next Spring. Subscribe to the all-new Vogue channel here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/U...

By: Vogue

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Tips for Planting Bulbs for Spring -- Miranda's Garden - Vogue - Video

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Newswise MANHATTAN, KAN. Kansas State University landscape architecture student Elizabeth Decker has a goal for her master's research: help professionals create urban environments that are inclusive of her younger brother, Marc.

Marc has autism and will soon reach adulthood. Decker, Lansing, who will graduate May 16 with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree, developed a toolkit for her master's research report that helps designers and planners make cities more inclusive for adults with autism.

When Marc becomes an adult, he likely will live semi-independently, Decker said. Her project, "A city for Marc: An inclusive urban design approach to planning for adults with autism," proposes knitting together urban opportunities such as public transportation and affordable housing.

"Through this project, I really want to understand my brother," Decker said. "I want to see him go out in the real world and be successful. This project was a way for me to research more about autism and learn more about people like my brother. It helped me figure out how we can design for a group of adults that is getting bigger."

One in 68 children are diagnosed with autism, Decker said. As the generation of diagnosed autistic children ages, it is important to find ways to help adults with autism.

The National Institutes of Health has identified six needs for adults with autism: vocational training, life skills, mental and physical health support, employment, public transportation and affordable housing. Decker's urban toolkit addresses these needs because many cities do not have adequate services for adults with autism.

"The focus of the project is inclusive urban design," said Katie Kingery-Page, who is Decker's adviser and an assistant professor of landscape architecture/regional & community planning. "Elizabeth's project is about connecting the dots. While many different aspects exist in an urban environment, she is looking at how future planning and design changes can help connect everything in a way that works and is inclusive of a particular group. We want to allow people to function fully in an inclusive environment."

For the project, Decker conducted a literature review and interviewed adults including an adult living with blindness, an adult living with autism and an adult living with Asperger's syndrome to better understand their needs in an urban environment. The adults stressed the urban needs for public transportation, training services and access to health support.

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Landscape Architect Designs Toolkit to Make Cities Inclusive of Adults with Autism

PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southampton
25000 sqft net office building let to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Architect: Gordon Shackell of Covell Matthews Histon Partnership, Manchester Southampton 1988 - 1990 Developer: Rosehaugh...

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PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southampton - Video

Inventing things is not John Wards profession, but architecture led him to an invention that saves money and the environment.

As an architect designing a Napa Valley winery, Ward conceived the solution, called the VinValve, during the design phase of a project.

Manual diversion valves were being phased out by the county at the time because they had to be activated by humans who weren't always paying attention to the issue.

The county came back to us and said, were not going to allow manual water diversion valves anymore in outdoor areas instead, were going to require you cover the crush pad with a roof, Ward said.

Constructing a roof would have required more spending, more raw materials and more vehicle trips during construction. Also, a roof would have blocked scenic views of the valley.

So, I went back to them with an idea for a rain-activated automatic valve system, Ward recalled. After a quick first rinse of the work area, the below-ground-level device is automatically activated to divert water from crush pads into holding tanks for treatment, and sends rainwater to storm conveyance systems.

Filing a patent application was a first for me, said Ward, who co-developed the system with Auburn general contractor Butch Chamberlain.

I couldnt have done this without Butch, said Ward. Having the idea is one thing, but bringing it to fruition required a partnership.

Ward grew up in the Sierras, where he developed an appreciation for the natural environment, moved to Sacramento at age 17 then to Napa in 1999, where he met his future wife Kelly, who is a landscape architect. They live in Napa with their daughter, Helena, 1.

I invented some crazy things when I was really young, and have always been pretty mechanical, but with this I just saw an opportunity to solve a problem, like any other architecture problem, he said.

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Napa architect helps invent storm water protection system for wineries

Shrine remodel unearths historical reminders from Warneke
While physical plant landscape architect, Derek Kalp was overseeing the Lion Shrine remodel, crews came upon an abundance of white chips scattered at the bas...

By: Penn State University

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Shrine remodel unearths historical reminders from Warneke - Video

Natural Landscape Design Ideas - Miranda #39;s Garden - Vogue
Miranda Brooks is a celebrated landscape architect who understands how to play with the delicate nature around her in a subtle and beautiful way. Learn the most important thing to consider...

By: Vogue

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Natural Landscape Design Ideas - Miranda's Garden - Vogue - Video