Landscape Architect Archives - Page 66 of 100 - Home Builder Developer, Interior Renovation and Design Home Builder Developer, Interior Renovation and Design

A message from Ercole Moroni (english version)
Floral Suite is the International Floral Art Competition which will take place on the 9th-10th-11th May, hosted by Palazzo Gozzani Treville, Casale Monferrat...

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A message from Ercole Moroni (english version) - Video

"LENNY" Spring Summer 2015 Fashion Rio HD by Fashion Channel
"LENNY" Spring Summer 2015 Fashion Rio HD by Fashion Channel Lenny Niemeyer arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1979 to start her career as a Fashion designer, crea...

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"LENNY" Spring Summer 2015 Fashion Rio HD by Fashion Channel - Video

Landscape architect Tom Comitta explains minor adjustments to 10yr Comp. Plan 4 Cville @wcdailylocal
Landscape architect Tom Comitta explains minor adjustments to 10yr Comp. Plan 4 Cville @wcdailylocal By: Kristina Scala - Reporter for the Daily Local News i...

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Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Inc. Connecting Design With Research

By: Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Inc.

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Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Inc. Connecting Design With Research - Video

Award-winning landscape architectural firm Nelson Byrd Woltz achieves beautification and excellence through ecological revitalization, indigenous design, integrity of historical intent, and stewardship of space hallmarks the Memorial Park Conservancy prioritized for Memorial Parks Long-Range Master Plan. It is precisely this synergy of approach and vision that made Nelson Byrd Woltz the perfect partner for planning Memorial Parks sustainable future.

Need for a Master Design Plan for Memorial Park evolved naturally from collective concerns by the City of Houston, The Uptown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) #16, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, along with the Memorial Park Conservancy. Issues ranged from reforestation, traffic, accessibility, and ecological decline to a need for a way to address growth, improve facilities, and achieve balance for the park as a recreational and environmental asset.

It is very exciting to have Thomas Woltz design the blueprint for the future of Memorial Park, said Mayor Annise D. Parker. His vision, innovation, and influence will render a healthier, more bountiful public amenity for Houstonians near term, and provide a rich, lasting legacy for future generations. Equally as exciting, we hope every Houstonian will be engaged in the process.

The Memorial Park Conservancy secured approval from the Houston Parks and Recreation Department in 2012 to lay the groundwork and embarked on a lengthy research and interview process for the selection of a landscape architect to develop the Long-Range Master Plan. In May 2013, the Uptown TIRZ boundary was expanded to include Memorial Park, which provided much needed financial support.

The selection of Nelson Byrd Woltz not only ensures a healthy, sustainable future for Memorial Park, but also through ecological and landscape transformation, designed with robust public input, can exponentially elevate its asset significance for generations to come.

In 2011, as we began developing a long-term forestry management plan for Memorial Park we experienced a historic drought, said Joe Turner, director, Houston Parks and Recreation Department. This drought was the driving force behind the need for a new master plan for the park. We look forward to a plan that will steward one of Houstons most beloved parks while it addresses the changing environmental conditions and the needs of the daily users.

Already Houstons largest urban-center park and a sentimental favorite for millions of Houstonians, Memorial Park encompasses 1,500 acres that attracts 4 million residents each year. Some 10,000 visitors use the parks Seymour Leiberman Exer-Trail daily, the premier running facility in the city. A highly regarded 18-hole golf course, active tennis, swimming, cycling, bird watching, and fitness facilities are accentuated by the parks wooded character, which has been devastatingly damaged by drought and human interaction.

Nelson Byrd Woltz has the extensive experience in ecological restoration we desire, explained Memorial Park Conservancy chair Jim Porter. The sheer beauty of their work masterfully triggers a cascade of positive ecological benefits, where depleted landscapes are brought back to life using native plants and the resurgence of local animals. This expertise is precisely what Memorial Park needs and deserves.

Firm owner Thomas L. Woltz is widely considered the rising star in landscape architecture. The New York School of Interior Design recently awarded him the inaugural Thomas N. Armstrong III Award in Landscape Design. In 2011, he was invested into the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Council of Fellows, one of the highest honors achieved in the profession. Woltz creates models of biodiversity and sustainability, replete with beauty, form, and function, recognized by more than 80 national, regional, and international awards.

This is a rare opportunity to set Memorial Park on a more resilient course; to ensure its longevity for the thousands of people using it every day; to create a rich and varied ecosystem further enhancing the experience of the park for its many users; and to envision and articulate the critical balance between intense and active use and preservation, said Thomas L. Woltz, owner of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects. It is time to celebrate and embrace the unique ecology of southeast Texas and the natural and cultural history of the park. With the help of Houstonians we can create a beautiful and enduring park for tomorrow and for future generations.

In recent years, Harvard has increased its focus on preserving its historic landscapes and buildings.

Harvard hasnt always been interested in preservation. Midday shadows darken the Franklin Delano Roosevelt suite in the Westmorly Court building of Adams House. I am sitting with Michael D. Weishan 86, an acclaimed landscape architect and designer who oversaw the $300,000 restoration of Roosevelts rooms. Everything, with the exception of my iPhone on the table, is as it was in 1904, when Roosevelt graduated from Harvard. Weishan and his team have painstakingly recreated the original opulence of the room, and the result is staggering. The setup isnt larger than that of other rooms in Westmorly, but the level of artistic care and detail, from the meticulously carved linen-fold wooden doors to the sleek Morris chairs, seems impossibly antiquated to my contemporary and begrudgingly utilitarian architectural eye.

After I take in the surroundings, Weishan asks me about my angle for the story. I stumble through something about gardens at Harvard and then improvise about the increasing significance of landscape preservation here. He perks up at this last point. It sounds like thats where the story is, he says excitedly. Hes right. Over the next hour we explore the spotty history of Harvards relationship with preservation. I leave convinced that theres a phenomenon afoot far larger than the recreation of a presidents college rooms: Harvard is experiencing a landscaping renaissance. New ideologies about aesthetics and homage and an unprecedented appreciation of the past have emerged in tandem with modern technological methods to effectively recreate the grandiosity of the Universitys historic look.

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS PRESERVATION

Weishan is extremely prolific. In addition to his work on Adams, he has hosted Victory Gardens, a weekly gardening show on PBS, and heads his own landscape and design firm. To top it off, he boasts a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the architectural and landscaping history of Harvard and can jump cogently and instantaneously between centuries, Yards, and trends. It is clear that he not only is informed about Harvards relationship with preservation but also cares immensely about its significance and the difficulties attendant on it.

Weishan primarily uses buildings to point to the morphing focus towards preservation, but he insists that the trajectory of landscape preservation evolved in tandem. According to Weishan, the initial construction of these buildings was followed by a period of sentimentality for colonial styles in the early 1900s, and then a period of modernism where everything old was suspect. Now, we are in the midst of a period of appreciation, and some would say reverence, for these historic buildings.

Weishan is openly critical of the mid-century modernist period. During that time, the prevalence of the brutalist architectural style (think Mather House) contributed to the replacement of various classical landmarks by concrete behemoths and asphalt pathways. The University actually thought, until fairly recently, that new was also better, Weishan says. We would routinely bulldoze buildings and put new ones upHolyoke Center is a perfect example of that. These were buildings that were considered revolutionary at the time, but now are by and large considered dysfunctional.

Yet the point of Weishans reflections is not solely to show that Harvard has turned a corner or that the present preservationist movement is more novel than it might appear. It also points to the fickle and unpredictable nature of artistic and architectural appreciation. All this criticism Ive been giving to the Holyoke Center and William James Hall. Who knows? In 50 years they may be considered revolutionary, he says. I highly doubt it, though. He becomes more serious and notes that there was a time in the mid-1950s when President Nathan Marsh Pusey publically criticized Memorial Hall and anything with tinges of gaudy Victorian influence.

The imagined objectivity of the present makes the art of preservation all the more challenging. What if we save the wrong things? What if our re-landscaping is just tacky nostalgia? While these questions are impossible to answer in the present, the preservationist movement, particularly in the landscaping world, is somehow finding a tight-rope thin balance in its approach.

THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM

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Rebuilding the Past: Harvard's Beautification Renaissance