The Menil Collection in Houston announced this month that it is planning to build the Menil Drawing Institute to exhibit and store modern and contemporary drawings. A design by Los Angeles-based firm Johnston Marklee was unveiled for the 30,150-square-foot, $40 million institute, which will be one block south of Renzo Pianos main Menil Collection building, near the Cy Twombly Gallery. An apartment complex is now on the proposed site for the Menil Drawing Institute, and construction is expected to begin in early 2015.

David Chipperfield Architects developed a site plan in 2009 for the Menil Collection, and Michael Van Valkenburgh was subsequently selected as landscape architect for the Menil campus. Johnston Marklee was chosen as architect for the Menil Drawing Institute in June 2012.

Johnston Marklee, led by founders and partners Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, described the design of the Menil Drawing Institute: The design of the Menil Drawing Institute honors the legacy of intimacy and direct engagement with art that underlies the domestic and the institutional character of the neighborhood of the Menil campus. Situated in a park-like setting, the new building assumes the scale of both a house and a museum, with a low-lying, elongated profile that blends with the architecture of the historic campus while signaling a new dimension for the future growth of the neighborhood of art.

The Menil Drawing Institute is composed of a series of buildings and courtyards unified by a white steel-plate roof that extends and hovers over the landscape, rather like a folded sheet of paper. The roof defines two entry courtyards to the east and west. Within the courtyards, the underlying folds of the roof place embrace the tree canopies, creating a shaded, contemplative atmosphere in and around the Menil Drawing Institute. Within the building, the public spaces receive diffuse natural light, which is sculpted by the folds in the roof plane and complemented by concealed artificial light sources in the creases of the walls and ceilings.

Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection, said in a statement: With a design that is at once serene and revolutionary, Johnston Marklee has enabled the Menil to make its drawings a more active and public part of the collection than ever before. Beautifully rational and open, the building is also innovative in making the modulated presence of natural light possible within a building dedicated to fragile works on paperan achievement that previously had seemed as impossible as squaring a circle.

Partial view of the Living Room and Scholar's Cloister, the Menil Drawing Institute.

The Menil Drawing Institute at dusk, looking past the west entrance courtyard.

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Johnston Marklee Design for Menil Drawing Institute Unveiled

20 Allenby Street, Spring Hill
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20 Allenby Street, Spring Hill - Video

ABILENE, Texas -

Trees began to bud thanks to recent warm weather, but the freezing temps put a stop to it.

But was it enough to do some real damage?

George Williams, a landscape architect with Extreme Exteriors, thinks not.

"It might make them a little slower coming out, once they finally do come out but most of the trees around here are used to this type of weather and they'll survive" Williams said.

If your landscape has a tropical touch, like palm trees, you'll need to give them a little more care.

Theyre the most vulnerable to cold weather, we wrap the trunks with burlap or some other type of material, cloth or plastic, Williams said.

Warmer weather is in the forecast for the next few days but spring wont actually start until after mid-March.

Protecting your plants against future freezes is as simple as making sure theyre watered.

Ice tends to insulate the roots so they dont dry out, Williams said.

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Budding trees face added stress as winter weather returns

Just for the sake of argument, imagine a very different street-level downtown than the one we have in San Jose today, one designed for lingering rather than quick passage.

As you stroll underneath Highway 280 on First Street, you look up and see an underpass decorated like Lego bricks. On Almaden Boulevard, you see people stopping at exercise hubs, roller-skating, or biking on green lanes.

At the corner of San Carlos and Market streets, you spot a two-story mural designed to resemble a forest. You stop to plug your laptop into a mobile solar energy post. Then you cross the street on a blue crosswalk etched with markings that resemble teeth.

A new plan for downtown by CMG Landscape Architecture suggests brightly colored sidewalks and murals. ( CMG Landscape Architecture )

When you finally turn left on Santa Clara Street toward the SAP Center, you see a huge sculpture in the middle of the street, maybe even a shark crushing a hockey stick.

If there's one word to describe all this, it might be playfulness. The notion is to infuse life into downtown's streets by giving people things to do and see and enjoy.

A 191-page booklet prepared by San Francisco landscape architectural firm of CMG, the guys who were also picked to help Facebook, turns San Jose's conventions on their head.

The original planners of downtown's rebirth 30 years ago wanted a well-mannered center city. These guys embrace thoughtful clutter (see the plan at http://sjdowntown.com/groundwerx)

Filling space

At a recent meeting of the San Jose Downtown Association, which commissioned the study, landscape architect Willett Moss, a likeable man in his early 40s, explained that the idea, in its most basic sense, was to fill up San Jose's empty spaces.

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A plan to transform downtown San Jose's street life with mural, huge sculpture, exercise hubs

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Dyffryn Gardens from the air. F450 FPV flight - Video

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Landscape architect Renny Reynolds and horticulturist, author and historian Jack Staub will discuss classic English garden design Thursday at the annual Garden Club of Palm Beach lecture, presented at The Society of the Four Arts.

Reynolds and Staub were inspired by historic gardens in Britain during the 35-year course of creating Hortulus Farm, a 100-acre property they own and maintain in Wrightstown, Pa.

We have always admired the English style of gardening and landscaping, said Reynolds, who has traveled with Staub to Britain to experience many gardens throughout that country during the past decades.

The pair split their time between two homes: the Bucks County, Pa., farm and their Point Manalapan home, where they have spent winters for the past several years.

The English perfected the principles of landscape design, such as vista, axis, enclosure, kitchen and herb gardens, water features and follies, Reynolds said. And we found that English gardening translates well to the American vernacular, especially in the case of our farm, which was created around a stone farmhouse dating from 1723.

We are fascinated with the English manner of landscape design and were influenced by specific gardens we have visited, many of which are not on the typical English garden-tour circuit, he said.

They will share images of specific British gardens and show how their features were brought to the Pennsylvania property, which consists of 22 distinctive and authentic landscaped areas.

Renny and Jack are the dynamic duo of garden history and design, and their Pennsylvania farmstead is simply magnificent, said Vicky Hunt, Garden Club president. Their knowledge about English-style gardens is deep and impressive, and their lecture should be inspiring to all of us interested in landscape design and horticulture.

Hunt hopes that the lecture, The Art of English Gardening, will inspire people to visit Hortulus Farm, which was placed on the U.S. Register of Historic Places in 2004 and is an affiliate of the Garden Conservancy, with its gardens open to the public.

This annual lecture is our clubs gift to the town of Palm Beach, Hunt said.

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Garden Club speakers to focus on creating English-style landscapes