Vertical Garden Part 1 - Marin Landscape Designer And Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/ - Mystical Landscapes in San Rafael. Mystical Landscapes is a Marin based design and installation company that assists cli...

By: Dane Rose

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Vertical Garden Part 1 - Marin Landscape Designer And Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes - Video

The LATC licenses individual landscape architects, not firms or corporations. California landscape architect licenses expire on the last day of the licensee's birth month and must be renewed every two years.

The LATC has provided a database which allows you to access the current listing of landscape architects by license number, name or city. Delinquent, expired, suspended, or revoked licenses are not listed in this database.

(as of 12/10/2013)

LICENSEE NUMBER LICENSEE NAME LICENSEE CITY

The information is computer-generated and subject to change as licenses are issued, expire, are renewed, revoked or suspended, or as name and address changes are filed with the LATC.

For the most current information, you may telephone (916) 575-7230 or send an e-mail with your request to the LATC at latc@dca.ca.gov. A response will be transmitted to you within 48 hours of your inquiry. Please be aware that public information for licensees is restricted to license number, name, address of record, license issue and expiration dates, and enforcement and disciplinary actions. Telephone numbers are not provided.

If you would like to report an unlicensed person, please include that request or information in your e-mail.

ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS are available on the LATC Web site for five years. Please contact the LATC at (916) 575-7230 or latc@dca.ca.gov to check on any enforcement actions beyond five years.

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Query Licensee Information - Landscape Architects Technical ...

Dec. 19, 2013 A UT Arlington landscape architect and his graduate students have published three case studies for the 2013 Case Study Investigation Series for the Landscape Architecture Foundation that help show environmental, economic and social benefits of notable projects in that sector.

The case studies analyze the benefits of Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, the University of Texas at Dallas Campus Landscape Plan and Buffalo Bayou Promenade in Houston. In the case of Klyde Warren Park, the research team said the park has contributed to increased property values for nearby property, increased physical activity among patron and helps reduce carbon dioxide in its urban setting.

Taner zdil, an associate professor of landscape architecture and associate director for the Center for Metropolitan Density, was named a fellow of the Landscape Architecture Foundation this year. He directed the studies as part of the foundation's Landscape Performance Series, an online, interactive set of resources and tools that help designers, agencies and advocates make the case for sustainable landscape solutions.

"There is a growing call to explain the impact of landscape architecture and what it does," said zdil, whose team included landscape architecture master candidates Sameepa Modi and Dylan Stewart. "We are a part of that call."

Each project was noteworthy for the way it creates a sense of place and asserts economic viability within its context, zdil said. Researchers said they hope that the knowledge and lessons discovered through examination of these landmark projects will inform future landscapes in other urbanizing areas.

Don Gatzke, dean of the UT Arlington School of Architecture, said that establishing value for public projects such as parks is a relatively new area of research and study for the design community.

"The world will begin to use this area of study more and more as entities try to tell public and private shareholders what a project is worth," Gatzke said. "We're ecstatic that Dr. zdil is a leader in this area of study in its beginning stages."

In the case of Klyde Warren Park, zdil and his team showed that 69 percent of park users surveyed said visiting the park increased their outdoor activity. The case study also showed that the park mitigates 18,500 pounds of carbon dioxide annually through newly planted trees.

Another finding showed increases in property values near the park. The nearby 21-story 2000 McKinney Tower saw a 65 percent increase in value for 2013 compared with 2008 values, for example.

The case studies of Buffalo Bayou Promenade and the UT Dallas plan measured similar criteria.

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Landscape architecture study places value on Klyde Warren Park, other urban spaces

When architect Drew Heath returned to Sydney after visiting Angkor, he mulled over how he could remodel his grandiose home. The house he created recently won the 2013 National Award for Residential Architecture. Cecelia Marshall heard how he did it.

The temples at Angkor have inspired travellers from all corners of the globe for generations from the first explorers to modern-day poets, artists, and musicians. But few decide to try to recreate them at home. Drew Heath, an Australian architect, first visited Cambodia five years ago as a tourist and came away from the ancient structures with an unusual plan. Last month, his $9 million Angkor-inspired home in Sydney won the 2013 National Award for Residential Architecture House.

At home, the 44 year-old runs the Drew Heath Architects firm, mostly doing residential home designs with illustrious gardens. But his schedule regularly takes him abroad to visit some of the worlds greatest architectural wonders: the mountaintop Greek Acropolis is one of his favourites.

This is the first time I fully embraced the landscape

With each trip, he takes away a different idea, he said in a Skype interview. But Angkor Wat was different. The sight of the once-forgotten temples overtaken by jungle an image of man cohabiting with nature offered an aha moment for Heath.

When he returned from Cambodia, he set to work on a new and personal project: one that would bring the outside into his own home.

The project, which he alone conceived and designed, took three years and involved four builders. His wife and four kids aged between two and 14 lived inside the incomplete house while construction took place. It didnt matter, he said, since the theme of the house was incompletion. This is the first time I fully embraced the landscape, he said. Its almost like living outdoors.

Various rooms of the home are on different levels of space. There isnt a basic ground floor, first and second. Climb a couple of steps, and youre in the living room where a giant window opens up to the outside and you can see the kitchen down the hallway. This type of layering is borrowed from the temples and offers privacy and enclosure but also openness and a certain vulnerability to the outside elements.

The name of the house, Tir na ng, comes from his wifes Irish background. In an ancient Gaelic childrens tale, Tr na ng means other worldly place. With this in mind, Heath wanted to create an otherworldly place of eternal youth and timeless jungle against timeless ruin, he said.

Heath said that the house incorporates his emotive response to visiting the temples. PHOTO SUPPLIED

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Architect models his own house on Angkor complex

Chances are, when you arrive at the airport, youre more worried about forking over obscene amounts of cash for a checked bag than whats over that grassy knoll beyond the runway. The airfields of JFK or LAX certainly wouldnt be anyones idea of a picturesque landscape.

Charles Waldheim, co-curator of a new exhibit at Harvard University entitled Airport Landscape, has a different take. Our basic argument is that the airport sits in a kind of blind spot, culturally. Its been dealt with in a technical way, he tells Co.Design. Its a site for engineering, but the design disciplines have paid less attention,

Designing an airport is a monumental puzzle for an architect to solve. Consider how the terminals need to accommodate increasingly larger planes and shifting security requirements, confused tourists and wayward baggage, air control and transit connections. After taking care of the myriad functional aspects of air travel, airport plans have generally left little room for natural beauty.

Yet Waldheim and his co-curator, Sonja Duempelmann, both landscape architecture professors, argue that airports are complex ecological design projects. And as older airports are increasingly decommissioned and, oftentimes, turned into public parks and wildlife habitats, the links to landscape design become even clearer.

Airports have often been built on the outskirts of cities, as was the case in Denver or Chicago, but as the city grows, it rises to meet the airport, which once seemed distant. We believe airports are more central to the life of cities than they have ever been, Waldheim says.

They also tend to be fairly complex sites in terms of the mix of species and biological management, according to Waldheim. Airports are frequently built on top rich wetland environments, where wildlife, including birds, thrive. Though much of the land has been engineered to divert water and paved over for planes, the open space set aside as a safety measure for landing planes looks attractive to animals--an uncultivated plot in the middle of the urban environment. Yet bird strikes can pose a deadly threat to aircraft. Thus, airports walk a fine line between managing wildlife, controlling water runoff and pollution, and making the runway surroundings both aesthetically pleasing and safe. Its easier for us to describe it as a complex piece of landscape architecture, Waldheim says.

Airport Landscape examines these issues through the lens of photography, like Yann Arthus-Bertrands images of runways, and through case studies, many of them surrounding the issue of decommissioned airports, like San Franciscos Crissy Field, a former military airfield and hazardous material dumping ground that has been rehabilitated as a public park in recent years. Its an issue faced by cities around the world--what to do with these enormous, often contaminated airfields from the early 20th century that no longer fit the regions needs. Many cities are now choosing to slowly adapt them into public parks, as has happened in places like Berlin, and Orange County, Calif.

Im interested in a kind of emotional honesty about [airports], Waldheim says. Theyre not going away. Rather, we should be thinking about airports as a complex public landscape, one that should be designed to fit into both the city and environment around it.

The exhibit ends this week at Harvards Graduate School of Design.

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What Should We Do With Abandoned Airports?

Chappaquiddick erosion issues dominated the agenda of the Edgartown conservation commission this week, from the extensive landscape restoration project at the Schifter property to the fate of the house owned by Jerry and Sue Wacks that must be at least partially torn down before it falls into the sea.

At a site visit Monday the commission viewed both properties which lie at the Atlantic-facing edge of Chappy where significant erosion has returned as the Norton Point breach recedes.

The Wacks home now sits just 20 feet from the edge of Katama Bay, with erosion occurring at the rate of about a foot a day. On Wednesday the commission agreed to send a letter clearing the way for emergency demolition of most of the house.

Edgartown conservation commission reviewed landscaping and erosion control plan for Schifter house. Mark Lovewell

To prevent the house from ending up in Katama Bay, out into Nantucket Sound or washing up on adjacent beaches, the commission wrote in part. The letter went out yesterday. It is understood that the Wackses plan to demolish all but two bedrooms and a utility room in the modest house, built 30 years ago in a spot that at the time was on high ground overlooking the bay.

Also on Wednesday the board reviewed a landscaping and erosion control plan for the Wasque home owned by Richard and Jennifer Schifter. The plan calls for restoring trees, shrubbery and sandplain grasses that were stripped from the land when the 8,000-square-foot house was relocated over the summer. The plan also includes installing a new system of straw logs, called wattle logs, and hydromulching to strengthen the embankment where the house now sits.

Trees, shrubbery and topsoil that were removed last summer in preparation for the house move are still stored offsite on property owned by Gerald Jeffers. The commission said this week its time to restore the property to its previous state.

Yes, we okayed the pile of sand [that was used to stave off more erosion while the house was being moved] but why cant we just go back to the contour and trees and bushes that were there before the pile of sand, commission member Christina Brown said. Those contours had a thick understory and some significant bushes and trees. Why cant they have it again?

Stripped of all vegetation, Schifter property will be replanted in spring. Mark Lovewell

But commission member Bob Avakian said the site visit was eye-opening for him. I think we learned a hard lesson, he said. We should have had this discussion before you can say, okay you can cut down trees.

Read more from the original source:
Next Phase Begins for Schifter Property: Restoring the Land

The parents of Clifton murder victim Joanna Yeates have revealed that their beloved daughters bedroom remains untouched, three years after she went missing.

While David and Teresa Yeates cleared out the landscape architects flat in Canynge Road, Clifton, last year, they cannot bring themselves to clear out the room in which their daughter grew up at the family home in Ampfield, Hampshire,

Joanna, 25, disappeared on December 17, 2010, after a works night out on Park Street.

Her snow-covered body was found on Longwood Lane, Failand, on Christmas Day

She had been strangled to death by next-door Vincent Tabak, who was jailed for life and a minimum of 20 years at Bristol Crown Court in 2011.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, Mr Yeates said: We are as well as we are going to be. What has happened has happened and we try to make the most of what we have left, which is what Jo would have wanted.

The two of us dont visit Jos grave regularly, but go now and again. She is still so much a part of us, going to her grave to remember her is not necessary.

We get through life but everything has adjusted. When the phone rings now I dont expect to hear her at the other end.

But as families across the country prepare for a Christmas get-together, the day will pass as any other for Mr and Mrs Yeates because they remember Joanna every day.

Of course it is special, said Mr Yeates. As is today, the anniversary of the day she disappeared. But we think of her all the time. We remember her all the time. Christmas Day is no different.

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DanielEvans1 published Joanna Yeates' bedroom is frozen in time, three years after her...

Mandela's final resting place ready

Don't expect the man who fought to end apartheid and then led South Africa as its first black president to spend eternity pushing up just daisies.

That's because he was buried in a garden carefully cultivated by landscape architect Greg Straw, who has filled it with plants native to Mvezo, the village on the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where Mandela was born.

The garden was designed as a perennial journey through the life of Madiba, the clan name for Mandela.

Straw, who gave CNN an exclusive peek at his work, said he tried to create a garden consistent with Mandela's values and to keep from attracting attention from the reporters who have been cruising the area: "Obviously we had to keep it as rustic as possible so that we didn't raise any eyebrows. We had to just do the basics, earthworks, no finishing."

On Sunday afternoon local time, Mandela was buried atop a hill in the garden overlooking the Qunu homestead, the ancestral village where he grew up and loved.

Finishing touches were being applied this week to the memorial, which was abloom with symbols of the life of the man who spent 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid efforts, then became the nation's first black president.

"Everything that we did and designed in the garden always had another little meaning wherever we could find something," Straw said.

Those symbols include more than a few rocky patches.

And the paths meander, as did the life of the man who died December 5 at age 95. "Yes, and it meanders, and then, all of a sudden, when he got incarcerated and arrested, in the corner of the property, that's when it starts to turn."

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A peek into Mandela's memorial garden abloom

QUNU, South Africa (CNN) -

Don't expect the man who fought to end apartheid and then led South Africa as its first black president to spend eternity pushing up just daisies.

That's because he was buried in a garden carefully cultivated by landscape architect Greg Straw, who has filled it with plants native to Mvezo, the village on the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where Mandela was born.

The garden was designed as a perennial journey through the life of Madiba, the clan name for Mandela.

Straw, who gave CNN an exclusive peek at his work, said he tried to create a garden consistent with Mandela's values and to keep from attracting attention from the reporters who have been cruising the area: "Obviously we had to keep it as rustic as possible so that we didn't raise any eyebrows. We had to just do the basics, earthworks, no finishing."

On Sunday afternoon local time, Mandela was buried atop a hill in the garden overlooking the Qunu homestead, the ancestral village where he grew up and loved.

Finishing touches were being applied this week to the memorial, which was abloom with symbols of the life of the man who spent 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid efforts, then became the nation's first black president.

"Everything that we did and designed in the garden always had another little meaning wherever we could find something," Straw said.

Those symbols include more than a few rocky patches.

And the paths meander, as did the life of the man who died December 5 at age 95. "Yes, and it meanders, and then, all of a sudden, when he got incarcerated and arrested, in the corner of the property, that's when it starts to turn."

Read more here:
Garden is designed as walk through Mandela's life

But the ideas Nolen presented are as relevant today as they were then, argues Bob Callans, a Little Rock landscape architect. For years, Callans has pushed for Nolens vision to get more recognition and for one idea in particular to be realized. Nolens plan saw Capitol Avenue as a ceremonial boulevard and called for an iconic structure at its eastern end to compliment the state Capitol building on the west end. For nearly 30 years, Callans has called for that iconic structure to be some kind ofgateway to the city, something you could identify Little Rock with from a distance that, as you come into town, you then actually go through it.

It wasnt the right time, Callans said, but with everything going on in the River Market and on Main Street, now is the right time.

Today 100 years to the day and in the same building Callans and the StudioMainbuilding and landscape architects cooperative announced to a gathering in the rotunda at City Hall the winners of their collaborative Envision Little Rock 2013 Ideas Competition.

"It's been a long time coming," Callans told the 30 or so people assembled in the rotunda. He then quoted a line from Nolen's proposal: "A certain complement of fresh air, of open space, of touch with nature, proves in the experience of cities vitally essential for wholesome development." Each of five winning designs took the landscape architect's vision to heart.

The overall professional winner was Fayetteville architect John Krug, whose "Gateway Twin Towers" features tall curving commas on either side of I-30 that would frame the Capital on the west and a roundabout centered with a sculpture on the east.

The overall amateur award went to two UA third-year architecture students, Adel Vaughn and Mary Patterson, for "Silver Spire," which would place a looming, twisting spire in a park just east of Interstate 30 on Capital Avenue as the iconic balance to the Capitol. The aluminum structure would reflect the lights of the city and could be ascended for a view of downtown Little Rock.

A total of 5,800 people participated in a people's vote, choosing Krug's "Gateway" (Envisioning an Icon category), Chris Sheppard's "Urban Greenway" (Establishing Connections) and Maury Mitchell's "Agri-city" (The Wild Card). Each won $250. The public voting prizes were funded by the Arkansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

James Meyer, of Witsell Evans and Rasco architects and a member of StudioMain, said the idea for the contest which ran from May 15 until July 15 was to get people thinking about the gateway idea and other ways to beautiful the city in what he called "performative" ways that is, functional.

There were 11 final entries. The design points the jurors were looking for included "recognition of John Nolans 1913 Plan for the city of Little Rock, a large/iconic solution; something characteristic/endemic of Arkansas, think sense of place; represent the face of Little Rock, become memorable; terminal point of Capitol Ave, visual/metaphorical dynamic with the Capitol, multi-use structure and high functionality is always good!"

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Envision Little Rock winners announced