November 14, 2019 by LAM Staff
As part of an ongoing effort to make content more accessible, LAM will be making select stories available to readers in Spanish. For a full list of translated articles, please click here.
BY LISA OWENS VIANI
Named for the walnut trees that used to line its banks, the Arroyo de los Nogales, a tributary of the Santa Cruz River, flows from south to north, descending from the high Sonoran desert in Mexico into Arizona. The main arroyo and its many smaller tributaries form a watershed, shaped roughly like a human heart, that is broken in two by the U.S.–Mexico border wall. Facing each other across the wall, in the river’s floodplain, are two cities, each named Nogales, that share social and environmental problems—including repeated flooding caused by rapid urbanization, ineffective flood control efforts, and the border wall itself.
Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, ASLA, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, and Francisco Lara-Valencia, an associate professor at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, have a greener vision for these border cities (together called Ambos Nogales), whose streets and arroyos often run brown with sediment and sewage in heavy storms. Díaz Montemayor and Lara-Valencia want to increase permeability throughout the watershed, slow peak flows in heavy storms, and develop more ecological connectivity between the two cities, despite the dividing presence of the wall.
They hope their ideas for an extensive network of green infrastructure can transform the way the cities develop, not only to improve water quality and flood management but also to provide more green space for residents. As the cities have grown, impervious surfaces have too, destroying natural areas. Both cities lack green space: There is just 1.1 square meter per person in Nogales, Mexico, and only 2.2 square meters per person on the U.S. side, Lara-Valencia says.
“We are not saying development shouldn’t happen,” Díaz Montemayor says. “We’re saying, ‘Let’s provide a structure for that development to happen [that] is based on natural systems.’” Continue Reading »
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Posted in CITIES, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FEATURES, PARKS, PLANNING, PRACTICE, REGION, RESILIENCE, STREETS, TRANSLATED, UNIVERSITY, WATER | Tagged Ambos Nogales, Arizona, Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, Arizona State University, arroyo, Arroyo Cuesta Blanca Green Development, Arroyo de los Nogales, Ben Lomeli, bioswales, Border Wall, Channel, City of Green Creeks, Claudia Gil, created wetlands, creeks, development, ECOLOGY, El Nogal Regional Park, El Ranchito de los Aliso, Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, flooding, Francisco Lara-Valencia, Friends of the Santa Cruz River, Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, green corridors, green infrastructure, GREEN ROOFS, Instituto Municipal de Investigación y Planeación, international, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Laura Norman, Lisa Owens Viani, Mexico, Nogales, Parque Nuevo Nogales, Paseo de Los Nogales, permeable paver, permeable pavers, rain gardens, restored creeks, riparian habitat, Santa Cruz River, School of Transborder Studies, Seeds/Semillas, sewage, Sonoran desert, stormwater, STREETS, terraced gabion structures, trade, tributary, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Border 2020, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Arkansas, urbanization, Water, watershed | Leave a Comment »
November 13, 2019 by Jennifer Reut
As part of an ongoing effort to make content more accessible, LAM will be making select stories available to readers in Spanish. For a full list of translated articles, please click here.
BY JENNIFER REUT
Like many cities in the Southwest (Palm Springs, California, most conspicuously), Tucson, Arizona, has a decent bank of midcentury modern buildings and landscapes. In the 1950s and 1960s, home buyers, drawn by the mirage of golf course-adjacent desert living (with air-conditioning, swimming pools, and lawns), flocked to the Southwest, and large swaths of the new development that went up during that era were built in the middle-class modern idiom. In the Southwest, modernism incorporated regional materials and climatic adaptations into lively vernacular architecture, and also generated some truly inspired landscapes.
Tucson Modernism Week was launched by the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation in 2001 to highlight the region’s midcentury modern architecture and landscape heritage. The foundation is also among a handful of preservation groups trying to broaden notions of modern design to include the work of women and people of color, as well as expanding the boundaries of modernism to include textiles, dance, ceramics, and neon.
Among those whom the foundation has brought to the public’s attention is Taro Akutagawa (1917–2002), a Japanese American landscape designer whose work, primarily in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been nearly erased. The foundation’s Taro Akutagawa Collection contains photographs, newspaper clippings, archival images, drawings, and plans.
The outlines of Akutagawa’s life and work are known, though there is not quite a full accounting of his projects. He was born in California in 1917 and educated in Japan before Continue Reading »
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Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, GARDENS, HISTORIC LANDSCAPES, HISTORY, MATERIALS, PEOPLE, PLANTS, PRESERVATION, REGION, RESIDENTIAL, SPECIES, WATER | Tagged agriculture, Albuquerque, Architectural Digest, Arizona, BAMBOO, Buddhist, California, Casa Juan Paisano, Catalina Foothills Estates, colonial, Colorado River Indian Reservation, cypress, Del Webb, Desert, Executive Order 9066, Gil Berry, hollygrape, Internment Camps, Japanese, Jennifer Reut, Josias Joesler, Juan Worner Baz, juniper, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Mexican, midcentury modern, Modern, nandina, New Mexico, piñon, Ponderosa Pine, Poston, regional, Rio Rancho, rock formations, Shinto, southwest, stone bridge, succulents, Sun City, Taro Akutagawa, Taro Akutagawa Collection, Taro’s Gardens, Tazue Yonemoto, Tucson, Tucson Modernism Week, university landscape architect, University of New Mexico, Water, wildflowers | Leave a Comment »
November 12, 2019 by LAM Staff
The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.
Photo by Timothy A. Schuler.
From “In Kīlauea’s Wake” in the November 2019 issue by Timothy A. Schuler, about what happens when volcanic eruptions and seismic chaos irreparably change the face of a national park.
“Road work ahead.”
–CHRIS MCGEE, LAM ART DIRECTOR
As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.
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Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, HISTORIC LANDSCAPES, MAINTENANCE, ONLINE ONLY, PHOTOGRAPHY, REGION, REGULATIONS, RESILIENCE, VIEWS | Tagged Art Director's Cut, Disaster, ECOLOGY, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Kīlauea, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, national park, Preservation, RESILIENCE, Timothy A. Schuler, volcano | Leave a Comment »
November 7, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY NATE BERG
A view of the park’s two lakes, with the city in the distance. Photo courtesy Bundesgartenschau Heilbronn.
An urban-scale garden exhibition in Germany became an opportunity to re-envision a riverside industrial site.
For more than half a century, the historic center of the southwestern German city of Heilbronn looked out across the waters of the Neckar River onto 80 gray acres of railyards and warehouses. As its industrial activity shifted and concentrated, the need for such large swaths of land diminished and much of this logistics landscape lay fallow.
“For urban planners, this was like a gold mine,” says Oliver Toellner. He’s a landscape architect and urban planner, and for the past 10 years he’s been transforming this large industrial plot into a new park and urban district for 3,500 residents and 1,000 jobs. Continue Reading »
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Posted in BROWNFIELDS, CITIES, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, GARDENS, HABITAT, HISTORIC LANDSCAPES, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PLANNING, PLANTS, RECREATION, RESIDENTIAL, RESILIENCE, REUSE, RIVER RESTORATION, SHORELINE, WATER | Tagged 2019 Bundesgartenschau, Adi Faust, apartments, Federal Garden Show, Germany, habitat, Heilbronn, horticultural, industrial, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, LOMA, marsh, Nate Berg, Neckar River, Neighborhood, Oliver Toellner, Park, pavilion, planning, SINAI Gesellschaft von Landschaftsarchitekten, Steidle Architekten, topography | Leave a Comment »
November 5, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY BENJAMIN H. GEORGE, ASLA, AND PETER SUMMERLIN, ASLA
Software and technology trends in landscape architecture.
In 1982 a new tool landed on the desks of engineers that would revolutionize the construction and design industries. That tool, eventually known as AutoCAD, ushered computer-aided design into the field with the goal of increased accuracy and efficiency. In the decades since, a variety of software programs have become embedded in nearly every step of the design process, from site inventory and analysis to final project deliverables and beyond. Software has evolved from tools to represent design to those actually affecting design ideas. It’s more than just software, as emerging technology such as drones, virtual reality (VR), and 3-D printers have found their way into offices. Whereas it was once adequate to master only AutoCAD, Photoshop, and SketchUp, many firms are now expected to collaborate and communicate using technology beyond this “big three.”
As firms wrestle with their software decisions and changing collaboration needs, knowledge of technology trends across the industry can be a valuable tool. With this in mind, ASLA’s Digital Technology Professional Practice Network (DTPPN) teamed with professors from Utah State University and Mississippi State University to document and assess current developments in the profession. The survey was sent to a third of ASLA’s members and garnered 482 responses, 72 percent of whom were full members of ASLA, and 17 percent associate members. When compared to surveys from previous years, the findings paint a picture of a profession in the midst of a watershed moment in how technology is used. While the big three are still staples, there are now many alternatives and add-ons to augment and expand the design workflow. Continue Reading »
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Posted in ASLA, DETAILS, EDUCATION, PRACTICE, RESEARCH, TECH, WORKSTATION | Tagged 2GHO, 3-D modeling, 3-D printers, Adobe Illustrator, Aidan Ackerman, Alpha Design Studio, Andrea Hansen Phillips, Andrew Sargeant, April Philips, ASLA, ASLA Digital Technology Professional Practice Network, AutoCAD, Benjamin H. George, BIM, Bio-West, cinematography, Civil 3D, Civitas, computer, Datum Digital Studio, design, Design Works, digital, diversification, Drew Hill, drones, Emily O’Mahoney, Eric Berg, GIS, Glen Busch, Ground Reconsidered, Huitt-Zollars, interoperability, Jessica Fernandez, Karen Skafte, Land F/X, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architecture Foundation, landscape design, Lumion, Mark Johnson, Mississippi State University, OJB Landscape Architecture, Pacific Coast Land Design, Paul Drummond, Peter Summerlin, Photoshop, project deliverables, Revit, Rhino, Seth Bockholt, site inventory and analysis, SketchUp, Snøhetta, software, survey, technology, Todd McCurdy, University of Virginia, Utah State University, Vectorworks, video game, virtual walk-through, VR, workflow | 1 Comment »
November 1, 2019 by LAM Staff
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
FOREGROUND
Get with the Program (Tech)
As workflow patterns change, designers are diversifying in the types of software they rely on,
a recent survey of landscape architects shows.
Lunch Break Brutalism (Preservation)
The water is flowing again at M. Paul Friedberg’s much-disputed Peavey Plaza in Minneapolis,
after a renovation by Coen+Partners adjusts the space to latter-day concerns.
FEATURES
Look to the Sky
In Santa Fe, Surroundings Studio relies on scarce rainfall for all the water one
house’s garden could need.
Floods That Know No Bounds
Nogales, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona, have a border wall between them, but an unruly, overstressed watershed needs a binational solution to stop flooding. Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, ASLA, and a colleague, Francisco Lara-Valencia, have some ideas.
Get Real
Vicki Estrada, FASLA, talks about the change in her practice at Estrada Land Planning in San Diego
since her transition 13 years ago. For one thing, it has meant no more going along to get along.
Interview by Diana Fernandez, ASLA
In Kīlauea’s Wake
After a series of violent eruptions of Kīlauea in 2018, the staff of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park is figuring out ways to proceed with a natural and cultural treasure that is constantly changing.
As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.
Keep an eye out here on the blog, on the LAM Facebook page, and on our Twitter feed (@landarchmag), as we’ll be posting November articles as the month rolls out.
Credits: “Floods That Know No Bounds,” Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, ASLA; “Look to the Sky,” Stephen Dunn; “Get Real,” Brian Kuhlmann; “In Kīlauea’s Wake,” USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory; “Get with the Program,” Drew Hill, Student ASLA/Utah State University; “Lunch Break Brutalism,” Peter Bastianelli-Kerze.
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Posted in CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FEATURES, HABITAT, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, HISTORIC LANDSCAPES, HISTORY, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PEOPLE, PLANNING, PLANTS, PRESERVATION, RECREATION, REGION, RESILIENCE, RIVER RESTORATION, SPECIES, STREETS, THE CLIENT, WATER | Tagged Arizona, Brutalism, Coen+Partners, Estrada Land Planning, floods, Francisco Lara-Valencia, Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, identity, Kīlauea, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, M. Paul Friedberg, Mexico, Minneapolis, Nogales, Peavey Plaza, Preservation, Rainfall, San Diego, Santa Fe, software, Surroundings Studio, technology, transition, Vicki Estrada, watershed, workflow | Leave a Comment »
October 29, 2019 by zachmortice
BY ZACH MORTICE
The Kua Bay Residence is a simple pitched roof pavilion that works as an enticing collector of ocean views. Photo by Marion Brenner, Affiliate ASLA.
More than half of the world’s anchialine ponds are located on Hawai‘i, also known as the Big Island. They’re formed when fresh water flows downward toward the ocean through porous volcanic rock and mixes with salt water pushed inland by wave action. Where the shoreline dips below sea level with sizable crevices, pools of water are exposed at the surface. It’s a brackish mix, though the salinity can vary, as can the depth and size of anchialine ponds. Some can be more than a dozen acres wide; others are smaller than a bathtub. These pools were vital to native Hawaiians, who would harvest shrimp (such as the ‘ōpae‘ula red shrimp) for food or bait, or use larger ponds closer to shore with higher salinity levels as fishponds. Freshwater ponds were used for drinking water and bathing.
Anchialine pools are characteristic of the landscape of the Big Island, the site of the Kua Bay Residence, and were a source of inspiration for its landscape architect, Ron Lutsko Jr., ASLA, of San Francisco-based Lutsko Associates Landscape. Like the pools themselves, the project has an intimate connection to water defined by the rock-face crevices at its border, and it offers cloistered shelter for local and native species amid an otherwise beautifully barren landscape. The project is a recipient of both a Northern California ASLA award and, most recently, a 2019 ASLA Professional Award. Continue Reading »
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Posted in ASLA, AWARDS, DETAILS, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, HABITAT, PLANTS, RESIDENTIAL, SAN FRANCISCO, SHORELINE, SPECIES, VIEWS, WATER | Tagged 2019 ASLA Professional Award, anchialine ponds, Andrea Kovol, arid, Award, ‘ōpae‘ula red shrimp, baffle, Big Island, Boulders, brackish, canoe plant, Cor-Ten steel, Desert, excavation, Freshwater, gardenia, ginger, glass, Greg Warner, guesthouse, Hawaii, heliconia, house, igneous rock, kiawe mesquite tree, Kona, Kua Bay, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, lava rock, lawn, Lutsko Associates Landscape, Northern California ASLA award, ocean, palms, pavilion, plinth, pool, RESIDENTIAL, Richard Serra, rock, Ron Lutsko, Saltwater, San Francisco, SHORELINE, sunset, Taro, trumpet trees, volcanic rock, Walker Warner Architects, Water, Will Gunn, Zach Mortice | Leave a Comment »
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