In awarding the second biennial Oberlander Prize to the Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu, FASLA, the Cultural Landscape Foundation and its 2023 jury sent an unmistakable signal about the future of the field. For the prize, which seeks to function as a counterpart to architecture’s Pritzker Prize, Yu is a resonant international figure whose theory of sponge cities saw its influence and exposure steadily grow in the past decade. Gray infrastructure and channelized rivers of the past century are being increasingly daylit and replaced with naturalized environments that absorb water and restore wildlife habitats. Given the accelerating climate crisis and its impact on hydrological cycles, Yu now talks about the need for a “sponge planet,” updated to reflect the urgency of climate adaptation facing human settlements worldwide.Continue reading The Sponge Evangelist→
The recent announcement of Kongjian Yu, FASLA, as the winner of the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Prize sent us back to the archives for this piece on his work at Hing Hay Park in Seattle.
—October 26, 2023
Early concepts by Kongjian Yu, FASLA, explored the park’s role as a stage, an orchard, and a series of terraces. Image by Turenscape.
By Betsy Anderson, Associate ASLA
On a steely afternoon in late January, the soft notes of a dizi floated over the sound of construction in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. The flutist played amid a line of safety fencing and the maneuvers of a carry deck crane. This was not an unusual scene in a city filled with building projects, in a neighborhood that proudly cradles cultural expression. But today, anyone crossing the intersection of 6th Avenue South and South King Street would not be greeted by the usual half-built shell of a mid-rise. Instead, a much less orderly silhouette emerged on the street corner. Asymmetrical, animalistic, and unapologetically red—a bending steel-clad structure reached up, piece by piece, to embrace the district’s most recently completed park.Continue reading Kongjian Yu: Found In Translation→
Vista Hermosa Natural Park Studio-MLA, Los Angeles
By Mimi Zeiger
At the turn of the last century, the 10 acres on which Vista Hermosa Natural Park sits was a forest of oil derricks. Located on the outskirts of a nascent downtown Los Angeles, dozens of wellheads replaced the native sage and chaparral scrub. A photograph from 1901 shows a poisonous landscape glistening with pools of what might be water—or oil. Continue reading Landmark Award: Vista Hermosa Natural Park→
There’s no swimming at Sugar Beach, but the crowds come anyway.
By Daniel Jost, ASLA
It’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit, or, as they say here in Toronto, a balmy 27 degrees. Stephanie McCarthy leans back in a white Adirondack chair and digs her feet into the sand. On Canada’s Sugar Beach she’s just a short walk from her downtown apartment, though as she sits in the shade of a pink umbrella, it seems a little unreal. “It feels like you’re somewhere tropical,” she says, “like a minivacation.” Continue reading Claude Cormier: How Sweet→
As the news of Claude Cormier’s death touched us, we look back to a profile we published in 2020. A remembrance of Cormier’s legacy and life is available on the Cultural Landscape Foundation website.
Claude Cormier, ASLA, designed bridges, which double as romantic viewing platforms, over the entrances to a pair of underground parking decks. Photo by Jean-François Savaria.
When Claude Cormier, ASLA, and I pull up to Dorchester Square in Montreal, a man is leaning against the grand fountain, with its three Victorian bowls, all painted a very Victorian shade of green, smoking a cigarette. When we get out of the car, I realize it’s not a cigarette, but a joint. Continue reading Claude Cormier: Hell of Fun→
A Fresh look for the ASLA Awards issue emerges from dozens of almosts.
“I realized we needed to take a big step back and think about how we were presenting our awards to our readers. We were presenting them as one large object instead of individual objects. The main thing was that we needed a color structure that would allow the reader to jump around and know where they were.”
An award-winning new outdoor space in Ohio focuses on the autistic experience.
By Maci Nelson, Associate ASLA
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder enjoy the garden both independently and with support. Photo by Richard Mandelkorn.
In early 2020, Toronto-based Virginia Burt, FASLA, received a cold call and invitation to meet for pizza and discuss a garden project in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The garden would honor the memory of the family’s child, Morgan, whose favorite hobby was gardening, and who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The proposed garden would replace the existing courtyard at the Monarch Center for Autism and its Lifeworks Program, which cared for Morgan, and provides prevocational training and support for people with autism who experience severe emotional, physical, and social challenges.Continue reading Designed for Differences→
The Magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects
