http://larcexchange.comBlogshttp://larcexchange.com/blogs/              A thought came across me earlier today as I was painstakingly digging through the thick wet top layer of grass and soil, for my landscape work.  Working with my half broken shovel of course, I dreamed of how badly I wanted a rotertiller at that very moment, that or even a bunch of goats to permanently remove the grass, or thirty strapping young men to dig it all instead of one female.  It is only wishful thinking though.                           Oh the joys of machinery!  To have that dirt digger, and grind up the earth would cut hours of my time, time I could spend sleeping in like many students do on Saturday mornings.  But no, I have always done things the old fashion way, as I have done since growing up on my farm meant relying on your bare hands.  Back aching and sweating, I dream of the machines that would save me.  Not happening.                           Our ability to constantly change our natural landscape has been something that man has been truly proud to boast.  But the machines we have created to alter the landscape to our benefits are now having a drastic toll on the environment.  Science has proven that the environment is changing and not for the good, as the temperatures considerably change, the loveliness of climate change. Of course what do our divine machines run on?  Why oil, and our need for oil and gasoline has created markets worth billions of dollars.  But the more we use cars and machines, the more pollutants enter our atmosphere.  This years’ temperature average was up 7.2 ?C higher then it was estimated to be by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a drastic increase.               Discovery Earth News has found that “plant vegetations and soil can take up to two years to recover from an exceptionally hot year, a finding that has implications for the combat against global warming.”  Their scientists have found that “the recovery lag could cause a rethink about the ability of grasslands and soil to act as a sponge, also known as a ‘sink’ that removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.”  Oxygen is down to an astonishing low level of 6-7% in some places in the world like in Japan, rather than its normal level of 21%.  The industry of formally cutting grass in modern times is a very common everyday thing to do.  Lawn care has been dated back several hundred years, the origins debated to be France in their perfectly manicured lawns.  On the larger British and French estates, it was common to have families that lived and worked on the large properties day by day.  Cutting with scythes, family business and traditions, all done by hand.  By 1830, the ever evolving modern world took another change as Edwin Beard Budding, a British inventor created the first ever mechanical lawn mower.  Steam powered mowers would emerge in the 1890’s and the eventual gas powered one in 1919 by Colonel Edwin George in the United States.                 Its common news when hearing the Arctic Refuge drilling or off shore drilling in North America, and the pressure upon the governments to act on natures best interest.  There are simple actions though that the everyday person can do according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, that maintaining your automobile can save yourself approximately $800 per year on gas.                Conflicts arisen from oil demands and prices effects us all.  For instance, in Mexico starting in 2007, prices arose as the dwindling supplies of corn and the result of the U.S. decision to cut back on corn exports in favor of using corn to produce ethanol, created a 400% rise on corn prices.  It should be mentioned that corn is very commonly used in Mexico as a traditional food product.  Similar situations have been occurring in the Niger Delta, as armed rebels have been destroying oil mine fields.  The Nigerian militants have officially declared ‘war’ on the oil rigs.  Another example, the tar sands, located in the western North America, are one of the next steps of oil consumption and demands.  An upcoming development of 2 million acres of landscape will be changed into the mines for the progression of oil in Wyoming.                   The elections in the United States and Canada have allowed politicians to further stress the need for development of the oil fields.  Nexen Inc Energy Company met with a representative of Obama, forming an energy partnership.  Obama representatives said that “we are going to support resources...that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And I think it's an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests," which of course is referring to the tar fields that have changed Fort McMurray in Alberta.             Believe it or not, Canada is the largest foreign supplier to the United States for oil, thanks to the Alberta’s tar sands, and sends more than one million barrels of oil per day.  Around half of this stock originates from Alberta's tar sands.  Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute has said that "the oil sands are three times higher as greenhouse gas-intensive as regular oil, and roughly three barrels of water are required to process one barrel of heavy oil.”  There are rumoured pipelines to be created to Asia, running through landscapes and oceans, destroying more natural habitats.                                   There have been many alternates to oil and gas such as ethanol from corn, but a recent alternative that might be coming into play is grass.  As landscape architects, we should all understand the relevance of grass, or green asphalt as many of us dub quick spreader.  Switch grass or Panicum virgatum, the North American native, has been found to be able to easily reproduce into ethanol fuels.  It’s hardy in poor soils and climate conditions and of course perennial, much more efficient than corn and has a root system that can go 10 feet deep.  (I for sure would not want to be pulling that out by hand.)  Recently there have been debates that it is not as plausible as believed as it is not as energy efficient to corn.  Of course it can be used as food for cattle and sheep.          It will be common that I will bring up the question ‘what can the landscape architect do’ as we are facing a world that needs to be changed for the better.  We need to focus on the greener side and more environmentally friendly approach to landscape architecture and the development of the urban world.  As I reflect on how much I wanted that rotertiller, I know I will have to manage with my two hands and my shovel.   For the families that once worked on the British estates, similar to what I do today with my hands, their style of business and lifestyle are nothing but memories.  1223531110http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ For years, Wacom Technology has been producing high quality, industry standard Pen Tablets and Interactive Pen Displays. For those who are new to the world of Tablet Mice, let me give you a quick run down on them. A tablet is a device that replaces your mouse. It consists of a pad laying flat on your workspace, and a hand held ‘Pen’. This p*** used to perform digital tasks on the computer, with the accuracy of a pen-on-paper environment. Both the tablet and pen contain buttons used for hotkeys, and quick access to tools used commonly in the application your using.Tablets are used in many aspects of design, digital painting, concept art, 3D modeling, animation, flash, image manipulation; the list goes on and on. Many tablets come loaded with all sorts of artistic features, such as pen pressure, tilt and rotation. These controls can be set to affect different properties in Photoshop and Painter, such as opacity, size, jitter, etc. Wacom offers an excellent line of tablet mice, from their industry standard Intuos3, to their LCD CintiQ, to their line of bamboo tablet mice.Intuos3The Intuos3 tablets are some of the highest quality tablets on the market. With Sizes ranging from 4x6 all the way up to 12x19, the Intuos3 offers 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, ‘zoom’ touch strips, 10 customizable buttons, all connected through your USB port, on both PC and MAC platforms. The 10 buttons are laid out as follows; 2 on the pen, and 4 on either side of the tablet, perfect for right or left hand usage.I really enjoyed the feel of the pen in my hand, as the grip was nice, and the location of the buttons are perfect for pressing with either the thumb or index finger. The performance of the tablet was smooth, precise, and incredibly accurate. Creating digital drawings and paintings was a blast. It cut the overall work time in half.BambooSo, you like the idea of a tablet, but the Intuos3 doesn’t really fit the current budget? Don’t panic, Wacom has you covered. Though they may not come as large as the Intuos3, the 512 levels of pressure sensitivity is plenty to get your image from your thoughts onto the screen. The Bamboo and Bamboo fun are both incredibly lightweight and portable. The detachable mini USB cable is wonderful, and allows it to be packed up nice and easy to take it with you. The zoom and quick scroll touch wheel makes navigation a breeze, as well as the 6 customizable hot keys. Though the pen grip is not as comfortable as the intuos3 tablets, the buttons are still in a convenient location, and you will be able to draw and paint for hours.Both the intuos3 and the bamboo tablets have battery-free pens, with eraser tips on the end, so there is no need to switch back and forth in Photoshop, just flip the pen. Both tablets are bus powered, come with a pen stand, and both include a battery-free wireless mouse to use on the tablet surface.For more information on Wacom tablets, head on over to http://www.wacom.comBraedon Sziklasi1222743944http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ (For more info check out www.lalines.ca)What can the landscape architect do? When deciding on joining on the practice of landscape architecture and admitting to the University of Guelph’s program, I was asked a question very critical that to this day has stuck in my mind.  Will I be the landscaper that will only design for big box stores and ignore the environmental problems?  This question of course was asked by an environmental science student from Trent University.  I assured her that I would not let that happen.  Recently BBC has reported that climate inaction is costing lives, that the emissions from developed nations are causing the “flooding, draughts and extreme weather events.”  The IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007 that “20-30% of all plant and animal species would be at increased risk of extinction if temperatures rose between 1.5-2.5C.” But what really is the role of the landscape architect?  The profession includes a large variety of backgrounds, from the private sector to the public.  It differentiates as each of the sectors are broken down further.  People commonly associate any landscape architect with a golf course, seemingly misinterpreting what we truly do.   There is a risk today of such unnatural damage and pollution occurring at alarming daily rates.  To a landscape architect, it is important to remember the innovative thinkers such as Vincent Callebaut and Paolo Soleri, whom both thought beyond the normal and made unimaginable actually function.  Callebaut recently developed the idea of Lily pad cities, as the solution against the rising sea levels. Why not literally ride the wave rather than risk redeveloping at the increasing sea levels per annum.  It is estimated that it may even be nearly 80 cm per year in sea rise.  The design functions with sustainable power from wind, sun and water.  Callebaut believes that nearly a million people can co-exist in the city as the “whole city will be covered with plants in the gardens suspension, without the traffic and cars. The aim is to establish co-existence between humans and nature.”  The city will also be completely energy efficient and produce more than necessary energy.     Outside of Phoenix Arizona, a small concrete city can be found, sunken into the hillside.  Not the ordinary encampment, as there is no roads, shops or cars within the desert landscape.  The Italian architect Paolo Soleri, whom came originally to work for Frank Lloyd Wright, would be the inventor of the term, ‘ecotecture’.  Ultimately creating Arcosanti, outside of Phoenix, he was able to create the city with volunteer help and the bare essentials.  The concrete in the design captures the heat in the winter and provides shade in the summer.  Simple designs such as this have allowed the architecture and landscape to differ then any regular city, as every piece must serve its roll.      I find myself reflecting on that question, will I be able to avoid the corporate world, and protect the environment, maybe not in the same extremes as Callebaut or Soleri, but something similar.  The world of landscape architecture has had far too much misunderstanding of what our profession entails, for instance people such as Jacques Gerber, the creator of the Ottawa Greenbelt have had little credit.  The Greenbelt around Ottawa has created a clean green line around the city, making the city distinguishable when one leaves or enters.  The landscape architect, we are going to have to be the solution to the changing climate and environmental problems ongoing in the consumer and developing world.  1222714678http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ Ended the week Friday night at about 2:30 am after having some drinks with the roommate and some buddies and playing pool for a few hours, woken up Saturday morning at 5:30 am from my other roommate dragging my butt out of bed to drive to a landscaping job at about 2.5 hours north of Guelph in a small town called Ripley. The weekend started out great, slept in the truck on the way up and got there just after sunrise, we were doing an installation of a park/town center, was located on the main strip of a town with a population of just over 900, the amazing thing though is that the town managed to raise over $300,000 to get the park built. It seems these small towns have this amazing ability to band together to accomplish tasks, i think that you'd be hard pressed to see that kind of community fundraising in the city. The project is really neat though... with only a 4 man team (+ 1 for part of the day) we were able to lay 6 skids of sod, base prep for 3000 sq feet of Brussels block pavers and plant about 200 perennials and shrubs, and a few bigger trees. We ended finding a local motel and crashing the night in Kincardine,... and we crashed hard... had dinner at this sick little bar called "the Bruce" we watched a thunderstorm roll in off lake Huron, it's been said that Kincardine has the nicest sunsets in Canada, unfortunately for use we only caught the tail end of it before the thunder storm, but the lightning was pretty neat to… not mention the food. I ordered a steak sandwich; we downed a couple pitchers of beer before heading back to the motel… The save inn aka: the sandman Inn… The weather was beautiful all weekend, perfect for working, we had some good laughs too… apparently Koala bears sleep 28 hours a day… and they are good animals to aspire to be because of that… and can’t forget the sod rockets… nothing like a pizza sized piece of sod flying 50 feet through the air at your head… good times lol Oh... the windmill photo... Ripley ON. Has a huuuge Windfarm! 1222040633http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ National Park(ing) Day eh?... I'm intrested...On September 19th Metered Public Parking spaces become temporary public parks for the day. Volunteers from 25 cities across the united states get togeather and transform these parking spaces to create attention and awareness about the need for for more public parks in American Cities. "By turning parking spaces into instant parks, National Park(ing) Day is a creative way to demonstrate the real need to create more parks in our cities," said Will Rogers, TPL president. "Across America, cities are renewing their investments in parks because our civic leaders have come to recognize that close-to-home parks, gardens, and playgrounds are essential if we are to have cities that aren't just livable, but lovable."Last year National Park(ing) created 200 new parks across 50 cities worldwide. "The quality of our daily experience is only enhanced by often neglected necessities like parks, playgrounds, and gardens," said Rogers, "places that get us in touch with nature, with each other, and with ourselves.""Our goal was to encourage people to rethink the way our streets are used, and to temporarily expand the amount of public open space in an underserved area of downtown San Francisco," says John Bela, co-founder of Rebar. "We added '24,000 square foot-minutes' of public open space that afternoon."Exerpts and image from: www.tpl.org1219683170http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ In late 2007, Andrew O'Neil asked himself, “What if there were better ways for landscape designers and architects who struggle artistically to produce great graphics digitally?” Out of this question Graphic sketchbook was born. O'Neil has created an awesome resource for graphic gurus and beginners alike. Graphic Sketchbook is the largest community on the internet dedicated exclusively to traditional free hand crop art. Combining traditional and digital rendering techniques this site is a limitless resource for professional illustrators and designers. Graphic Sketchbook is a store front for you to sell your work and talk graphics with other members. The goal is to help you achieve your graphic goals by providing excellent resources that are designed to instruct and grow confidence in your personal style and abilities. Within the first week of its launch in early October 2008, Graphic Sketchbook gained over 100 members with a global reach including Bogota Columbia, Bosnia, and Guangzhou China. Targeting primarily landscape architects, Graphic Sketchbook provides tools and resources for designers across multiple industries. Their goal is to become the ultimate graphic resource for all design professionals. These clip art images of trees, people, car, and furniture allow a non artist to build “hand drawn” sections, perspectives, and plan view images with ease. All entourage elements are available in file formats suitable for use in adobe photoshop, google sketchup, and informatix Piranesi. The site has free content in the gallery that you can try before you buy. Graphic Sketchbook hosts monthly architectural rendering contests with cash prizes. In these contests community members are given the opportunity to submit renderings, have their work reviewed by real clients, build their portfolio, and the winning entry receives the cash prize put up by the contest holder. There are four simple ways to get involved with Graphic Sketchbook. 1) Create your profile: It is 100% free and takes just a few minutes 2) Upload your images: all members are given the opportunity to upload art and sell it in the gallery. 3) Sell your graphics: once posted in the gallery all member art is available for sale and use by others. All members receive 35% on the dollar of sales of their images. 4) Contribute to the community: participate in group discussions within the community forums, submit entries to the rendering contests on site for the chance to win cash and prizes!! To learn more, visit www.graphicsketchbook.com or email info@graphicsketchbook.com1225239897http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ Wednesday, 29 October 2008, 5:14 pm Press Release: Christchurch City Council An Urban Design Panel set up by the Christchurch City Council is aiming to improve the quality and connectivity of city developments by offering free independent design reviews.The panel comprises 12 experts in architecture, landscape design, urban design, planning and property development. It is available to both the Council and developers to provide independent advice on urban design aspects of new developments. Hugh Nicholson, the Council’s Principal Advisor Urban Design, says the panel is a product of the Council’s commitment to the Greater Christchurch Urban Development Strategy (UDS). The UDS was introduced last year in partnership with Environment Canterbury, the Waimakariri District Council, the Selwyn District Council and Transit New Zealand (now the New Zealand Land Transport Agency) to manage the growth of greater Christchurch. Developers are encouraged to submit their plans to the panel for a pre-application review to provide greater certainty at the resource consent application stage. Major urban projects the Council is undertaking will also be submitted to the panel for review.The panel does not have decision making powers. Its role is to provide expert advice to the Council and developers, a quicker, easier consent process through early identification of design issues, and to add value to developments through high quality design The recommendations of the panel will be sent to the applicant and will be given to the Council as well. In terms of a resource consent application the recommendations will carry the same weight as any other technical report.Each review will include four panellists drawn from the larger pool of approved members to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest and to allow for specialist skills to be utilised when required. Panel members were nominated by the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) , the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (NZILA), the Property Council of New Zealand (PCNZ) and the New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI).The panel comprises: Robert Batty (Christchurch planning and resource management consultant), Alec Bruce (Christchurch architect), Diane Brand (Wellington architect, urban designer and lecturer), Tim Church (Christchurch urban designer and landscape architect), Grant Edge (Christchurch landscape architect), William Field (Christchurch landscape architect), Bill Gregory (Christchurch architect), John Hardwick-Smith (Wellington architect), Nicole Lauenstein (Christchurch architect and urban designer), Jasper van der Lingen (Christchurch architect), Graeme McDonald (Christchurch valuer) and David Sheppard (Christchurch architect).Projects that have already been reviewed include the new civic offices, the proposed development on the former Feltex site, and a planned tower building on top of the carpark in Victoria Square.More information on the Urban Design Panel can be found at www.ccc.govt.nz/Environment/UrbanDesign/UrbanDesignPanel/ 1225285099http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ Angela Giuffrida Moves towards green building design and construction should not be stalled by a global recession, according to environmental building experts.Keith Clarke, the chief executive of WS Atkins, an engineering and architectural services firm, said the design and construction industry “simply doesn’t have time” to wait for the end of a recession before taking action on sustainable development.“We’re in the midst of a financial crash and on the edge of a global recession,” Mr Clarke told a green building conference in Dubai today.“But what’s really important now is how we change the way we use our resources and our environment. We, as professionals, have to hold our nerve. We don’t have time to wait through a three- to five-year global recession. Whether we have a boom or a recession, we have to start rationing carbon.”Failing to incorporate environmentally sustainable measures into building design could be far costlier for property developers in the long term than any losses incurred because of the financial crisis, said Gurjit Singh, the chief property development officer at Sorouh Real Estate, based in Abu Dhabi.“Sustainability might be the last thing on people’s minds right now,” he said.“But with the real estate industry being one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions, if sustainability is neglected because of the financial movements that are happening now, then we would be seriously jeopardising future financial returns in the industry.”Mr Singh said that issues such as sustainability were more important during a downturn, particularly as home buyers became more discerning. “They’re looking for greater quality and this can only be infused in the developments if the developers themselves are looking to be in the market consistently and are giving value for money,” he said.Peter Busby, a principal at Perkins + Will, a commercial architect design company based in Canada, said the economic slowdown could prompt the construction industry to take a more measured approach.“The economic crisis will slow down the construction boom in the Middle East, which I think is a good thing – it was going crazy,” he said.“Perhaps we’ll be more rational going forward. There’ll be more time to look at these issues and develop sustainable design solutions.”Some companies in the UAE (United Arab emirates), including Masdar, the clean energy firm, are planning to profit from the growing market for carbon credits in Europe by reducing pollution in the oil and gas industry.Under such a plan, the company would design a project to reduce or capture carbon emissions and then collect a proportion of the credits, which they would then sell.But Mr Clarke said he had little faith in trading carbon emissions as a way of saving the world.“There’s been abject failures by banks in the US and UK, and abject failures to actually count money. If the banks can’t trade mortgages, then why would you trust them with the world?”Mr Singh said Sorouh would look at ways of offsetting carbon emissions once its projects became operational.“The carbon-credit market is gaining slow acceptability,” he said.agiuffrida@thenational.ae1225453702http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ Edward L. Daugherty has had a pioneering eye for shaping the land By KATIE LESLIE The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday, October 16, 2008 Lifelong Atlantan Edward L. Daugherty, one of the South’s most noted landscape architects, says he often sees things that aren’t there. It’s that vision, his eye for possibilities, that has influenced the shape of his hometown’s cityscape for six decades. Daugherty, 82 this month, continues his work of “humanizing” existing spaces, even as his career is featured in an upcoming retrospective exhibit.“I think if there is a thread in my work, it’s to help people use the space that is available,” he says. “It’s about evolution. It’s about doing the best you can with what you’ve got.” Take, for instance, his work with All Saints Episcopal Church on West Peachtree Street. Since 1948, he’s helped his childhood place of worship expand and grow while cultivating safe and communal pedestrian spaces within a busy Midtown block. Or consider Daugherty’s work with Georgia Tech (where he was both a student and professor), which transformed the concrete campus by integrating green mini-parks and communal spaces for students. On Friday, the Cherokee Garden Library at the Atlanta History Center opens a retrospective of his work, “Edward L. Daugherty, a Southern Landscape Architect: Exploring New Forms,” featuring photos and renderings of his 25 most noted projects. Staci Catron, director of the Cherokee Garden Library, says they approached Daugherty with the idea after he donated his collection to the museum a few years back. “We are trying to document how the land is shaped in the South, and Edward has been critical in that,” Catron says. “His career mirrors a lot of change in the city.” Continuity, fluidity and humanity Daugherty knew his gift at an early age, he says. As a young teen, he used $100 of his savings from bagging groceries to purchase his first plot of land, a 75-foot-by-55-foot lot adjacent to his parents’ home off Peachtree Street. With dreams of one day becoming an architect, at 14 years old he designed and built a three-room shack on the parcel. He owned that property until just five years ago, he says. “I can’t tell you what I sold it for, but it was a very good investment,” chuckles the unassuming Daugherty, a picture of Southern gentility in a navy blazer and bow-tie. The themes of his work are clear: continuity, fluidity and humanity. Daugherty says he approaches his projects knowing they will involve years, if not decades, of successive decisions, such as his work with downtown Marietta’s revitalization. Daugherty became involved with the Marietta Square project around 1958, when city planners contacted him about their plans to turn the city’s central park into a parking lot. “Because we know a landscape architect can make it pretty,” Daugherty says with a sardonic grin. “In other words, make it acceptable.” Daugherty maintained Marietta officials need not sacrifice the park to keep downtown economically viable. Instead, he drafted a plan that kept the park intact while finding alternate parking spaces to satisfy downtown merchants. He also showed that by incorporating defined large and small spaces the park could accommodate public events. His plan ultimately wasn’t implemented, but the park remained. A pebble in a pond Several years later, Daugherty became involved with Marietta Square again, though on a much larger scale. In the mid-1970s, his firm was commissioned to study and revamp 200 acres of Marietta for a downtown historic preservation and revitalization project. He engaged the assistance of an economist, architectural historian, traffic planner and safety specialists to assess what it would take to encourage economic growth and revitalize downtown Marietta. He held “public listenings” to engage residents’ hopes for their city. He emphasized marking historic landmarks to encourage preservation efforts. His plan kept the core of the city as a viable place to live, work and visit at a time when malls were draining the life from Main Street America. “The park was the pebble, the city was the pond,” he says of the rippling effect of his efforts. Some 55 years after Daugherty opened his first office on his parents’ sleeping porch, he continues to influence Atlanta’s residential and urban landscape with projects such as Decatur’s Woodlands Garden and the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Buckhead. Spencer Tunnell, a landscape architect and Cherokee Garden Library board member, credits Daugherty for inspiring his own career while just a high school student. He later worked for Daugherty before launching his own firm, Tunnell and Tunnell Landscape Architecture. He summarizes his mentor’s vision as creating spaces and places. “For him, landscape architecture is not something just to be looked at,” Tunnell says. “It’s to be experienced and lived in and walked through in a four-dimensional way, with the fourth dimension being time. It’s timeless in that it speaks to the universal needs of people.” JESSICA MCGOWAN/jmcgowan@ajc.com Landscape architect Edward L. Daugherty, who helped plant these trees at the Atlanta History Center, is a proponent of ‘humanizing’ spaces. BRUCE W. TAYLOR Edward L. Daugherty was twice asked to design plans involving Marietta Square, seen here in 1979. His vision for the square was instrumental in keeping the historic park an anchor for the city’s growth. Courtesy of Edward L. Daugherty This 1978 shot shows Daugherty’s use of an arcade in the landscaping at All Saints Episcopal Church. 1225235583http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ The SkylineBy Blair KaminHow does a breathtaking beautiful college campus take shape? I was priviledged to address that question last Friday at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., from which I graduated in 1979. The subject was "Amherst's Campus Architecture: Past, Present and Future." The occasion was the kick-off of a capital campaign for the college. My fellow panelists were Cullen Murphy, editor-at-large at Vanity Fair and an Amherst trustee, and Nicola M. Courtright, professor of art and the history of art and associate dean of the faculty. It’s a great pleasure to be back at Amherst. This is a storybook campus, though, as Cullen mentioned, it has real problems—or should I say “giving opportunities,” as the people in the development office probably would prefer. Parts of the campus—the best parts—look so beautiful, so inevitable, that they seem to have been here since the beginning of time. In fact, that is a great illusion. The best parts of Amherst represent the legacy of forward-thinking architects and landscape architects who disenthralled themselves from the past and boldly imagined a better future. I want to talk briefly about what they did, and then we can get into what people really want to know from a critic: Which buildings do you hate? Nicola has taken you through Amherst’s architectural beginnings—the simple, cubical brick buildings reflecting the piety of the College’s founders. The College faced to the west—toward the town of Amherst and, in the broadest sense, toward the inland sea coast of the Connecticut River. The east was back country. But this man, Frederick Law Olmsted, would change all that.  You undoubtedly know Olmsted’s masterpiece, Central Park. Here it is today, ringed by cliff-like walls of Manhattan high-rises. And here it is as Olmsted envisioned it: With sinuous pathways, expansive meadows, and glistening ponds, all designed to provide relief from the relentless march of the Manhattan street grid. It seems unlikely, but this vision for America’s largest city would play a major role in reshaping the campus of a small New England liberal arts college. In 1870, three years after the end of the Civil War, the College turned to Olmsted for advice on where to place the new Stearns Church, whose Gothic steeple you see in this slide. The church was torn down in 1949 to make way for the Mead Art Museum. But that is getting ahead of the story.  The preferred site for the church was here—on the rise facing the town common, near Johnson Chapel and the Octagon. Olmsted thought this was a terrible idea. He considered the Octagon second-rate architecture and was certain it would be demolished. He predicted that if the College put Stearns Church on that rise, it would sit all by itself in a kind of architectural no man’s land, relating equally awkwardly to both the college and town. Disenthrall yourselves, Olmsted said. I have a better idea. This is what he had in mind: A kind of mini-Central Park. Same sinuous curves. Same romantic landscape. There are even two little Columbus Circles. It is all organized around an internal quadrangle—much bigger than today’s freshman quad and oriented on an axis that runs east-west, not north-south. The park is dotted with buildings. That’s Johnson Chapel to the right; Olmsted wanted to give it wings. He suggests the site of other buildings with those “S's.” He indicates the site of Stearns Church with the rectangle in the middle. The College had asked Olmsted a small question: Where to put the church. He gave it a big answer: Reorient your entire campus around a new quadrangle and put the church in the middle of it. If the College had once faced solely toward the town, now it would face both the town and the quadrangle, both outward and inward. That would require buildings with fronts on both sides, which is why Johnson Chapel eventually got an entrance facing east. With respect to the problem at hand, the College heeded Olmsted’s advice and built Stearns Church precisely where he said it should go. But as is often the case with master plans, this one was enacted in pieces, not whole. And the building we’re sitting in—Fayerweather—is what undid in Olmsted’s plan. Around 1890, the college was gearing up to build a new physics lab. Olmsted’s plan clearly indicated that the building should be double-fronted, with the north side facing the town and the south side facing inward toward the quad. But a physics professor had other ideas. He complained that facing the building southward would give him little late-afternoon western light. And the prevailing westerly winds would blow laboratory gases and odors in his face. President Merrill Gates sided with the pragmatic concerns of the physics professor.  If I had been the Amherst Student’s architecture critic at the time, I’m sure I would have ripped President Gates for being dim-witted and short-sighted—and not listening to America’s foremost landscape architect, etc. etc. But I would have been wrong. In retrospect, this setback for Omsted was fortuitous. In 1903, the Class of 1893 celebrates its 10th reunion. It starts a new campaign to beautify Amherst—and this is what it’s influenced by, not the romantic naturalism of Olmsted, but the City Beautiful classicism of the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The fair is a search for order amid the helter-skelter growth of the emerging skyscraper city. The buildings around its Court of Honor are all classical. They share a common height, a common cornice line. Everything is balanced and symmetrical. Everything is arranged around a central axis and draws the eye to a visual focal point, the Golden Lady rising out of the Grand Basin. This City Beautiful vision—a total vision of architecture, landscape architecture and  the arts--turns out to be enormously influential. We see it in the western end of the National Mall, which is planned right around 1903--symmetrical, axial, drawing the eye to the distant focal point of the Lincoln Memorial. The designers working with the class of 1893--Amherst’s own William Mead of the prestigious New York firm of McKim Mead and White and Olmsted’s sons, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and his brother John—surely would have been aware of it. And as committed classicists, they also would have been familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the University of Virginia—an “academical village,” U-shaped, punctuated at one end by a great rotunda (the library) and opening at the other end to a view of surrounding landscape. Sound familiar? It’s the template by which Amherst grows. A U-shaped quad. The library at the head, brick cubes symmetrically arranged on either side of the quad, other architectural styles (like the Gothic Stearns Church) ruthlessly edited out. The whole moves southward to where the trees compress space just before the War Memorial, and then it opens gloriously to the view of the Notch and the Hadley Range. It is an extraordinary sequence, culminating in a symbol of service and self-sacrifice, and in a view of the world beyond, the world to which Amherst is supposed to bring light.  None of this, you know now, was inevitable. There were wrong turns, roadblocks, shifts in design. Somehow, it all worked out. As I’ve walked the campus today, it occurred to me that the campus is the stage set for a play—a stage set that has changed continuously since Amherst’s founding 187 years ago. Far from being passive observers of this play, we are participants insofar as we possess the power to alter the stage—and thereby influence the action on it. As Winston Churchill once so eloquently put it, we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.Original Post  1225479990http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ $25,000 project will help environment by Alex AltskanHatchet Reporter The University constructed its first "green roof" on the Elliott School of International Affairs City View Room terrace late last month. The 2,000-square-foot development was organized by GW's chapter of Net Impact, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, with the help of other environmental groups. Green roofs are additional layers of vegetation and waterproof covering placed on top of a building's existing structure. The roofs help offset carbon emissions, decrease water runoff and attract nature back to urban settings by creating habitats for city-dwelling birds, said Facilities Planning Director Nancy Giammatteo. She added that the neighborhood was very supportive of the construction. Heavy rain neither discouraged nor stopped the Oct. 25 installation. The workers - graduate students from GW's Sustainable Landscape Design program, along with members of Green GW and Net Impact - worked all day to complete the project. "Everybody was a trooper," Giammatteo said. The effort lasted about eight hours, ending around 4:30 p.m. when the rain became unbearable. In the end, more than 4,000 plant "sedums" were planted in a three-color layout designed by Sustainable Landscape Design Director Adele Ashkar. Many universities have installed such structures on their buildings, and Net Impact member Brett Kaplan said in an e-mail last spring that the purpose of the project is "to provide a conspicuous demonstration of GW's commitment to sustainability and to create top-of-mind awareness for students, faculty, and alumni." The green roof was in the planning stages since last spring, when it received final approval from Executive Vice President and Treasurer Lou Katz on Earth Day 2008. More than 70 percent of the $25,000 needed to complete the project came from the University, with another $2,000 provided by the Class of 2007 Green Campus Fund and the final $5,000 from the Student Association Social Responsibility Initiative. Ultimately, promoters said they hope that this "pilot" green roof will convince the University and others of the roof's benefits, increasing the number of installations on and off campus. Organizers said the Elliott School roof may also be used for studies, such as researching habitats and water runoff projects.1225840573http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ First U.S. Golf Course Created by Tiger Woods Design is Centerpiece of Premier Residential Wellness Community in Blue Ridge Mountains near AshevilleASHEVILLE, N.C., Nov 08, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- To a crowd of over 1,000 people, Tiger Woods, Chairman of Tiger Woods Design, and Jim Anthony, Founder and CEO of The Cliffs Communities, today unveiled The Cliffs at High Carolina, featuring Tiger Woods Design's first golf course in America. The debut of the course's design, held on site at The Cliffs at High Carolina near Asheville, NC, followed a celebration of the inaugural release of homesites available for purchase within the community -- the culmination of a highly anticipated, reservation-based sale process with buyers hailing from across the country. In his remarks about the course, Woods called out its distinguishing features, beginning with the uniqueness of the topography of the site itself. "The Cliffs at High Carolina is designed to be a walkable, mountain course that takes advantage of the amazing views and varied landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains," said Tiger Woods. "The course will play looking out over stunning 50-mile views, in the midst of a mountain meadow, and alongside lakes and streams, while maintaining the mature forest as a signature element. "The golf course will have the feel of an old parkland course with classic bunkers and green complexes accessible to running shots," Woods added. "I enjoy creating a lot of options for players, allowing them to think their way around the course, and High Carolina will definitely be a reflection of that." Like the two other Tiger Woods Design projects underway -- Al Ruwaya in Dubai and Punta Brava in Ensenada, Mexico -- The Cliffs at High Carolina course is designed to be enjoyable and challenging to players of all skill levels. From its back tees, High Carolina will measure almost 7,500 yards but is designed to test golfers of all skill levels. Each hole can be played from one of six tee boxes, allowing an enjoyable experience for higher handicappers, ladies and families playing with junior golfers. Walking the course, while not required, will be encouraged, thanks to the course being routed within a mountaintop meadow. Special care and time were taken by Woods and his design team to ensure that all 18 holes receive southern exposure of sunlight, resulting in year-round playability at 4,000 feet elevation. "The energy and passion that Tiger and his team have brought to this project have been incredible," commented Jim Anthony. "As Tiger's goal is to create the best golf course, our goal is to create the best place to live, work and play in America. At The Cliffs at High Carolina, we continue a nearly 20-year tradition of building communities that align with our owners' needs and reflect the core values of the culture here -- an enriching quality of life created through authentic experiences focused around what's most important: one's family, friends and well-being." With The Cliffs at High Carolina, the line-up of The Cliffs' championship golf courses increases to eight, all of which are located within a short distance of one another and are accessible by a single membership. The High Carolina course is currently in the permitting stage and is expected to begin construction in 2009 with a grand opening planned for the fall of 2010. The Tiger Woods Design course is the centerpiece of The Cliffs at High Carolina, the eighth residential community in The Cliffs' award-winning collection. High Carolina will feature amenities, including an Inn and Spa, Clubhouse, Residents Village and an extensive trail system. Properties offered in the grand opening release at High Carolina this weekend are priced starting in the $500,000s to more than $3 million. About Tiger Woods Design Established in 2006, the mission of Tiger Woods Design is to utilize Tiger's worldwide experience, his limitless pursuit of excellence and his love of golf to create a unique collection of amazing golf courses around the world. Tiger believes that every project should be special and provide an outstanding golf experience. As a result, Tiger Woods Design seeks to find the best sites, select the best partners and create fantastic course designs. A cornerstone of every project, the Tiger Woods Design team works closely with each client to provide exceptional, customized service. Complementing this selective approach are the company's design goals. Tiger Woods is famous for setting a high standard and working hard to surpass it. Tiger Woods Design is no different. Every project incorporates its Chairman's highest standards, personal vision and passion for golf as well as his international experience in the game. Currently, Tiger Woods Design is designing courses in Dubai, U.A.E.; Asheville, North Carolina; and Ensenada, Mexico. For more information, visit: http://www.tigerwoodsdesign.com. About The Cliffs Communities Founded in 1991 by Jim Anthony, The Cliffs Communities is devoted to the sensible development of residential communities and other properties, within the United States and around the world. The Cliffs' domestic properties include eight premier, private master-planned residential communities located in the heart of the Carolina Preserve near Asheville, NC and Greenville, SC, collectively bordered by hundreds of thousands of acres of national forests and state parks in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ownership in any one of The Cliffs' eight communities carries the exclusive opportunity to become a Cliffs' Member, with privileges that include access to The Cliffs' international properties stretching from the marine preserves off the British Columbia cost to the virgin shoreline of Patagonia, Chile and the beaches and reefs of the private island of Cornish Cay in the Abacos, Bahamas. The Cliffs offers homesites from $300,000 to over $3,000,000 and custom homes from $700,000 to $5,000,000. To discover panoramic living at The Cliffs, call (877) 254-3371 or visit http://www.cliffscommunities.com .Press Contact: Jamie Prince The Cliffs Communities (864) 371-3007 jprince@cliffscommunities.com Julie McNeal Ketchum, Inc (404) 879-9125 Julie.mcneal@ketchum.com Glenn Greenspan Tiger Woods Design (407) 263-4182 twdesign@tigerwoodsdesign.comOriginal Article Posted on: Marketwatchhttp://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Tiger-Woods-Unveils-Golf-Course/story.aspx?guid={3BB51706-26F7-435B-AB23-14E2326D8FC0}Original Photo Location: http://www.discoverhighcarolina.com/1226321457http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) bestowed its 2008 Honor Award to the James Clarkson Environmental Discovery Center (EDC) at the ASLA annual Convention in Philadelphia on Oct. 6.This award for excellence in landscape design is one of eight awards conferred out of a field of more than 300 entries submitted by firms from across the United States and internationally.Michael Arens, chief engineer for the Huron-Clinton Metroparks, along with representatives of MSI of Columbus, Ohio, received the award.The EDC, a 90-acre facility at Indian Springs Metropark, showcases Michigan's natural world, with more than 60 acres of ponds, wetlands and prairies within restored and created native ecosystems. Trails wind along a sedge fen, tall- and short-grass prairies, a prairie barren and a demonstration garden with native Michigan plants. More than 30,000 plants, including 40 varieties of wetland species were planted, and nearly 60 acres were seeded with a mix of native prairie seeds to create the ecosystems.Site construction began in December 2001; the facility opened in 2004. The site was designed by landscape architecture firm MSI under the direction of the Huron-Clinton Metroparks planning, engineering and natural resources departments.Indian Springs Metropark, near White Lake, is a 2,200-acre park that encompasses the headwaters of the Huron River. In addition to the EDC, facilities include a regulation 18-hole golf course, picnic areas, an eight mile paved hike/bike trail and a nature center. The EDC has received several other awards, as wellOriginal Post: http://hometownlife.com/article/20081106/LIFE/811060380/1112/NEWS19Original Photo Location: http://www.ascribehq.com/aia-michigan/portfolio/7401226322171http://larcexchange.com/blogs/ Meg Calkins, LEED AP     The adventure into this book started one day, as I sat at the London Public Swimming Pool, while attending the London Under Water Hockey Tournament, as a member of the Guelph University team.  The sport, I may add is exactly as it sounds.  As I rested there waiting for our next match, I realized something.  Bewildered by the other athletes, from all over Canada and the United States that I was actually doing ‘school work’, I was forced to justify to many a score of confused persons, the actual practice of Landscape Architecture.      With Calkins book on my lap, I engaged these listeners with tidbits of historical facts, techniques we learn at school and in the field, and the different pathways one is able to take in this career.  At this point I gave the person the book, and said ‘these are the necessary developments in our profession that as a landscape architect, we all need to address.’      The general thoughts that I heard that day were simply ‘cool’ and ‘neat’, while others were very fascinated.  I realized more so at that tournament that very is little known about our profession, despite our long history of creating outdoor spaces. I pointed out to my athletic friends that the term ‘landscape architect’ was developed by a Scottish man a few hundred years past.  There is a great misconception of our profession by the general public, and for many colleagues this is exceedingly frustrating.  We ‘landscapers’, work with nature, science and art to fashion a worldly combination of architecture, ecology within scientific boundaries and engineering.  As to what we do truly with our hands to conceive these memorable outdoor spaces, these tools are identified in the book by Meg Calkins, Materials for Sustainable Sites.     The Problems    Today, from looking at events and current trends, we all have to be concerned with being ‘green’ and environmentally friendly.  It should be questioned then if there need be any development at all.  If so, what is its environmental impact?  So what does being ‘green’ mean to us?  The element of being ‘green’ is to produce less waste, being conscious of unfriendly environmental choices and of course building with sustainable materials.  This is a trend that is becoming more popular, just by acting green.    Being green though, does not mean just the average person simply switching to a more efficient light bulb, but an act of a more drastic and bigger nature.  It is an environmentally friendly energy source.  It is the air we don’t pollute.   It is the water we don’t waste and the land we protect.         But for the landscape architect, the act of being green and conscious of the need of environmental protection, means that we are the individuals to set that standard.  Our designs and ideas shadow what and how society shall perceive an outdoor space, especially if it is a unique site that uses sustainable materials.  These are all ideas that Calkins reflects upon in her seminal book. The Breakdown    In thirteen chapters, Meg Calkins investigates and recommends how sustainable materials are used and should be used.  Calkins also includes an excerpt by Ruth Stafford in the last chapter on biobased materials that substantiates her overall message.  This book, for the profession of landscape architecture is highly important in identifying the consequences of poorly chosen materials on human health.  Calkins emphasizes this point throughout the entire book. She provides an inventory of common materials and their environmental impacts.  In Chapter Three, Calkins states by “determining how much importance to assign a given environmental or human health impact is challenging.”  This reflects the fact that any environmental or human impact can occur from the usage of any given material.  She also makes the point that “different projects and clients will have different priorities” which could compromise the environment.        More importantly this book identifies the issues surrounding the waste crisis., Calkins discusses this  significant issue in Chapter Four.  She notes that factors such as time frames and deconstruction costs and the politics surrounding these issues often lead to the decision to go more practical in terms of development rather advocating for the sustainable options.  On this point, it must not be misinterpreted that it’s necessarily the designer who is responsible for such construction decisions. Often the “client” sets budget constraints or judgments are made by people “higher up” who too often override concerns about environmental sustainability.      The Chapters Five through Twelve elaborate in greater detail on the different materials commonly used in site designs and on their own respective productivity and efficiency levels.  For example Calkins looks at concrete, one of the most commonly used design materials, which  has drastic environmental costs.  Production of concrete heavily uses fossil fuels, and generates high carbon emissions produced during construction and extraction.  Calkins remarks that there are “several measures [that] can be taken to minimize the environmental and human health impacts of concrete – and some can result in improved performance and durability.” This means using recycled materials in place of new course and fine aggregates, or using porous concrete to reduce urban heat effects.     In relation to the topic of concrete, there have been several alternatives found, one being Hemp. Mme Perrier, a French inventor and designer, discovered that the leftover parts of the hemp plant when mixed with lime, petrifies and is stronger and even lighter at 1/6th of normal concretes weight and therefore can last longer than any concrete mix.  Of course this type of production for such a product is restricted from current laws in France on hemp production.  Mme Perrier has  built 300 houses a year with the Hemp ‘concrete’.    Another key component of landscape architecture is our usage of gravel and asphalt, which Meg Calkins thoroughly explains in Chapter Nine.  Calkins relates that “currently over 90% of stone is mined in surface quarries; however underground mining, though more expensive, is increasing due to extraction efficiencies and increasingly stringent environmental regulations in some areas.”  That is just another example of essential decision making and professional changes that as landscape architects, we need to embrace.      This guide book illustrates further information on subjects such as brick masonry, asphalt pavement, metals, plastics and rubber and even biobased materials.  The last chapter in the book was written by Ruth Stafford on the subject of biobased materials.  These are materials that we must consciously think of, as they are non-toxic, biodegradable and don’t produce a hazardous waste.  There are many materials to choose from such as cellulose fiber mulch, bamboo products, straw mulch, water soluble polymers, and jute textiles.  These are products that can lead to healthier and safer design choices that protect the natural environment and even human health.  The Final Word      The practice of landscape architecture unfortunately relies upon industries that highly damage natural landscapes, such as concrete production, gravel and stone mining, cutting trees, transportation of products which sometimes are at great distances, and the draining swamps and wetlands.  Calkins advocates, and I wholeheartedly agree that we must make a change in how we function, produce and practice our profession.  Our actions may not be thought as damaging the environment, but in today’s modern world, one could hardly say that they have ‘clean hands’.  And yet in this book, there is a tremendous volume of information that can aid our profession to be more protective of our natural landscape, for after all it is our thinking and decisions that reflect upon the natural world.          So read this book, and use it as a guide.  Even more importantly, lend it to others and teach the world the importance of the practice of being sustainable.  It’s no longer just up to the landscape architect to change our landscapes – but we can help lead the way.      Notes: Calkins book is visual stunning, filled with wonderful imaging and plates. The format to this book contributes greatly to the field as a useful reference tool.Thanks to Brian Caicco and Meg Calkins for introducing this beneficial working tool that I shall always utilize from now on.  Review Written by Liisa Mountain1230446495