Charles A. Birnbaum marks the milestones that have contributed to landscape architecture's growing stature over the past year.
Superstorm Sandy was perhaps the most significant event of the year, yielding headlines for landscape architects and the field's role in helping to mitigate future storms. Birnbaum calls out Kate Orff's "prescient 2010 proposal for mitigating storm surge in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood (which was badly hit by Sandy) and Gowanus Bay" and landscape architect Susannah Drake's examination of the extent of New York's public housing located in flood zones, for particular praise.
Not all of the significant events in the field were Sandy-related. Several excellent new projects showed off the field's contributions to urban environments, including: Sugar Beach on the Lake Ontario waterfront in Toronto designed by Montreal-based Claude Cormier & Associés Inc., seven (!) projects at San Francisco's Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Rios Clementi Hale's new Grand Park located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
As Alan Brake's recent editorial in The Architect's Newspaper noted, "[l]andscape architecture is gaining in public stature and it's because of entrepreneurial students at CCNY and elsewhere, practitioners like Kate Orff and Susannah Drake, organizations like the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Presidio Trust, and many others that the profession and its practitioners are being recognized as leaders capable of integrating nature and culture to shape our future."
FULL STORY: 2012's Notable Developments in Landscape Architecture
East River Floodgates Rising in NYC
A tour of new infrastructure designed to protect the city’s East Side from catastrophic flooding.
In Battery Park City, Public Infrastructure Meets Climate Resilience
A massive project underway in Lower Manhattan seeks to protect the shoreline from future flooding and mitigate the effects of climate change and rising sea levels.
Net Zero Development Coming to New York City
The project, which relies largely on geothermal energy to minimize its carbon footprint, will bring affordable housing and boost storm resilience to an area devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
Jersey City will continue to allow co-location facilities, such as those meant for research institutions that store their own data.
Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
A new study from the Garden State Initiative found that NJ Transit’s budget grew 20% across a 4 year period, but reliability declined significantly over the same period.
EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
Under Monday’s plan, power plants would still have some limits on how much mercury, arsenic and other contaminants they can emit.
Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
Both new services will launch in October, and are part of Phoenix's Project Effective Access Solutions for Easing Congestion.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association