Landscape Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

Eleven of the United States’ most prestigious architects have been selected by developers Hoffman-Madison Waterfront (HMW), to commence Phase 2 of The Wharf, a $2 billion neighborhood situated on the southwest waterfront of Washington D.C. The development is adjacent to the National Mall, spanning 24 acres of land and 50 acres of water.

“We have selected a diverse group of locally, nationally, and internationally renowned designers, knowing they will bring their talent and expertise to The Wharf, building a waterfront neighborhood that is an integral part of the city,” said Shawn Seaman, principal and Senior VP of Development at PN Hoffman.

The International Khalifa Heritage School seeks interdisciplinary-minded students and young professionals to work collaboratively to develop innovative design solutions for a proposed Heritage and Environment Park. The park will occupy a critically important site at the southern gateway to Khalifa neighborhood and overlooking the 13th-century al-Ashraf Khalil and Fatima Khatun Domes, monuments of great heritage significance.

Paradisiacal, utopian, dystopian, heterotopian – islands hold an especially enigmatic and beguiling place in our geographical imagination. Existing in juxtaposition to what’s around them, islands are figures of otherness and difference. Differentiated from their contexts and as much myth as reality, islands have their own rules, their own stories, their own characters, their own ecologies, their own functions, and their own forms.

The LA+ IMAGINATION design ideas competition asks you to design a new island. You can locate it anywhere in the world, program it any way you want, and give it any form and purpose you can imagine.

AWARDS:
USD $10,000 total prize money and feature publication in LA+ Journal’s LA+ IMAGINATION issue

Gustafson Porter + Bowman has unveiled plans for Taikoo Place, a new public space for Hong Kong that will include lush native vegetation and sculptural water features. Encompassing 69,000 square feet, the landscape project will feature a variety of spaces, from small, intimate areas for conversation, to larger open areas suitable for special events like concerts and outdoor markets.

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Los Angeles-based practice Brooks + Scarpa has revealed their proposed design for the FAB Park competition, which sought schemes for a new $12 million public park situated at First and Broadway in Downtown LA.

The FAB (First and Broadway) Civic Center Park aims to capitalize on the city’s diverse character and encourages strong communal activity among members of the public, through the inclusion of unique spaces for food, art and socializing.

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AGi Architects has won a competition to transform 18 ancient Roman sites into a natural museum in Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain. The winning proposal, entitled In Natura Veritas, was selected from 26 submissions in a competition organized by the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. The AGi scheme, due to be realized in the coming months, aims to preserve the memory of the natural environment chosen as a living place by the Roman settlers hundreds of years ago and to treat the visitor to a multi-sensory journey through the 18 sites across the Pontevedra landscape.

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Tamayouz Excellence Award is delighted to invite students of Architecture / Urban / Architecture Technology / Landscape Design worldwide to register and submit their Graduation Projects. An independent international jury will review all entries and will select the winners of Tamayouz International Award 2017. Prizes include: An MSc Scholarship for 2 Years at the Polytechnic University of Milan, 2 scholarships for the Stadslab (European Urban Design Laboratory) master classes, Medals for 7 Honorable Mentions, supervisor the Year Medal, University of the Year Medallion. All the selected winners making the Top 10 list, the supervisor of the year and the university of the Year will be invited to attend our annual Tamayouz Excellence Award ceremony (Travel Expenses covered by the organisers of the Award).

Time is ticking. That’s what it does. Or at least that’s how we represent what we don’t understand. For physics, time is a byproduct of so called space-time, elastic goo created at the very moment that something came from nothing; the moment eternity stopped and the universe began. For geology, time is 4.5 billion years of compression and catastrophe. For biology time is 3.5 billion years of diversification and now the urgency of the sixth extinction. For anthropology time is 150 thousand years since mitochondrial Eve walked out of the rift valley in Ethiopia. For historians, time begins with Herodotus (484 BC) and ends, or rather doesn’t, with Fukuyama’s The End of History. For architecture time is ruination. For landscape architecture time is ephemerality, entropy, and growth. For all of us time is running out. In this issue of LA+ we invite speculations on the question of time from all relevant disciplines.

Mecanoo has unveiled its design to transform The Soestdijk Estate into Eden Soestdijk, “an experimental garden for a sustainable society and a paradise destination for all” in The Netherlands. In an effort to become an educational tool for environmental awareness, the project aims to make a significant contribution to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“The world is facing pressure from increasingly larger and more complex problems when it comes to water, food, climate and energy,” said Anton Valk, chairman of the Eden Soestdijk foundation. “Eden Soestdijk wants to tackle these problems and contribute to a more sustainable society by stimulating and inspiring visitors to change their behaviour in a positive way.”

An architectural greenhouse behind the palace gardens will be the centerpiece of the project, and will house an interactive exhibition focusing on topics like circularity, ecological balance, and social aspects of sustainability.

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A traveling photographic exhibition about the life and work of influential Modernist landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916-2009). Organized on the 100th anniversary of the year of his birth, the exhibition, organized and curated by The Cultural Landscape Foundation in collaboration with the National Building Museum, is accompanied by a comprehensive website and full color, 92-page gallery guide. It features more than 50 newly commissioned photographs of his built works, as well as sketches, drawings, notebooks, models and other artifacts from the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania, and drawings from Halprin's personal collection courtesy Edward Cella Art & Architecture in Los Angeles.

As part of Volume 37 of Site Magazine and in conjunction with the 2017 celebration of Canada’s sesquicentennial, the editors invite submissions to a juried competition that projects the theme of 'Future Legacy' into Canada’s next 150 years. We are looking for design responses that take a position on the future history of a national project and offer perspectives on the role of legacy as a driving force in the creation of the nation.. What parts of the past drive us into the future? What scales of time influence our view of the passage of history? What do we pick up and what do we leave behind?

Tree and Design Action Group is a group that “shares the collective vision that the location of trees, and all the benefits they bring, can be secured for future generations through better collaboration in the planning, design, construction and management of our urban infrastructure and spaces.”

“Trees make places look and feel better, as well as playing a role in climate proofing our neighborhoods and supporting human health and environmental well-being, trees can also help to create conditions for economic success.” The Trees in the Townscape guide presents a modern approach to urban forestry, providing officials and professionals with the principles and references needed to realize the potential of vegetation in urban areas.

This is an approach that keeps pace with and responds to the challenges of our times. “Trees in the Townscape offers a comprehensive set of 12 action-oriented principles which can be adapted to the unique context of [any] own town or city.”

Have you ever imagined living in a house surrounded by the forest? Here is a competition to realize your dreams. The competition will be started very soon and seeks to explore the fantastic ides of architectural design, as well as landscape design and site planning. The aim of this competition is to promote our ideas of protecting the forest and its environment. We also encourage the creation of new living style which is not only limited for houses, but also can be like pavilions, structures, or landscape.

Public spaces, squares, and parks in New York City are administered by the city’s Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC Parks).

In recent years, the agency has been responsible for creating new programs to help children, youth and adults be aware of the importance of caring for their urban landscape.

One of these programs is a TreesCount! which in 2015 gathered 2,300 volunteers to learn about the trees in their environment, what state they are in, what care they need, what their measurements are, and how they benefit the surrounding community, etc.

For months, they walked the streets of the five boroughs together with a group of monitors who previously trained them to recognize what trees they were studying and their characteristics. 

Walk this Way: The Broadway/Webster Project aims to transform the areas under, around and through the Broadway and Webster Street underpasses of the I-880 Freeway into beautiful, safe, walkable, inviting, green and iconic passageways between Downtown Oakland and the Waterfront.

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Open International Competition (in German) – House of Youth, Heidelberg, Germany

Since the 1960s, the City of Heidelberg has run the very successful "Haus der Jugend“ (House of Youth), which now has to be remodeled to house its new program adequately. All age groups and educational backgrounds gather here and call it home. With its new building the "Haus der Jugend“ is set to continue and renew its citywide attractiveness and reputation concerning open youth work with children and teenagers. New and multifunctional interior and exterior spaces are needed to continue its success story.

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Viger Square, Montreal's first large square, is getting a makeover. The redevelopment project is being led by landscape architects NIPPAYSAGE, which will begin the first phase of redesign in 2017.

Historically, the 30,000 square foot center has always contributed to the liveliness of the city, and it was the largest square in Canada in the 19th century. Now coinciding with the adjacent redevelopment of retail and office spaces at the Viger Hotel, the city hopes for a major revitalization of the area. 

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Berkeley-based TLS Landscape Architecture has won the Lion Mountain Park Design competition in Suzhou, China, corresponding to the Chinese government's new Urban Work Guidelines. The guidelines prioritize ecological and urban development, as well as rejuvenation of local character in public spaces. Lion Mountain Park will be the first large-scale public project to be constructed according to these values, envisioned as the core of a new urban ecosystem complex.

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