What is Landscape Architecture?

Landscape Architects design the places that we love. LA's use careful site inventory and analysis to design places for people and nature to meet in an ecologically balanced way. Often history and religion have played an important part in the designs direction providing context to the practioner. There have been specialists in this field working since the beginning of time whether designing China's terraced rice paddies, Stonehenge, or in much loved Italian Renassaince gardens.
One of the most well-known parks in the world was designed by the father of modern day Landscape Architecture Frederick Law Olmsted who had a vision of a people's park for the masses of New York City. Central Park is a symbol of the United States all over the world and was designed as a representation of democracy to the world. Until that point most access to nature in large metropolitan areas was limited to the very wealthy who owned private parks and estates for escaping the bustle of city life. Public parks now play important parts in a communities health.
Landscape Architects also help to manage stormwater through wetland, creek, and wild life habitat restorations. Some Landscape Architects specialize in residential design, golf course design, zoo exhibits, or brownfield restoration. Landscape Archictects also work in cities creating safe places for bikers and pedestrians, thus encouraging alternative transportation methods. A large proportion of Landscape Architects are self-employed due to low overhead costs.
Someone interested in Landscape Architecture should have the ability to communicate in multiple ways through writing, graphics, and speech. Landscape Architecture is a diverse and growing field due to a renewed interest in environmental and community planning.

University of Idaho-Sandpoint Campus Extension Design

The future site of the University of Idaho Sandpoint sits at the north end of the town of Sandpoint, Idaho just west of Sand Creek and to the south of the town of Pend Oreille. The site has long been affiliated with the University of Idaho housing test plots for a variety of trees. The a grid of residential neighborhoods front the north and west ends of the site while Sand Creek, the large riparian corridor east of the site, provides habitat for native species of plants and animals alike. . Combined, these manmade and natural elements inform the structure and energy of this site resulting in a dynamic blend that attempts to retain the benevolence of the curvilinear along with the ease of the grid. A certain tension materializes within the merging of these opposing features which is indicative of an attempt to reconcile man and nature. While science has provided ease of lifestyle, it has also shaped many landscapes and regions in an insensitive, often detrimental, manner. Maintaining balance between mans needs and the health of the environment is the key to sustainability. As in the design of the campus, the purpose of University of Idaho Sandpoint is to reveal the interdependent relationship of man and the natural world and to develop ways of reinstituting stability within this relationship.
One of the main topographical features that inform this design ¬is the flowing character of the drainage swale that runs from east to west along the south end of the site which provides wildlife habitat, educational opportunity and storm water storage. By increasing the meander of the waterway and dredging deeper pools, the water will remain on site for longer providing the means for animal and plant life to flourish. Access to the waters’ edge is limited but the inspiration of interacting with water is not ignored. Two sets of concrete piers allow visitors to engage this feature by extending a short distance into separate pools of shallow water. As the piers end, large rocks placed at the end of the piers allow visitors to venture still further over the water. Keeping with the educational nature attached to the recent history of the site, stylized test plots interact with the grid and the flowing lines of the topography along the swale. While the swale provides a barrier between the high school and college campuses, access to each begins at the west end of the swale and pedestrian traffic between the two campuses is supplied via a bridge and the path that wraps around the east end of the swale along the top of the amphitheater.

Minto_Brown Island Park Design - Salem, Oregon

Located amid the waters of the Willamette River and across from the Riverfront Park in Salem, Oregon, the 880 acre Minto-Brown Island Park is a recent wastewater storage site for the Boise Cascade paper company. The main objective of this project was to bridge the slough separating the Riverfront Park from the Minto-Brown Island Park creating refined entry into the expansive recreational area. Borrowing from Olmsted’s historic examples of Prospect Park in New York and Jackson Park in Chicago, this design attempts to blend the linear nature of the park with curving strolling paths that reflect the gentle topography of the site. The park is split by a strong central north/south axis, while a secondary east/west axis connects the boathouse with the wetland viewing deck. The initial entry point (A), at the head of the central axis is the terminal point for those crossing the bridge from Riverside Park. The open plaza is surrounded by trees, offering respite to visitors from across the slough. Further within the park along the central axis, a more secluded hiatus (B) provides shade and seating within a diverse grove of trees and marks the junction of the primary and secondary axis.

Acqui Terme Park Master Plan

The Acqui Terme Park is located along the Bormida River just south of the city of Acqui Terme and west of a spa and small commercial area in the Piedmont region of Italy. Several objectives that informed this design were to develop access from the spa to the park, to incorporate the existing aqueduct remains that exist on the site into the design and to design a park that fit into Italy’s natural, cultural and historical context.

This design blends these elements, drawing on historical organization of space, a cursory knowledge of Italy’s cultural use of space and the naturalistic setting of the park. The most formal section of the park functions as a gathering place with an amphitheater and an axial array of promenades with a pool at the center. Drawing on the design of Piazza della Signoria in Florence, an “L” shaped space held together by a fountain of Zeus at its interior corner, this park’s irregular shape pivots around the aqueduct remains which can be seen from every point in the park. The array of paths around the fountain is pivotal to this design because it allows the park to turn a corner while maintaining it’s identity as a single space and provides a strong axial symmetry drawing the park together.

The grotto also draws on historical paradigms and acts as a formal connection between the spa and the park. From the spa, visitors travel north across the road and traverse the embankment on the north side of the parking lot by walking down a gently sloping arcaded bridge. This bridge passes over the man made water way that encompasses the island on which the grotto sits and winds down and around into the grotto. At the center sits a simple pool surrounded by gravel walks and four parterres. The grotto connects the western part of the park via a long alee which passes beneath the pedestrian bridge and through the arches of the existing bridge which crosses the Bormida River and then joins the array of paths at the fountain near the center of the park.