Anthony is the Hotel sector lead for ArchTam’s Buildings + Places business in Europe. Based in the South East of the UK, he has a background in mechanical, electrical and public health (MEP) engineering. He has delivered complex hospitality projects, combining technical expertise with a strong focus on client vision, commercial strategy and the delivery of high-quality, efficient buildings.

Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry.

I initially began my career working for an MEP contractor before moving into engineering consultancy. That practical foundation has shaped how I approach design to this day. Understanding how systems are installed and commissioned in the real world has been a huge asset — especially on complex heritage buildings, where coordination is critical, and space is at a premium.

What really drew me in, and continues to drive me, is the collaborative nature of this industry. No successful projects happen in isolation — it takes designers, contractors, and clients all working together with a shared vision. I’ve always enjoyed being part of that team effort.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why?

This has to be Raffles London at The OWO — a landmark transformation of the Old War Office in Whitehall into a luxury hotel and residences. The heritage, complexity, and ambition behind the project made it truly special.

The building’s historic status presented a number of technical challenges, particularly around spatial coordination, sustainability and the need to completely conceal services while delivering modern luxury standards. We embraced early-stage 3D design to resolve these constraints, using the latest digital tools at ArchTam’s disposal to accurately and quickly co-ordinate our services working closely with the design team to ensure nothing compromised the integrity or aesthetics of the building.

What really made the project stand out was how we delivered it — as One ArchTam. We brought together a global team working across time zones, with specialists from the UK and India all having a key input into the delivery of the project from completion to handover.

The finished result speaks for itself. It’s a once-in-a-generation project that sets a new benchmark for heritage-led luxury and I’m incredibly proud that ArchTam played such a pivotal role in making it a reality.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community.

On one of my first projects at ArchTam, I worked on a small but meaningful project — a primary school near an airport that had no openable windows due to noise constraints. The challenge was to design a ventilation system that would keep classrooms comfortable, healthy and well-ventilated despite being in a sealed environment and right under the flight path.

We developed a low-energy mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery, ensuring excellent air quality and thermal comfort without any reliance on natural ventilation. For the school, it meant pupils could concentrate and learn in a calm, well-ventilated environment all year round — without the roar of aircraft interrupting lessons!

This system had a real, tangible impact on the children, teachers and local community at that school. Projects like that remind you why what we do matters and is impactful.

Share a piece of career advice.

Build your mindset around client needs. When engaging with them, start by listening. Understand what they’re trying to achieve. The best outcomes are achieved when we align our expertise with their goals and focus on how we can support them — not just deliver a scope but add real value.

That mindset also applies within our teams. Don’t be afraid to speak up and ask “why?”— why are we doing it this way, why not try something better, why does this matter to the end user? Stay curious, stay engaged and keep learning from the people around you.

The post People Spotlight: Meet Anthony Hume appeared first on Blog.

Having grown up in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales where a passion for the environment and outdoors started, Hayden has gone onto work in landscape design, urban design and master planning for infrastructure, residential, tourism, commercial and open space projects. His project experience extends both locally and globally, including widely across Australia and New Zealand, the UAE, Oman, Algeria, Caribbean, Hong Kong and China. Through that experience, Hayden has worked for the Sydney, Abu Dhabi, Canberra, and now the Gold Coast office, having recently moved back to the Northern Rivers.

The one thing that remains a focus through every project, is a drive to design for people, and delivering positive community outcomes through ‘people-centric design’.

Where did this drive for designing for people come from?

My passion for people-centric design didn’t start at a single point in time, it evolved over the years. My first project at ArchTam was the One-horned Rhinoceros and Otter Exhibit at the Dubbo Western Plains Zoo. This involved curating both the visitor experience and the animals’ enclosures, addressing the unique challenges of keeping rhinoceroses safe in captivity. I vividly remember spending countless hours researching African villages and landscapes. Our goal was to interpret that quintessential character into an immersive experience for zoo visitors. This exhibit marked a shift for the zoo, allowing visitors to experience larger animals up close.

Over the years, working in various locations and among different cultures, my drive to deliver engaging and community-valued projects grew stronger.

Every project is an opportunity to find solutions that lead to positive outcomes. For me, a project isn’t complete until I see people interacting with it. There’s a unique satisfaction, an internal smile for a designer, when people start using and engaging with what you’ve envisioned and delivered.

How does your passion for people-centric design influence your projects?

Over the years, ArchTam has evolved its focus from a collection of singular design disciplines to large interdisciplinary projects where we collaborate to solve complex challenges. I find these kinds of projects that involve a diverse group of design disciplines, backgrounds, ages, identities and ethnicities most enjoyable. I’m fortunate to work at a company that prides itself on inclusivity.  

As a landscape architect, I advocate for outcomes that prioritise both People and Place — ensuring our designs are not only functional and beautiful, but also meaningful and impactful for the communities we serve.

Is there an ArchTam project that sticks in your mind?

There are many, but one in particular that I take personal pride in. Initially, it wasn’t a project.

I was working on a new bus station that connected to a new light rail terminus. With the new terminus, buses were no longer operating on the main street. I saw an opportunity to transform the main street into a space where pedestrians were prioritised, enhancing street activity and benefiting adjacent shopfronts. I was confident that by focusing on people, the north side of the street could transition from service outlets to on-street dining and eateries. Three design options reached the transport minister’s desk, and the project was created. I led all design disciplines to create a new people-centric street.

Today, that street safely connects school students to public transport, features outdoor dining, public seating, street furniture, mature trees and rain gardens, all while retaining car parking and car movements.

How does the role of the landscape architect fit with people-centric design?

The ‘traditional’ role of the landscape architect, varied in its definition, is someone who designs and plans outdoor spaces, blending functionality with aesthetics to create beautiful and sustainable environments.

I have learnt over the years, that landscape architects have such diverse roles in the natural and built environment. The typical design process of a landscape architect goes beyond considering environmental factors of sun, shade, wind and slope. We consider the existing desire lines of the local communities, connections, nearby facilities and demographics to understand our target users. We’re also relatively unbounded by rules. We have a few standards that deal with access, trips, fall heights, ramps and stairs, but we aren’t overly prescribed on the shape and size of what we create. We immerse ourselves in understanding the user, how our design will function, how people will engage in it, how it will benefit health and well-being and its economic, cultural and social value.

This process is what makes us acutely people-centric designers.

The post Enhancing communities through people-centric design: Meet Hayden Rosser appeared first on Blog.

What inspired you to join the industry and what has kept you passionate over the past 15 years?

I originally intended to study interior design. However, after starting a degree in Landscape Architecture, I felt more inspired by the idea of creating outdoor spaces that connect people to the natural environment. I have always loved being immersed in nature and it was thrilling to discover a career that allowed me to shape the built environment while integrating the natural one.

What has been your favorite project that you’ve worked on and why?

Between 2016 and 2022, we delivered Bokarina Beach, a 400-lot coastal village community in Queensland, for Stockland Residential, an Australian property development firm. The project was incredibly engaging, offering a diverse array of landscape design opportunities from multimillion-dollar parklands and a bespoke playscape to dune-crossing beach access, natural wetland reconstruction, boardwalks, and the extension of an existing lake.

What excites me most about this project is that we realised all the key design drivers developed with the client during the initial concept planning. Our vision was to create a community that could become the Sunshine Coasts ‘best kept secret’, a connected coastal village, inspired by and embedded in nature with water at the heart and an energetic and vibrant coastal village vibe. Throughout the design, budget planning, approval, and construction phases, we navigated various challenges to realising our vision. One notable example occurred when planning for the development’s stormwater. We worked with the client and engineers to realise the value of literally creating ‘water at the heart’ by transforming a stormwater detention basin into an opportunity to extend an existing manmade lake into the heart of the openspace precinct. The result is a scenic central lake for end of line stormwater management and a jewel in the openspace network with direct water access for the community.  The result is a vibrant village hub with a relaxed coastal aesthetic, seamlessly embedded in nature with water at its heart

How do you approach a new project from a design perspective, especially when working with a diverse set of clients and project types?

My approach varies depending on the scale, location and specific needs of the client. Typically, I take cues from the natural environment — whether it’s existing or pre-clearing vegetation communities, proximity to natural or cultural features like water bodies, or endemic fauna. I am passionate about referencing the natural character of a place — its context or history — through structural forms, geometry, colour and material palettes, and plant species. Understanding how a place connects to its context is central to my design process.  At Bokarina, a beachside location, we concentrated on coastal cues utilising endemic and local dunal plant species, curvilinear forms reminiscent of patterns left in the sand by the tide, and a hardscape palette dominated by soft neutral tones of shells and driftwood, and the natural warmth of timber. These elements drew the beach aesthetic into the development situating it seamlessly in its context.

What trends or advancements in landscape architecture design are you most excited about? How do you see these influencing future projects?

I’m fascinated by initiatives in countries like Denmark, such as ‘Wild on Purpose,’ which focus on fostering biodiversity and promoting pollination and habitat creation within urban environments. In Australia, we’re beginning to see similar strategies emerging, such as ‘Biodiversity in Place,’ though activation is slower here. For future projects, I would love to see a shift away from manicured monocultures, hybrids, and turf toward diverse, endemic plant palettes, especially in non-traditional applications like street verges. These areas make up more than a third of all greenspaces in our cities.

Increasing the net area of diverse, natural landscapes is essential to improving the resilience of our built environments. Of course, implementation comes with its own set of challenges — from local authority preferences to the commercial availability of plant species. However, as demand for sustainable solutions increases, best practices will drive industry change. There are many principles that can be applied at any scale to advance this goal. It’s not so much about recreating nature, it’s being inspired by it, implementing highly diverse understory planting with endemic species, adopting management practices to benefit wildlife such as reducing pesticides and mowing,  and realising the value of small spaces such as verge gardens, green roofs, and vertical gardens in creating a network across urban environments that connects to wider ecological systems.

What advice would you give to the next generation of landscape architects looking to build a strong reputation and create lasting impacts through their work?

Follow ideas and principles that inspire you, surround yourself with creative people you can learn from and share your ideas with. Layer what you learn into your work and always remain open to creative debate.

The post Delivering nature-inspired spaces: Meet Shelley Martin appeared first on Blog.

Elisabet Olle Amat is a versatile urban designer, architect and planner, leveraging her multidisciplinary training to innovate across various fields and tailor optimal solutions for urban environments. She draws her urban experience solutions from living in Barcelona, London and a few cities in the U.S. Elisabet demonstrates a profound understanding of the complexities within urban landscapes, particularly in cities like Los Angeles where she advocates towards more inclusive, plural, livable, walkable and people-oriented environments.

Tell us a bit about yourself – your role and career journey.  

My background in architecture and urban design allows me to cross-pollinate between both disciplines to develop effective solutions for urban environments. My career began in Barcelona, then I spent four years in London, and eight years ago, I moved to the United States to attend UCLA. Along the way, I had the opportunity to experience living in two different cities, Chicago and Los Angeles. Changing geographies exposed me to stark differences in urban design philosophies, particularly coming from a pedestrian-friendly environment to car-centric cities in America like Los Angeles.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, ranging from large-scale city master plans to smaller neighborhood designs and public spaces. My focus has consistently been on creating more walkable, human-centric environments that prioritize safety and livability. This often involves reimagining suburban models to foster pedestrian-friendly spaces. I’ve also contributed to transit projects, including station designs and transit-oriented developments. My work reflects a commitment to enhancing urban landscapes through innovative design solutions tailored to the needs of individual communities.

Talk to us about a project that has impacted or been a major highlight of your career. How is it solving the challenges and issues our clients and communities are facing today?

A pivotal project in my career was the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) master plan for the Compton Artesia station on California’s Blue Line. This project tackles the challenge of transit infrastructure being disconnected from its surrounding environment.

Situated in a suburban area alongside an industrial zone and outdoor mall, the station suffered from wayfinding issues and underutilized lots, causing low ridership due to its isolated location. Funded by Los Angeles Metro, the project aimed to revitalize the station through a transit-oriented development plan. By introducing diverse programming, it aims to benefit Compton through housing, retail, and open spaces enhancement. It involved thorough assessments, conceptualizations and community engagement sessions. Initially held at a city-owned space, engagement efforts expanded to include various stakeholders as identified by the local community.

Our inclusive approach enabled direct dialogue with residents, offering insights into their needs and aspirations for the neighborhood. Engaging with Compton’s residents proved both challenging and rewarding. The process highlighted the importance of inclusive planning and getting to know what residents want for their community. Directly hearing the voices of the people and helping them articulate their vision for their neighborhood was incredibly interesting and hugely rewarding for me.

How do you incorporate green infrastructure into your designs to promote sustainable practices and positively impact health and well-being?

Incorporating green infrastructure into our designs involves various strategies aimed at capturing and managing stormwater, which plays a vital role in addressing urban climate challenges by working with nature. Depending on the project, whether that be urban design or planning initiatives, we employ diverse approaches which are always tailored to the specific context. For instance, when designing streets, we prioritize permeable surfaces, integrate bioswales, and plant more trees to mitigate stormwater runoff and enhance water absorption. In a recent project focused on urban forestry in Los Angeles, we investigated the disparities in tree distribution across different neighborhoods, particularly noting that low-income areas tend to have fewer trees compared to wealthier neighborhoods. Through community engagement and research, we highlighted the significance of tree preservation policies, as seen in cities like Pasadena, which have stricter regulations when it comes to protecting trees. As LA faces densification and increased construction, preserving trees is crucial to maintaining urban greenery and mitigating heatwaves. All these elements make up part of our sustainable practices and improve overall community health and wellbeing.

How does the unique culture and character of Los Angeles influence your approach to urban design?

I’d like to highlight two key aspects of Los Angeles. Firstly, it is a remarkably diverse community, comprising people from various cultures and backgrounds. Secondly, the city’s character, which is primarily designed for cars rather than for people, poses a significant challenge. Understanding these two elements of Los Angeles is paramount in the design process. Empowering the community and actively soliciting their input are essential steps in ensuring inclusivity and responsiveness to their needs. As an urban designer, my role is pivotal in reimagining urban spaces to prioritize pedestrian experiences and community connectivity. This involves fundamental shifts in how we conceptualize urban spaces with an emphasis on human-centric design principles.    

Transforming the city’s design ethos involves advocating for changes in urban planning policies, collaborating with municipalities, developers, and designers to integrate urban design principles at every stage of development. By fostering dialogue and raising awareness about the importance of urban design, we can catalyze a shift towards more inclusive, people-oriented environments that reflect the vibrant culture and diverse identities of Los Angeles.

The post Transforming Los Angeles: Meet Elisabet Olle Amat appeared first on Blog.

Our Landscape Architects are tasked with designing resilient and equitable places around the globe. We’ve asked some of them to share their perspectives on what it means to create meaningful, lasting legacies in our communities. Read their stories here.

Katie Barsanti, Landscape Designer, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape architecture plays a role in shaping a majority of the spaces we interact with daily. It not only shapes the aesthetic, environmental, and social aspect of these spaces, but also helps create opportunities in how we interact within them.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? My favorite project to be involved with was the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project. It has since been divided into a series of projects that I have also been lucky enough to be a part of, but to be able to analyze, design for, and address such a pressing and important issue, at such a large scale, is incredibly rewarding. Because it is in an area of New York City that is home to the world’s leading financial center while also being an underserved neighborhood that heavily utilizes their public spaces, we designed to simultaneously protect Lower Manhattan from coastal flooding while enhancing public spaces for both the people that visit and the ones that reside there.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? It is important to adopt a whole systems approach, where all systems at a neighborhood scale are considered together, in order to be resilient in numerous ways. An integral part of that approach is to gather input from the community these spaces sit within through a public, shared decision-making process as a means to co-create equitable spaces.

Christian Lynn, PLA, ASLA, Urbanism Practice Lead Ohio, U.S. West

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape Architects play the unique role that requires us to holistically consider a wide range of social, spatial, environmental, and economic factors as we seamlessly create places that either directly or indirectly contribute to improving the quality of our collective lives.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? Soon after starting my career at ArchTam, I had the opportunity to work on the Fleet Avenue Corridor Redevelopment project in the Slavic Village Neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. A unique aspect of this project included the transformation of several vacant parcels into a community-focused stormwater pocket park. Through my involvement on the project, I was also afforded the opportunity to work with the Community Development Corporation to design and collaborate with a fabricator to install several pieces of public art that have become integral to this community space. I visit this project almost any time I am in the area and I am often overjoyed to see people using this small, but relaxing space in so many ways. As designers, we often lose touch with places we have had a hand in creating but I think it is so important for us to revisit them and reflect on their experiential evolution.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? Building adaptability and flexibility into design is paramount if a place is to remain a useful piece of social infrastructure long into the future. Overly prescriptive designs will inevitability become outdated and even inappropriate if they’re too overly designed for a specific activity or audience.

Manqing Tao, Senior Landscape Architect, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? The work of Landscape architects will continue to minimize the impacts of growing population through sustainable design to protect the fragile ecosystem by building resilient environments that mitigate and adapt to climate change.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? As a team, we designed various phases of the Ningbo Hi-tech District Waterfront park which provides more than 90 acres of public open spaces along the river to the adjacent high-density communities that used to be “parkless” for over 10 years. With wetlands, rain gardens, and green swales, the park acts like a dynamic sponge to mitigate the long-standing flooding issue in Ningbo.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? Design multi-functional outdoor places that bring environmental, social and economic benefits to all communities. Designing with nature will connect people with nature.

Lee Parks, Director, Landscape, APAC

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape IS the world around us, shaped by natural forces bigger and more critical than us. Human impact on our world (the Anthropocene) requires a shift in mindset from engineering the planet for human gain to re-storing the planet for all species. Landscape Architecture plays a critical role in shaping the world to reconcile the relationship between us and nature – most urgently in our cities.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? I led the design for the competition-winning waterfront scenic belt at Nanjing Eco-Island, China. I believe the nature-based solutions for flood resilience, habitat creation, nature conservation and scenic placemaking has created a meaningful legacy for the island community and for the city of Nanjing.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? Acknowledge we are facing a climate emergency. Then start designing for, and considering all living things and natural systems. Resilient and Equitable design is one that cares for all genders, race, age, ability, AND species.

Patricia Fonseca, Principal, Landscape Architect, U.S. West

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? In my view, landscape architecture is one of the unique and meaningful ways we can engage with our environment, whether it is natural or manmade. And we’re not only shaping the world around us, but it’s shaping us because we learn so much from nature.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? We recently completed Crane Cove Park in San Francisco and I can witness firsthand how it’s changed the lives in the neighborhood’s communities. We created a space that provides a profound connection to the water and the city’s rich maritime history.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? The first step is to listen. To truly listen to the community we’re designing for; and ideally, it’s a community we’re designing WITH.

Newcome Edwards, Landscape Architect, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape Architecture serves as an important connection between the natural environment and the built environment. Landscape Architects can play a critical role in the creation of healthy, livable environments and are at the forefront of confronting challenges of our time in particular issues surrounding Urban Growth and a lack of accessible public space. Alongside our colleagues in other professions, we can work together for a better future.

What is your favorite project you’ve worked on and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? The favorite project I have worked on is the University of Central Florida’s Recovery Cove Project. Not only did the project include a 470-foot-long lazy river, it included a connected pool, 2 volleyball courts, bocce ball, and various other recreation facilities. Once built, it will offer students, athletes & alumni a fun place to play and relax while leaving a positive legacy for all to enjoy for years to come.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? As Landscape Architects, we have a duty of care to both the environment and people of all backgrounds and faiths. By replacing the status quo with more resilient and people-curated design, together we can find ways to provide stronger and more ethical infrastructure to local communities. Here in Florida, we are at the forefront of many environmental impacts and our team is fully committed to tackling these issues as efficiently as possible.

Michelle Inouye, PLA, LEED AP, Associate Principal

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape Architecture is the world around us once we step out the door. As designers, we consider all aspects of the built environment at small and large scales, and as a continuous context for culture, activity, representation and modification.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? I recently worked on a project to create ten small scale “stormwater landscape” sites on vacant parcels in two Chicago neighborhoods. Active community engagement generated the programming for each site, which includes passive gardens, active recreation areas and public plazas that accept water from streets, alleys and adjacent properties. The project demonstrates the impact that smart, integrated implementation of green infrastructure can have on livability through open space amenities that expand community space, build ownership and reduce flooding.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? Resilient and equitable projects require a participatory design process that engages a diverse range of local representation across all stages of development. A robust community engagement process can transform people (designers especially!) and spaces.

To read the first part of our Landscape Architects blog, click here.

The post Landscape Architects: Creating meaningful and lasting legacies (Part 2) appeared first on Blog.

Our Landscape Architects are tasked with designing resilient and equitable places around the globe. We’ve asked some of them to share their perspectives on what it means to create meaningful, lasting legacies in our communities. Read their stories here.

Blake Sanborn, Urbanism West Lead, U.S. West

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Over the past year I’ve been reminded how critical access to the outdoors is for our mental health in addition to our physical wellbeing. Our landscape architects have partnered with local communities to implement the trails, parks, green streets, waterfronts, and healing gardens that have become critical infrastructure during this time of need. Businesses have relied on these shared spaces more than ever before to enable continuity of service and employee retention as a result. Citizens have taken over the traditional open spaces as well as the streets, the steps, and the sidewalks in the most creative and inspiring manner. If we want to build resilience into the future, we need to build in more opportunities for flexible open spaces that our communities depend upon when times get tough.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community?  The new pedestrian pier we designed with Caltrans, BATA and CTC at the Judge John Sutter Regional Shoreline in Oakland, California, creates a public access link to the waterfront where it was needed most. As the newest addition to the East Bay Regional Park network, the 600-foot-long long pier has already become a popular spot for the community thanks to its unique views of the Bay and San Francisco beyond. It’s constructed out of salvaged materials from the old Bay Bridge which celebrates the heritage of this place. The pier also doubles as an outdoor classroom and learning lab where future generations can learn about the Bay ecology, rising tides and the history of the area.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? I believe strongly that the most resilient places are equitable. To enhance equitable outcomes, we have to make engagement accessible, inclusive and rewarding. Collaboration is the antidote to the threats we will face together. We are all connected.

Naeem Sharestani, Landscape Designer, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Today, landscape architects play a vital role in shaping innovative thinking and should continue to advocate for performative landscape infrastructure to face 21st-century global issues.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? While still in progress, I have been fortunate enough to be a part of the Master Plan Vision for Jersey City. Through extensive community engagement, we have identified goals and benchmarks of growth that foster civic unity, economic opportunity, resilience and adaptability through the built and social environment. We are continuing to build on the distinct and eclectic character of the city’s many neighborhoods while leveraging creative and flexible planning to shape a livable Jersey City.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? Today more than ever, landscape architects are at the forefront of pressing issues revolving around climate change, public health and social equity. Through an optimistic approach to resilience, planners

Jessica Soleyn, Landscape Designer, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape architecture aims to provide design solutions that synthesize and organize the complex aspects of the built or natural environment. It helps balance aesthetics with functionality so that places are improved in such a way that they will be safe, usable, beautiful and sustainable.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? I recently designed a pollinator garden for the Veterans Memorial Park. It was a small volunteer project that allowed me to use various native species that I don’t often use in projects and to play a hands-on role from start to finish when I got to help install the design with various community members and veterans.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? I think it is important to ask more questions and utilize collaborative design methods in order to create places that are more resilient and equitable. We should not assume that we have all the solutions without first consulting the main users of a space, considering the history of a place and the future impacts of the proposed design changes.

David Jung, FASLA/ VP, Landscape Architecture Hong Kong Studio, APAC

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape architects compose and envision the places and spaces people inhabit. Our role is critical to understanding the intersectional relationships and systems that impact our built environment. Landscape architecture has no boundaries and strives to be resonant and transformative in our responsiveness and in shaping a place. It is in that process of creating and building that landscape architecture is the most impactful.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? I’ve worked on a number of great projects over my career. With every single project, the goal is to have a positive impact.  I always like the ones that create unexpected equitable outcomes.  Of the projects I have designed, my favorite is Landmark East. It became a catalyst for urban regeneration, transforming an old industrial area into a more vibrant and livable urban district. Meaningful, artful and creative projects, I feel, always have the ability to create a legacy and generate value.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? I think that those considerations are always part of my design process. The potential to incorporate resilience and equity within each project is a responsibility. It is a decision you make as a designer. The hope is to always bring a sense of purpose into the work and build on possibilities to infuse more resilient and equitable solutions and create the political space in our designs and landscapes.

Shannon Forry, PLA, SITES AP, LEED AP, Landscape Architect, U.S. West

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape Architects will always play a critical role in shaping our world by continuing to be innovative with climate resilience projects, shaping the urban environment, and providing spaces for public enjoyment and relaxation.  As designers, place makers, and innovators, we will definitely be influential in the coming years as climate change and resource depletion start affecting our spaces and environment more.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? Two of my favorite places that I have designed include the East Green Sweep at Ohio University and the HT Building Landscape at Lakeland Community College.  These 2 projects drastically changed the campus environment for both colleges by establishing campus connections and new gathering spaces for students.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? To build for resilience in projects, Landscape Architects will need to design with nature and not against it.

Brendan Kempf, Associate, Landscape Architect, U.S. West

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? Landscape architecture brings together the built and natural world to make spaces that are restorative for people and the environment.  By creating pockets of urban nature, landscape architects are creating opportunities for people to experience and appreciate the natural world and, hopefully, be inspired to champion regenerative futures for our cities.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? Among my favorite projects is a stream restoration project on a college campus. Beyond restoring the stream’s natural riparian habitat, the project team worked closely with the faculty to create an outdoor classroom and living laboratory that is now used for courses ranging from biology to hydrogeology.

How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? By designing places based on ecological systems and principles, we can build resiliency into our projects with creative approaches for managing stormwater, reducing the urban heat island effect, and creating urban habitat for birds and pollinators to improve biodiversity.  In Los Angeles, we’re seeing that urban biodiversity directly correlates with park and open space equity.  Increasing equitable access to parks and open space is key opportunity to improve biodiversity and resiliency throughout our cities while improving quality of life.

Vivien Chong, PLA, Associate Landscape Architect, U.S. East

How does Landscape Architecture play a critical role in shaping the world around us? How can you design places to be more resilient and equitable? As landscape architects, our ability to synthesize how the built environment, socio-cultural and ecological systems work together can help us to develop designs and policies that enhance our cities, communities, and regions. We should plan for places and systems that are adaptable and responsive to change and commit our skills to designing with vulnerable and underserved communities in mind. As part of the design process, we need to recognize that everyone experiences the same public space differently, and strive for early stakeholder and community engagement, to ensure that any public spaces we build are accessible, inclusive, safe and welcoming to all.

What is your favorite place you’ve designed and how has it created a meaningful legacy in the community? Crane Cove Park is a new waterfront park in San Francisco, located along a formerly inaccessible industrial shoreline. The park design celebrates its marine heritage and reflects the neighborhood, addresses sea level rise and ground contamination issues through the innovative re-use of materials and planting, and creates a long overdue public space with new public access and recreational opportunities in the Bay.

To read the second part of our Landscape Architects blog, click here.

The post Landscape Architects: Creating meaningful and lasting legacies (Part 1) appeared first on Blog.

But perhaps more important, greenery helps relieve anxiety disorders (stress) and depression, common afflictions associated with our harried urban lives. As one study puts it, “Support for this possibility comes from epidemiological studies which find that individuals living in the greenest urban areas tend to have better mental health than those in the least green areas.”¹

The social cost of anxiety and depression is significant. One report states that “Workplace stress costs U.S. employers an estimated $200 billion per year in absenteeism, lower productivity, staff turnover, workers’ compensation, medical insurance and other stress-related expenses”.² And a study by the American Psychological Association indicates that ¾ of the nation’s medical bill is associated with chronic illnesses, a malady that is driven by stress.³

From the perspective of pubic health there is every reason to invest in a greener urban landscape—especially when such greenery can also perform vital infrastructural functions related to, say, stormwater management and energy conservation.

But there is more to the health benefits of greenery than the relief of anxiety and depression. Little discussed in academia or professional associations, and hardly ever proposed in practice, is the spiritual dimension of the landscape. And yet access to natural areas is proven to elicit transcendent reactions that can postively affect our well-being. It has been well documented, for example, that hospital patients who can see greenery from their windows recover more quickly than those who don’t.⁴  There is latent healing potential in the design of any landscape, a matter that is confirmed by the biophylic effects of healing gardens.

As suggested by a weed growing out of a sewer inlet (above), nature’s quest for life and regeneration is as opportunistic as it is boundless. Nature is simply life-affirming—relentlessly so. How can the human spirit not be lifted by such power when our health is on the line? But why wait until a health crisis arises? The places in which we live and work should constitute fitness-inducing, stress-mitigating and life-affirming environments to start with. Like a green view from a nation-sized window, our collective wellbeing depends on it.

Cities, like pristine natural areas, are structured entities. At the scale of the region there are networks of open space that satisfy large-scale needs, such as flood protection, transportation and resource-based recreation. At the community scale there are streets, plazas and parks that provide for active mobility, organized play and social exchange. And at the dwelling scale, such as Friedensrech Hundertwasser’s apartment house in Viena (top), there are dense developments that, like a garden, afford personal and intimate access to foliage, flowers and birdsong (that it is also art will be the subject of a different blog!).

Within such a tiered schema urban greenery must be integrated systematically, not as afterthought but as forethought toward the creation of a healthy environment. To this pursuit the role of Landscape Architecture is not peripheral but central: It is the agency by which cities can become health havens—for the body, for the mind and for the spirit, from the scale of the region to that of discrete buildings and places. Why not regard cities as landscape, communities as park, and buildings as garden? ⁵

Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa leads ArchTam’s landscape architecture practice in the Americas.

NOTES:

1. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es403688w
2. http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/99su/stress.html
3. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/03/stress.aspx
4. http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/November-2011/Frontiers-of-Design-Science-Biophilia/
5. For a discussion on these three scales of design see “Reconsidering Ian MHarg: the Future of Urban Ecology, Chapter 9; Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa, Planners Press, 2014.

The post A greener city is a healthier city appeared first on Blog.

Safety first

Streets and the public realm are reaching new levels of importance and prioritization across the nation. New transportation services, biking, and walking are becoming the norm and car dependence more of a burden. Cities from New York to San Francisco have launched “Vision Zero” efforts to completely eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries on our streets for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists through better planning, engineering, targeted enforcement, and public education. In committing to Vision Zero, cities are asked to designate funding to assess the most critical areas, develop world-class solutions, and fast-track implementation. In part, this effort includes a proactive and comprehensive design approach—including traffic signals, on-street parking, bike lanes, narrow lane widths, trees and landscaping, medians, curb extensions, speed humps, and small curb radii—to slow traffic speeds and establish a safer street environment.

Redefine what “balanced user needs” means today

A fundamental shift in how users are prioritized in the planning process is underway, shifting the automobile-dominant hierarchy to increase the prevalence of “complete streets” policies that require projects to consider the needs of non-auto modes (i.e., bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit) first. Inclusive streets should also address the needs of the young, elderly, disabled, and lower-income populations. “Streets are only as good as our most vulnerable user,” said Gabe Klein. By including median islands, buffer zones, parklets, and other treatments rather than more pavement, roadways can be integrated into the urban environment and connect neighborhoods rather than dividing them. Streets can also become “smart” through the use of digital tags, information panels and GPS. They can become “green” with elements such as rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable paving that help manage stormwater in addition to improving the street environment.

Embrace the sharing economy

The collaborative or “sharing economy” has been expanding rapidly as people increasingly choose to share and crowdsource goods, services, funding, transportation, and more. Shared mobility options include public transit, car sharing, ride sharing, bike sharing, taxis, and shuttles. In terms of revenue, the mobility sector may be one of the fastest-growing segments of the sharing economy. The shared mobility sector is attracting more established companies and innovative start-ups using diverse business models, including fleet management (business-to-business), traditional car rental (business-to-customer), and peer-to-peer rental. How can the growing shared economy integrate with official city transportation policies? Is there a divide between public/private that stops or slows cities from integrating strategies? What types of land use policies and/or physical facilities does a city need to allow and support shared mobility activities? This question is especially relevant in the context of serving the ‘last mile’ between transit stops to final destinations—often a determinant of a transit choice.

Incorporate and learn from technology

Combined with the growth of the shared economy comes the increased use of ever-smarter technologies that can offer faster, more reliable, safer, and more equitable levels of service that combine different platforms (i.e., RideScout) to help customers find the transportation services they need. Smart phone apps are enabling increasing numbers of “mobivores” (users of whatever mode is most convenient), as opposed to “CARnivores” (those who remain dependent on single-occupant vehicles). How can cities accommodate dynamic ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft, operate and market their public transit systems, make the best use of real-time transit information displays, and ensure that users without smart phones have equal access? The technology industry teaches us to not over-commit to solutions, leave space to learn while doing, and adjust as we go. Infrastructure investments need to be designed with future technologies and needs in mind, but avoid being over-planned. Per Code for America, smart cities should combine traditional mobility planning and design with the iterative, scalable, and playful nature of technology development.

Enhance public communication

Go to the public instead of expecting the public to come to you. Community outreach can be made more effective and inclusive by using virtual meetings (web-based connectivity for people who are unable to attend traditional public meetings) or field meetings (held at project sites, in close proximity to the majority of people most likely to be affected). Boston used a “question campaign” as part of its long-range transportation plan update—people were encouraged to “donate” questions, which then became the focus of a marketing campaign. Simply changing semantics helped engage participation. Quality graphics also speak volumes. The state-of-the-art publications and materials for NYC DOT and NACTO offer these guiding principles: strive for simplicity and consistency; illustrations should speak for themselves; and instead of “flat” figures and graphics, bring some items to the forefront to emphasize, allowing others to play a supportive role in the background.

In conclusion

In 1956, the Federal Aid Highway Act authorized the Interstate Highway System and began the neglect of public transit systems in our cities. The conference demonstrated that while much progress has been made to retrofit this legacy, there is much to be done to re-purpose public space to achieve safer, attractive, livable, equitable, and economically vibrant streets. Rather than relying on existing codes and guidelines, it’s important to ask “what problem are we trying to solve” at the beginning of each project. Cities are at different stages in this development process and there are no one-size-fits-all approaches. “Find hidden opportunities on every street and make change,” said Janette Sadik-Khan. Transportation decisions shape neighborhoods and therefore engage communities; this energy can be channeled into innovative solutions. Cities are increasingly focused on their public spaces and people as assets, branding opportunities, and good business. High-quality infrastructure (bike lanes, signaling, etc.) inspires and organizes multi-modal cooperation and better experiences for all users. Mobility dysfunction is finally being proactively rejected.

ArchTam was a major sponsor of the 2014 conference under the leadership of Kathy Mayo, Northern California transit/rail market segment leader. ArchTam’s Alex Clifford and Lisa Fisher co-led San Francisco walking/biking tours of the Central Subway project area and the Central Waterfront. More information about the conference and NACTO’s Urban Street Design and Bikeways Design guides can be found on their website. To date, the guides have been adopted by seven states and more than 40 cities, and NACTO plans to launch a Global Guidebook in 2015.

Amanda Leahy (amanda.leahy@archtam.com) is a transportation planner with ArchTam

Geoffrey Rubendall (geoffrey.rubendall@archtam.com) is a transportation engineer with ArchTam 

Lisa Fisher (lisa.fisher@archtam.com) is an urban planner with ArchTam 

Luiz Barata (luiz.barata@archtam.com) is an urban designer with ArchTam

Ryan Park (ryan.park@archtam.com) is a transportation engineer with ArchTam 

The post Messages from NACTO “Designing Cities” 2014 Conference appeared first on Blog.

We opened our doors to 60 international conference delegates, including a wide range of landscape architects, students, policy makers, clients, and those from other disciplines and allied areas of practice. We also welcomed a glass box full of bees! Morning tea consisted of fresh and organic locally-sourced food, fresh bread and – thanks to local collective ‘Bee One Third’ – honey from hives placed on a rooftop across the street from our office.

We are passionate about urban food and particularly the compelling co-benefits not only for food security, but also for health and well-being, community participation and future economic diversity.

The title of the event was chosen carefully. The infrastructure reference captures the value of understanding a bigger picture and connected systems. ‘Small bites’ represent the many small-scale changes and evolutionary steps already being taken all over the place – to make clear the collaborative nature of urban food. ‘Big places’ remind us of the potential, and of the transformative potential of big picture thinking. We were interested in scale and particularly the scale-ability of collaborative urban food production.

The first thing that struck us as we prepared for the event was the huge value in drawing together different ArchTam activity related to food. For the first time we assembled a passionate international group of people working around the edges of these themes to foster a dialogue, understand synergies and imagine potential. This process yielded the framework for the first half of the session.

We set the scene with some big picture headlines. These all provide compelling motivation to address some very real and pressing challenges.

We then gave a concise overview of a number of ArchTam projects, conference papers, activities and emerging initiatives. These included an understanding of the significant value (economically and socially) of small-scale urban food production, the emerging policy context through Gold Coast Local Food Feasibility and Redlands Rural Futures strategies and physical input into urban food production in Brooklyn, New York and Christchurch, New Zealand. To bring this back to a local context, Brisbane City Council provided a snapshot of community gardens within the city.

We explored concepts of the near-future, such as the Urban Food Jungle, the integrated potential flowing from a strategic infrastructure approach to climate adaptation (Townsville example) and the power of statistics relating to land area, productive potential, water consumption and employment creation (Jeddah Plan Food Strategy). We demonstrated the simple steps required to turn existing places into productive urban places.

The second session began with morning tea and was an informal and energetic honey-fuelled discussion about ideas, innovations, priorities and opinions related to ‘what next’? We captured the different views and have committed to producing a paper to explore the role of the profession in defining a step change in urban food production, in what will be a tangible step towards creating a transformative moment.

The collaboration has yielded great potential. We now need to hold ourselves to account for taking the next steps. The carrot? That has to be the truly compelling and tangible benefits to be harvested from big picture edible infrastructure within our towns and cities.

My simple conclusion from this is that urban food production just requires intentional steps, but these need to influence the process at different stages, through a determined approach. Most of our cities adopt a strategic, finely-tuned and well-funded approach to transport infrastructure. We largely take for granted the benefits and value of good transportation. Our provocative question for our audience: using the example of transport, why don’t we create a ministry of urban food infrastructure as the next step towards harvesting the benefits of local food production?

Alastair Leighton (alastair.leighton@archtam.com) is an associate director with ArchTam’s Design + Planning practice in Queensland.

The post Discussing ‘edible infrastructure’ in Brisbane appeared first on Blog.

This designed environment, the Piazza Gae Aulenti in Milan, Italy, creates visual interest and attraction around passive ventilation measures for the sub-surface parking area below it.

Out of all the design professions that focus on our physical environment, landscape architecture holds a particularly unique position, being charged with reconfiguring areas of the Earth’s surface to form everything from regional parks and campuses, to city plazas. Given the strained condition of many of our planet’s environmental and social systems, this is an undertaking which clearly should not be taken lightly. Yet up until recent years landscape architecture has often been seen as little more than a means to beautify our surroundings – by both the profession and patrons alike. This attitude has roots in the Land Art movement of the 1970s and 80s, when areas of the Earth’s surface were seen as canvases on to which a designer-sculptor was free to do their will. These creations often showed little regard for the environmental systems into which they were inserted and had limited function other than as a piece of art. If these were apps, prospective users would be initially attracted by the interface graphics only to discover they had no function, and thus would be doomed to receive a series of 1 star ratings.

This designed environment along the waterfront at Blackpool, UK, welcomes people directly to the beach for the first time in over a century while using dune-shaped forms to protect the city from rising tides. 

The virtual environments that apps create are often criticised for drawing people away from interacting with the physical world. Another way of looking at this is that the undeniable success of these digital infrastructures can be seen as an invaluable benchmark against which equally compelling, problem solving physical spaces can be designed. With the advent of climate change and rapid population growth, there are a host of issues that our built environments need to solve for, from sea level rise and storm water management, to healthy food provision, to passive heating and cooling. With the majority of people now living in cities, the interface with these elements is also key, not only creating engineered solutions but compelling places for people. Here we can learn from the most successful of apps, melding enticing user experiences with an underlying focus on solving for real world issues and desires, building physical infrastructure that forms unique urban places. These physical spaces should be thought of as apps in the truest sense, based on sound engineered principals and integrated into the urban fabric to form environments that are greater than the sum of their parts – ‘app-scapes’.

This theoretical environment makes urban food production (and consumption) the source of wonder and delight.

James Haig Streeter (james.haigstreeter@archtam.com) is a principal in ArchTam’s global Landscape Architecture practice. He led the design of the Piazza Gae Aulenti, the development of the Urban Food Jungle concept, and was co-designer of the Blackpool Coastal Defenses.

The post Should cities be more like apps? appeared first on Blog.