ASLA Awards 08

What to say about the winners of this year's ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) design awards? Well, we might start with edgy, eclectic, and very original.

Pictured here is The Lurie Garden in Chicago's Millennium Park Park, designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd of Seattle, winner of the top award in the general design category.  It's a three-acre rooftop public botanical garden, which, according to Guthrie, "celebrates the built-up, engineered landscape of the Garden site and the City of Chicago."  And they're not kidding.  It's composed of giant "plates" that reflect the city's mysterious and marshy past and its exuberant modern architecture as well. There's also a water feature, a long "boardwalk" that criss-crosses the site, and a monumental "living hedge" that provides shelter for birds and other wildlife.

Many of the perennial  plantings were designed by the reknowed Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, using locally grown natives like prairie grasses that are a constant reminder of the Midwestern landscape.  As the awards jury put it, the garden "works on so many different levels, no wonder people love it."

(click to enlarge images by (left) Piet Oudolf; plan: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd)

The top award for residential design went to Lutsko Associates of San Francisco for this home in Ketchum, Idaho. It's hard to believe this project is sited in a middle-class subdivision.  It grounds the house to the native landscape of grasslands and distant mountains beyond.

The awards jury called it "a refreshing example of how landscape architecture can transform a home in a conventional neighborhood."  That's the true beauty of excellent design, and a concept that many homeowners in suburban neighborhoods find it difficult to understand:  that your landscape can and should echo the natural landscape of the region.

Although a relatively small space, the Ketchum garden has its own meadows planted with native grasses and wildflowers like those found in the foothills of the surrounding mountains. Its stepped terraces and low walls create an open, natural transition between the suburban lot and the plantings and colors of the meadows and mountains far in the distance.

It's difficult to select another project from the residential honor awards, but I'm partial to roof gardens, and this one in Brooklyn, NY, by Terrain NYC Inc is simply spectacular.

The design includes a specially-commissioned poetry wall, shown at left, amid a series of unfolding decks that create specific spaces amid the adjoining views of industrial-like rooftops. Terrain NYC says "the landscape itself is spectacle, and the landscape frames the spectacle of the city."

This garden includes separate areas for dining, for dancing, for viewing the city, for lounging, for gardening. You'll certainly want to see the rest of the photos from this unusual and stunning project on the ASLA winners website.  And there are many more other winning projects well worth your time and study.

(click to enlarge images; Ketchum: Marion Brenner and plan by Lutsko; NYC Roof: image and plan by Terrain NYC Inc).

Comments

[Henry Switzer]

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[Barbee']

Thank you for bringing this interesting info to blotanical, otherwise, I would have missed it.