Archive for November 27th, 2012
Governor’s mansion tree arrives… In Richmond.
Governor’s mansion tree arrives
By Sean Van Damme
A Fraser fir from southwest Virginia will adorn the Governor’s mansion this year. First Lady Maureen McDonnell was there to greet the tree as it arrived Monday morning at Capitol Square. The twelve foot tree was cut over the weekend, and chosen for the mansion by the State Tree Growers Association.
“You just go out on the farm and you hunt and you hunt until you find the prettiest tree on the farm, and you enter it in the contest,” said Rodney Richardson who has been growing trees for thirty-two years.
It isn’t as easy as it sounds, Richardson has about 300,000 trees on his farm, and more than a million Christmas trees are harvested and sold every year in Virginia. For every tree harvested, two to three seedlings are planted in its place.
Evert’s Tree Farm in Elk Creek, Virginia also presented wreaths for the mansion.
Copyright 2012 WWBT NBC12. All rights reserved.
Do Landscape Architects Need to Open up the Conversation?
Excellent article. Excellent thoughts.
http://dirt.asla.org/2012/11/26/do-landscape-architects-need-to-open-up-the-conversation/
Do Landscape Architects Need to Open up the Conversation?
When landscape architects get together formally to talk about the profession these days, their conversations all seem to follow a similar arc. They begin by addressing the “big” problems we will face in the near future, then quickly settle into a bout of modest soul-searching and existential angst, and finally conclude with some well-meaning but not very practical advice to students and young professionals to “pursue your dreams, follow your passion,” and so on. I graduated with a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from University of California, Berkeley, this spring and have been to more than a handful of these panels lately. I am getting a little frustrated. Instead of providing any real answers, these forums and panel discussions only seem to regurgitate the same questions.
Earlier this month, I attended a forum hosted by the North Carolina State University College of Design called, “Changing the Conversation: Landscape Architecture Beyond 2012.” It featured four local designers along with Mark Johnson, FASLA, founder of Civitas, who was visiting from Denver, Colorado. The panel was comprised of Charles “Chuck” Flink, FASLA, the president of Alta Planning and Design, Christine Hilt, FASLA, the president of CLH Design, Mark Hough, ASLA, the campus landscape architect of Duke University, and Paul Morris, FASLA, the Deputy Secretary for Transit for the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The forum was moderated by Dan Howe, ASLA, the Assistant City Manager of the City of Raleigh, NC.
I had been looking forward to an evening of new ideas, and while the forum was rousing and often entertaining, it left me somewhat frustrated. The topics discussed ran the usual gamut from international work and climate change to professional ethics and even Twitter, mixed with a spattering of direct, if not confrontational, questions from the audience. My gripe about the forum is the same as about others I have attended: it was a room of landscape architects talking about landscape architecture with a bunch of other landscape architects.
The potential value of these types of discussions, especially for landscape architecture students and emerging professionals, can’t be understated. Hearing directly from working professionals as they speak candidly about their careers has certainly made an impact on me. However, if practicing landscape architects have experienced successful collaborations with the public and other professionals (to which the panel testified), then why is the discussion still so exclusive? It seems that in order to really change the conversation, the conversation needs to open up to a lot more people.
Hilt, the only woman on the panel (another conversation that needs having), made the point indirectly while she was explaining how to defend the profession from becoming a commodity. “Our profession is about a lot of people with limited resources,” she said, “We collaborate with a lot of allied professionals, and it’s absolutely critical we get them involved in [the design process].”
Her point seems obvious but is worth reiterating. The ability to collaborate with other disciplines is one of the things that makes landscape architecture so great. Although she refers specifically to our collaborators in allied professions, I would argue that we need to involve everyone – the public – in the process.
This won’t be easy, but it’s possible. There are a few examples of this type of interaction already happening that are worth mentioning: ASLA’s public awareness campaign – The Understory – which was initiated on August 11, 2011 as a “day of action” encouraged landscape architects to get out on the street to make themselves known in all sorts of ways, including holding signs in public plazas reading “Designed by a Landscape Architect.” James Corner, principal of Field Operations, appeared in Gary Hustwit’s (director of Helvetica) city-focused documentary Urbanized, discussing the High Line in New York City. “Tactical urbanism” darlings Rebar and their revolutionary Park(ing) Day, held once a year on a Friday in September, brings public space curbside, directly engaging the public in conversation and interaction. These are all great examples of how we can engage a wider audience.
Furthermore, the role of landscape “starchitects” came up during the discussion, but it didn’t get as much focus as I had hoped. Flink mentioned Ian McHarg and his 1960 CBS television show, The House We Live In, but didn’t offer a contemporary comparison to McHarg or his communication efforts.
Howe followed a lengthy and circular exchange between the panelists and the audience about how to define what landscape architects do by posing the question “do we,” referring to our profession, “need another personality?” The panel looked at each other, quietly shook their heads, and only Johnson replied with “I know who I am and I just go be me. I’m unapologetic about the consequences.”
The panel seemed to agree that the struggle to educate clients and the public about the wonders of landscape is a market-driven struggle. Speaking from the audience, Swink reminded the panel and the other guests that “this is a great time to be a landscape architect. We are more understood than we’ve ever been.”
Overall, “Changing the Conversation: Landscape Architecture beyond 2012” didn’t break any new ground, but it did end on a high note, suggesting that the circular discussion was close to finding a new direction. Howe wrapped things up with, “this is a navel we have been picking for generations.” Sensing some unrest from the mostly young audience, Hough declared, “we are the status quo,” referring to himself and the other panelists, “it’s up to you to change the conversation.”
Challenge accepted.
This guest post is by Darryl Jones, ASLA, recent Master’s of Landscape Architecture graduate, University of California, Berkeley.
Image credit: Phillips Garden’s Parking Day Installation / Phillips Garden, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The conservative lorax.
Not trying to go political or nothing …
But found this entertaining.
VA.PHC 