Month: January 2024

The Poetics of Remediation: Impressions from the 12th Barcelona Landscape Biennial

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by Jordi Barri, International ASLA

Kotchakorn Voraakhom, ASLA, was one of the jurors of the Rosa Barba Casanovas International Landscape Prize 2023. / image: Jordi Barr

Every year I attend the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture, wherever it is in the United States. I find it interesting to know what is happening on the other side of the ocean, and what are the trends, novelties, techniques and approaches to landscape projects, through an event full of people and lectures with a didactic focus. But in this article, I will talk about a landscape event that takes place in my city, Barcelona, that has a radically different approach.

The “Barcelona International Landscape Biennial is a bi-annual umbrella complex project, integrating both Professional and School prizes, topic-based Symposium, Catalogues and Exhibitions as a creative medium where practitioners, academics and students interested in Landscape Architecture would network, learn and debate”—this is how the Biennial defines itself.

“The Poetics of Remediation” served as the captivating motto for the 12th edition of the Barcelona International Biennial of Landscape Architecture, which took place last November, and invited landscape professionals for a showcase of awards, lectures, and exhibitions. With this edition, it’s already been 25 years since it was created.

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My Meadow Lab, Part 1

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by Dan Greenberg, ASLA

Stepping stones in the meadow. / image: Dan Greenberg

My meadow is modest by most design standards. But it’s an awesome 1,000 square foot experiment that is already welcoming birds every day.

How awesome? In one Raleigh, North Carolina, growing season, measured from April through November, and compared against the lawn industry’s standard practices for managing a healthy turf lawn, my meadow saved over 10,000 gallons of water, 6 gallons of gasoline, some engine oil, 8 pounds of lawn seeds, and 9 pounds of fertilizer / pre-emergent herbicide. It also saved me 30 hours of boredom, walking back and forth with a mower or a seed spreader.

My anticipation is already building for next year. The established grasses will grow larger, shade more weeds, and welcome more creatures. And my role will change from a farmer to a steward, a master to a friend.

This meadow is special to me for a number of reasons. I love nature and this brings a piece of it closer to my life. It lets me walk my talk as an environmentalist and landscape architect. And it eliminates a lot of wasted time and resources.

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New Opportunities Round Up

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ASLA 2023 Professional Analysis and Planning Honor Award. Reimagine Middle Branch Plan. Baltimore, Maryland. Field Operations / image: Field Operations and the Reimagine Middle Branch Planning Team

While it is often remarked that January can feel like an awfully long month (where are we at now? Day 45?), you can use these never-ending days of mostly inclement weather to prepare for February and its super-abundance of ASLA webinars and deadlines, from the ASLA Honors Call for Nominations closing on February 12, to the ASLA Conference Call for Presentations deadline on February 22 and the ASLA Professional Awards registration and payment deadline on February 23. There’s a lot to prep for, as we try to stay cozy indoors!

To explore other opportunities, beyond all that ASLA has going on, check out ASLA’s RFQs, Opportunities, and Events page for information on everything from RFPs to calls for papers and design competitions. Below are just a few of the recent submissions. Anyone who would like to share an opportunity may submit information online.

Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery: Memorial Project Request for Qualifications
Deadline: February 20, 2024
The Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery (H&LS) Memorial Project Committee invites artists, designers, architects, multi-disciplinary teams, and other creators to express their interest in conceiving a site or sites on Harvard’s Cambridge campus for commemoration and reflection, as well as for listening to and living with the University’s legacy of slavery. The Committee seeks expressions of interest from those with investments of thought and practice in memorialization, ritual, community-building, history, and questions about the future, and welcomes submissions from individuals, collaboratives, and teams rooted in traditional or non-traditional memorial practices at any stage of their career.

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The 2024 HALS Challenge Competition

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by Scott Keyes

Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village, HALS CA-42, Simi Valley, Ventura County, CA / image: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

About the Historic American Landscapes Survey

The Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) is a national program administered by the National Park Service in collaboration with the American Society of Landscape Architects and Library of Congress. HALS documents historic landscapes through the creation of measured drawings, large-format photographs, and historical reports. Documentation is archived in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress.

The 15th Annual HALS Challenge Competition

The annual HALS Challenge competition encourages landscape architects, students, and other interested parties to document historic landscapes in their communities. To enter the competition, participants must complete a historical report that highlights the history, significance, and character-defining features of the surveyed landscape. This report can be supplemented with measured drawings or large-format photographs. All competition entries are archived in the HALS collection at the Library of Congress where they contribute to the nation’s largest repository of documentation on American architecture, engineering, and landscapes.

The 15th annual HALS Challenge competition is an open competition. We invite landscape architects, historians, students, and other interested parties to document any landscape that you feel would make a good addition to the HALS collection. Historic landscapes encompass a vast array of diverse property types and places, from formal gardens, parks, and public spaces to traditional cultural places, vernacular communities, and residential districts. Regardless of the site selected, please focus your HALS report on the landscape as a whole. Information how to describe and analyze historic landscapes for the HALS collection can be found in the HALS History Guidelines.

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125 Years of ASLA

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image: ASLA

In case anyone has not already heard the big news, 2024 marks ASLA’s 125th anniversary! Since its founding on January 4, 1899, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has continuously championed the field of landscape architecture. Let’s honor this historic milestone together—share your favorite ASLA memories and moments as we commemorate ASLA’s legacy and work towards a greener future for the next 125 years.

Share Your ASLA Memories >

We would love to see a few Professional Practice Network (PPN)-related stories come in! Have you been involved with your PPN since they were known as Open Committees or Professional Interest Groups (PIGs)? Were you at the very first Women in Landscape Architecture Walk back in 2009? Do you have a vintage printed PPN newsletter incorporated into your 1990s-era ASLA scrapbook? We want to hear about it!

Plus, a friendly reminder in case you are especially keen on participating in ASLA’s conference as a speaker or honors and awards program this year in celebration of ASLA’s 125th: the calls for all these opportunities are open now!

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The Professional Practice Networks’ 2023 in Review

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While we are all excited for what the new year has in store, we would like to thank all the Professional Practice Network (PPN) leaders and members who, over the course of 2023, shared their experiences and expertise as authors for The Field blog; as hosts, presenters, and engaged audience members for Online Learning webinars; and at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture in Minneapolis.

We hope that all who contributed to this shared body of knowledge have forged new connections and felt inspired by your peers in landscape architecture.

To celebrate and recognize these contributions from members, we’ve compiled the PPNs’ Year in Review, showcasing the top 10 most-viewed posts from The Field, all the webinars and virtual events hosted by the PPNs, and conference highlights. (In case you missed the conference, 52 education session recordings are available through ASLA Online Learning, with a 25% off discount for members if you get four or more!)

Below, we highlight the top five Field posts and the year’s PPN webinars. For the full recap, please see the complete PPNs’ 2023 in Review on the ASLA website.

Year in Review: The Field

Contributions to The Field, ASLA’s PPN blog, are by members and for members, and we encourage all ASLA members with an idea or an experience to share to write for The Field. Fresh content appears weekly, and 88 posts were published in 2023 from 59 authors.

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Putting AI to Work: Practical Applications of AI in Landscape Architecture

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by Lauren Schmidt, PLA, ASLA

The presentation “Putting AI to Work: Practical Applications of AI in Landscape Architecture” at the ASLA 2023 Conference on Landscape Architecture / image: courtesy of Lauren Schmidt

This post is a summary and recap of the presentation Putting AI to Work: Practical Applications of AI in Landscape Architecture that took place at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture in Minneapolis this past October. This post was written with the assistance of ChatGPT. The full PDF of the presentation is also provided at the end of the article.

Presentation by:

  • Benjamin George, ASLA, Utah State University
  • Phil Fernberg, ASLA, OJB
  • Qing Luo, ASLA, Oklahoma State University
  • Lauren Schmidt, PLA, ASLA, Parallax Team
  • Tony Kostreski, PLA, ASLA, Vectorworks
  • Matt Perotto, ASLA, Hargreaves Jones

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative force in various industries, and landscape architecture is no exception. This presentation explores the practical applications of AI in landscape architecture, featuring insights from experts in the field.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI, a concept contemplated for centuries, is the development of computer systems that mimic human intelligence. AI can be categorized into Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Landscape architecture benefits from ANI, which includes machine learning, knowledge-based systems, natural language processing, optimization, robotics, and computer vision.

The presentation breaks down the core components of AI, emphasizing machine learning (ML) as a subset that enables computers to learn without explicit programming. Deep learning (DL), a subset of ML using artificial neural networks, allows processing more complex patterns. ML is further categorized into supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning, each playing a unique role in landscape architecture applications.

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10th Shanghai Landscape Forum: Climate Action Now!

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by Lee Parks, International ASLA, and LIAO Jingjing

Shuyi Chang, ASLA, Principal at SWA Group / image: courtesy of the Shanghai Landscape Forum

On November 18, 2023, the 10th Shanghai Landscape Forum took center stage at the Shanghai International Design Festival. Instigated by founding firms Sasaki, SWA, and AECOM and co-organized with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Hassell, and ASPECT Studios, the theme for the forum was “Climate Action, Now!” This focused on strengthening awareness of ASLA’s Climate Action Plan and was the first forum to include live presentations from ASLA speakers in the United States to a live Shanghai audience.

To open the forum, Shuyi Chang, ASLA, co-founder of the Shanghai Landscape Forum, set the stage for the Climate Action Now theme with a compelling reminder of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement which gave rise to international consensus to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Shuyi then introduced the forum presentations around decarbonization, extreme heat, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and more.

Sarah Fitzgerald, ASLA – Associate at SWA Group, Climate and Sustainability Lead

As an ASLA Climate Action Plan Task Force member and SWA’s firmwide climate champion, Sarah Fitzgerald presented the ASLA Climate Action Plan (CAP)—an industry-wide strategy to decarbonize and enhance the environmental and societal impacts of landscape architecture as a profession. She explained the CAP structure, the vision, goals and initiatives, and then focused on specific examples of how ASLA is advancing carbon drawdown, as well as how designers can utilize the Climate Action Field Guide to push decarbonization in practice. She encouraged landscape architects to act faster and to utilize resources such as the ASLA Climate Action Field Guide and the Climate Positive Design Pathfinder tool.

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