Landscape Architecture Magazine

KELLY ENRIGHT (“Estate on the Edge,” page 38) is a writer, historian, and associate professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. You can see her work at www.kellyenright.com. “Many of Florida’s beautiful places are so close to rising water, making Vizcaya’s efforts to adapt without losing sight of historic design an important inspiration for others.” JAMES RUSSELL (“Ground Truth,” page 34) is a journalist in Fort Worth, Texas, who writes about visual art, the built environment, and policy. You can follow him on X @jamesfortexas. “I came away from the DesignJones office feeling like I had taken Landscape Architecture 101 and confident about exploring and understanding the field.” THERESA SULLIVAN BARGER (“A Bog for the Backyard,” page 30) is an award-winning freelance journalist who specializes in science, health, and sustainability writing. You can…

The article on Mikyoung Kim’s work in hospital settings (“Where We Get Stronger,” LAM, April) was great. We’ve designed and installed numerous gardens in general hospital settings, Alzheimer care facilities, assisted living centers, and even sensory gardens in public parks. Each one required in-depth consideration for the users of these gardens. It’s not as simple as designing a garden. We need to consider wayfinding; mental issues, of course; access; children; and so many more items to make these spaces useful and successful. The graphics that Kim’s firm uses to isolate details in their design process are wonderful. I wish we’d had that 20 years ago! It really helps to isolate design details specific to the garden and its use. Their work is beautiful and, in our opinion, very effective in engaging…

DIG DEEP A soapstone quarry with Indigenous roots will become an archaeological park. The story of how mineral resources are used by various cultures to provide the materials to sustain their society is vitally important. That understanding of resources is just as important for today’s society to understand the importance of resource sustainability. @SierraGeology FREE APRIL LAM Heartfelt gratitude for the thoughtful gesture of providing a free digital copy of the April issue in celebration of World Landscape Architecture Month. It is truly generous of you to extend this gift to your readers and enthusiasts of Landscape Architecture Magazine. Joseph Castillo, Hong Kong Hopefully some allied design professionals (non-LAs) will take a gander through the issue and learn more about our misunderstood profession.Tom Mortensen, ASLA, Milwaukee, Wisconsin A VIEW TO THE ZOO TEN x TEN transforms a defunct monorail…

I just wanted to reach out and say how great it was to I see the “Lasting Impressions” article in the March issue of LAM. As an MLA student who is a lover of old books and old film processes, I thought it was such a nice addition to the magazine as a whole. There are many beautiful old drawings hidden away in libraries and collections that professionals and students could appreciate and benefit from seeing. It would be great to see more such projects and any projects highlighting historic landscape restoration, such as SCAPE’s recent Hudson Valley Guest House and Grounds project or Nelson Byrd Woltz’s Crowninshield Garden. I hope you will do more articles on old processes and deep dives in the future! Thank you for the work you…

Few elements in the built environment have become more definitive than the road, but they are also a fundamental witness to the changing values of landscape architecture. The circulation plan for Central Park (and precedent rural cemeteries) is an early example of thinking through the relationship between nature and the body moving at speed through space. And if winding scenic byways and national park roads were the first efforts of landscape architects to shape the experience of moving by car, the parkway was likely its apotheosis.Parkways taught people to love driving and to see roads as something that held intrinsic value. A master of this art was the firm of Clarke & Rapuano. Primarily associated with Robert Moses’s urban projects, the firm was the subject of a ranging conversation I…

In Argentina, an urban vacant lot is referred to as baldío. Derived from the Arabic term bāṭilah, meaning “vain, valueless, or uncultivated,” this is also the name of an experimental project by Estudio Bulla, a fast-growing landscape architecture office in Buenos Aires. Initiated during the pandemic, Baldío I and II are two different stages of one intellectually rigorous and environmentally committed work in progress taking place in a residential area of the city. The project involves landscape architects, artists, and the work of the architect and environmental artist Martin Huberman. Baldío I (2020–2022) was a three-year-long botanical survey and experimentation with spontaneous vegetation appearing in a lot after demolition and site preparation. (Planned new construction was delayed by the pandemic and new land-use proposals.) “The first year and a half was only…