On a leftover site in Punta Pite, landscape architect Teresa Moller’s house is a study in give and take. By Jimena Martignoni/Photography by Cristóbal Palma The terraced gardens behind the house showcase many different species that can now be appreciated as one composition. Nestled into steep cliffs that face the Pacific Coast of Chile, the landscape architect Teresa Moller’s house combines a small-scale rewilding and a site for the study of seacoast plants. The experimental gardens at Moller’s house, in the residential development Punta Pite, are part of a 27-acre property that follows the c ..read more

No longer just for coastal areas, WEDG 3.0 adds inland waterfronts to its certification. By Clare Jacobson Funded through the Rebuild Illinois capital plan, each breakwater features new below- and above-water habitats. Image courtesy Living Habitats. In October 2023, the New York–based nonprofit Waterfront Alliance launched version 3.0 of its Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines (WEDG) and revised its WEDG Professionals Course, which the group describes as “tools for sites building resilience, ecology, and access at the water’s edge.” WEDG was updated in part to maintain best practices and to sur ..read more

Transforming a defunct monorail into an elevated trail was an exercise in creative friction. By Timothy A. Schuler TEN x TEN’s vision for the trail treats the former monorail as part of the cultural landscape. Photo by Corey Gaffer Photography LLC. For some designers, a zoo may not have the same appeal or design potential as, say, a postindustrial site. But for the Minneapolis-based designers at TEN x TEN Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, a project to repurpose a former monorail at the Minnesota Zoo as a 1.25-mile-long elevated walking path was as rich as any historic site. “We really saw t ..read more

Firms are sharing project contracts and budgets more openly across teams as a matter of staff engagement. By Bradford McKee Clockwise from top left: Paul Kissinger, FASLA, CEO, Kissinger Design, Dexter, Michigan, photo courtesy EDSA; Susannah Ross, ASLA, director, landscape architect, Agency Landscape + Planning, Cambridge, Massachusetts, photo courtesy Agency Landscape + Planning; Greg Tuzzolo, managing director, STIMSON, Cambridge, Massachusetts, photo by Garrett Stone; Jennifer Zell, ASLA, director of Los Angeles operations and director of Regenerative Design Studio, MIG, Los Angeles, photo ..read more

To meet the ambitious climate targets ahead, designers, developers, and construction firms need common standards. And soon. By Timothy A. Schuler Climate Positive Design, whose Pathfinder platform is another emissions calculator, is among the ECHO Project’s participants. Image courtesy Climate Positive Design. As municipal governments, developers, universities, and corporations begin to collect  emissions data, either voluntarily or to comply with local regulations, experts say that the building sector will need better standards for reporting embodied carbon data. “We need to be aligned a ..read more

A soapstone quarry with Indigenous roots is set to become an archaeological park. By Kim O’Connell Examples of previously excavated soapstone. Montgomery Parks says future archaeological excavations are likely. Courtesy Montgomery Parks. Four thousand years ago, if you were working with a stone mallet, it would be steady but relatively quick work to carve a soapstone boulder into a medium-sized bowl. With stone chipping off with every strike, you could start the project in the morning, work into the afternoon, and be boiling water in the bowl by nightfall. Soapstone was ideal that way—easy eno ..read more

With the biennial Oberlander Prize in hand, Turenscape’s Kongjian Yu, FASLA, wants to expand the global profile of landscape architecture. By Stephen Zacks An old industrial site in 2020, before the construction of Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok. Photo © Turenscape, courtesy the Cultural Landscape Foundation. In awarding the second biennial Oberlander Prize to the Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu, FASLA, the Cultural Landscape Foundation and its 2023 jury sent an unmistakable signal about the future of the field. For the prize, which seeks to function as a counterpart to architecture ..read more

Cleveland’s DERU Landscape Architecture sees big stories in small spaces. By Zach Mortice Photography by Amber N. Ford A plaza with interpretive signage attracts visitors from the sidewalk.  Inside the Cozad-Bates House, a handsome, red brick Italianate building on the east side of Cleveland that’s the last pre-Civil War house in the University Circle neighborhood, is a small exhibit that tells the history of Ohio and Cleveland’s role in the Underground Railroad. A map of Ohio created in the late 19th century by the Ohio State University history professor Wilbur Siebert traces the clandes ..read more

The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade By Jared D. Margulies; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023; 392 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Anjulie Rao Some years ago, a friend handed me a potted cactus. I wasn’t aware of the genus or species, only that it looked like a quintessential cactus: seven inches tall and deep forest green, its ribs dotted with malicious, symmetrical spikes. Though he had cared for it over the years, he no longer wanted this particular cactus. Looking around his home, I noticed, perhaps for the first time, that it was filled with ..read more

With Ghost Rivers, the designer Bruce Willen calls attention to Baltimore’s buried streams. By Timothy A. Schuler Ghost Rivers memorializes Sumwalt Run, a stream in Baltimore that was buried in the early 20th century. Image © Public Mechanics.  “What would a monument to [a] river look like?” This was the question that Bruce Willen asked himself in the summer of 2020. The artist and founder of Baltimore’s Public Mechanics design studio was, like a lot of people during the pandemic, spending an unusual amount of time outside, and one day he heard water running below the street. It jogged a ..read more