The long-awaited multimodal Salesforce Transit Center, which opened for its first weekday commute Monday, elevates an oft-mundane building type with a 5.4-acre public park—one of the largest accessible green roofs in the country. 

From Architectural Record:

"A grand act of place making, San Francisco’s just-opened Salesforce Transit Center elevates an oft-mundane building type—a mass transit station—with a 5.4-acre public park, one of the largest accessible green roofs in the country. The 1.2 million-square-foot center, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, helps to assert a new identity for the city, as a metropolis of distinctly contemporary density and form. It also presents an alluring vision of a sustainable future. But with some key functionality missing, it must wait to fulfill its larger mission.

Conceived as the “Grand Central Station of the West,” the nearly $2.3 billion project has been more than 10 years in the making, a saga of funding problems, budget overruns, political scuffles, and delays of the kind that seem to bedevil all large public infrastructure projects in the U.S." ...Continue reading at Architectural Record.

Sydney Olympic Park and its unique parklands demand a strategic rethink, to bridge the gap between optimistic big-picture visions and the reality of increased urban density.

From Foreground:

"Sydney Olympic Park first came to public consciousness at the 2000 Olympic Games. Its parklands, which were located adjacent to the suburb of sports fields, stadiums and throngs of global visitors, nevertheless played an integral part in Sydney’s successful game bid. A green backdrop to the pageantry of one of the world’s biggest sporting events, the parklands feature mangrove swamps full of frog and bird life. The eponymous suburb and its associated parklands were designed for the event, geared to handle intense visitor traffic for the short timeframe of the games, followed by an expected period of quiet, as the new infrastructure was slowly integrated into the ongoing event culture of the city.

Since 2000 the surrounding suburbs and visitor traffic to the parklands have grown consistently. Now planning agencies across NSW are making Olympic Park their focus, with the Greater Sydney Commission working to reorient Sydney around a new centre that spans from Parramatta to Olympic Park. Aside from being the geographic centre of Sydney, this corridor incorporates an impressive list of civic assets, including Olympic Park’s Bicentennial Park and Millennium Parklands, making it, in many ways, an obvious choice for intensified development. Accordingly the Commission’s Greater Parramatta and Olympic Park vision styles Olympic Park as a future “Lifestyle Super Precinct”. Yet, there is a profound dissonance..."

...Keep reading at Foreground.

Thousands of visitors flocked to the grand opening to get their first look at the park that sits atop the Transbay Transit Center.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Thousands of visitors jammed the new Transbay Transit Center for its grand opening party Saturday, tapping their toes to live music while waiting to hop on crammed escalators that carried them to the bustling bus deck and sprawling 5.4-acre rooftop park.

Lines stretched the length of the Grand Hall as people tried to get into the $2.2 billion multistory transportation hub.

Visitors climbed onto vintage buses parked on the bus desk as part of the Historic and Contemporary Bus Expo, adults sipped alcoholic beverages and played Foosball in the Main Plaza, and children rolled down soft hills of grass overlooking chaotic San Francisco streets and hustling pedestrians.

'I never expected this center to finish or to be this good,' said Elias Berhanu of San Francisco. 'I remember before construction even started, when we had the old Transbay Terminal, which you didn’t even feel comfortable standing in.'"

Read more at San Francisco Chronicle .

Related Links: $2.26 billion Salesforce Transit Center opens to huge crowds, great expectations (ABC News); Crowds at Capacity at Brand New Salesforce Transit Center (NBC Bay Area); Salesforce Transit Center's 'Block Party' A Crowded Affair (SFGATE); Bay Area gains new icon with San Francisco’s ‘Grand Central station of the West’ (The Mercury News)

The landscape architects behind the 9/11 Memorial opened Transbay Park in a part of San Francisco desperate for green space–and even helped change local zoning regulations.

From Architectural Record:

"Keep your eye on Adam Greenspan, design partner at the Berkeley-based PWP Landscape Architecture, founded by the esteemed Peter Walker. Greenspan is just completing two remarkable—and vastly different—projects in which landscape and architecture are inextricably intertwined. For Glenstone, in suburban Maryland, a 200-acre park with a new contemporary art museum designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, set to open in October, Greenspan and his team created a 21st-century arcadia for the clients, Mitchell and Emily Rales; in San Francisco, the office has built a five-acre respite for urbanites atop the Salesforce Transit Center designed by Pelli Clark Pelli (PCP), amidst a cluster of skyscrapers, including the city’s tallest, Salesforce Tower, also by PCP. Greenspan spoke with RECORD editor in chief Cathleen McGuigan about the two projects. Here are excerpts from their conversation."

Keep reading at Architectural Record...

From KQED Arts:

"Part park, part bus station and aspirational future high-speed rail terminus, the new Transbay Transit Center opens with literal fanfare (courtesy of the West Grand Bass Band) on Aug. 11, followed by a number of exceedingly family friendly events, including an instrument “petting zoo” for kids, drumming and dance performances, a redwoods 'talk & touch' and a yoga class. Bus service begins the following day.

Missing from that list of events is any mention of the building’s four public art pieces, facilitated by the San Francisco Arts Commission, which punctuate a hovering white structure designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the “day” to the old bus depot’s dark, cold, concrete-bunker-like 'night.'

For some of the artists involved, the Aug. 11 opening is the culmination of upwards of 10 years of planning, proposing, altering, testing and overseeing their public art projects.

On the ground floor, Bay Area-based artist Julie Chang designed the grand hall’s 20,000-square-foot terrazzo floor, a swirling design of native flora and fauna punctuated by geometric patterns representing a smorgasbord of source material, including African textiles, Chinese calligraphy, pottery design, genetic mutations, Islamic tile and wallpaper." 

To keep reading, visit KQED Arts.

From The Daily Journal of Commerce:

"Richard Haag, an award winning landscape architect who designed the internationally respected Gas Works Park in Seattle and founded the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, died May 9 of natural causes. He was 94.

Haag was also known for designing Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, redesigning Seattle Center after the World's Fair to make it a public park, and designing Steinbrueck Park in Seattle with Victor Steinbrueck. ...

Peter Walker, a partner with PWP Landscape Architecture in Berkeley, worked with Haag in Halprin's office in the mid-1950s. He said Haag was one of the funniest and the most passionately political people he's ever met — an environmentalist in the 1950s when few people were.

“He would go to city hall and yell and scream,” said Walker. “You didn't want to be on the other side of Rich's passion. He was formidable.”

Walker said Haag also trained some great landscape architects, and encouraged them to stand up and make a difference, including the late Frank James who taught at Harvard."

To keep reading, visit The Daily Journal of Commerce  ...

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Sitting amid the redwoods and Japanese maples in the new park atop the Transbay Transit Center, visitors can’t hear or see the buses on the ramp one floor down. Instead, they see intermittent jets of water that shoot up along a bed of white and gray granite, tracing the path of vehicles passing directly below.

It takes a trainspotter to puzzle out that the geysers are triggered by a bus, looping into the terminal from the Bay Bridge. But that’s the catch to “Bus Fountain,” one of four pieces of public art for the long-awaited terminal.

“The fountain is like a huge musical instrument that is played by the bus drivers,” said artist Ned Kahn of Sebastopol during a recent test.

As the creator behind “Bus Fountain,” Kahn, 58, explained that there are nozzles planted along the granite stream bed and that each nozzle is attached to a sensor attached to the ceiling of the bus deck below. The water shoots up in time with the buses passing underneath — as many as 100 an hour during the commute rush — for an orchestrated water show."

...Read more at San Francisco Chronicle.

Salesforce Transit Center has become a reality that generated a building boom

From BisNow:

“Salesforce Transit Center has become a reality that generated a building boom in that area,” Transbay Joint Powers Authority Executive Director Mark Zabaneh said. “The minute the developers saw the transit center under construction, they started developing the parcels.”

The Aug. 11 opening of the transit center’s rooftop park, Salesforce Park, marks the end of the center's initial transformation. The bus terminal will open to full operations on Aug. 12. “It’s going to be a really significant achievement that surpassed expectations,” Zabaneh said.

“The park is a big attraction. There is very limited quality public space and the park provides 5.4 acres of really quality public space.” He said there has been a lot of enthusiasm for the rooftop park and the most-asked question has been about the park’s opening date." Read more at BisNow...

From Architect News:

"The new 'The Pavilions' space by Thomas Phifer and Partners (with landscapes designed by PWP Landscape Architecture) is scheduled to open on October 4 and will showcase pieces by big name artists like Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Serra, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

'Incorporated seamlessly into Glenstone’s 230-acre landscape, the Pavilions comprises 11 distinct rooms installed with artworks drawn exclusively from the museum’s collection, grouped around a lushly planted, 18,000-square-foot Water Court,' explains the museum's announcement. 

'At the time of the opening, the building will feature a number of spaces dedicated to single-artist installations, including major works by Michael Heizer, Roni Horn, On Kawara, Brice Marden, Lygia Pape, Charles Ray, and Cy Twombly, among others. In addition, a presentation of 65 works by 52 artists will occupy the largest room in the Pavilions, a column-free space of 9,000 square feet. The exhibition will offer visitors the opportunity to enjoy a more extensive selection of masterworks dating from 1943 to 1989.'"

To keep reading, visit Architect News...

Related Links: More Space, More Intimacy with More Art (Artholics); Glenstone museum previews its Thomas Phifer-designed expansion (designboom)

Jewel, a 10-story extension opening at Singapore's Changi Airport in 2019, will help travellers unwind with attractions including stunning indoor waterfall and Canopy Park. PWP designed the landscape spaces within the expansive building dome by Safdie Architects.

From STYLE at South China Morning Post:

"Singapore’s idea of building a link between Changi Airport’s Terminal 1 and Terminals 2 and 3 is probably going to win it several more years of the title as the World’s Best Airport.

Jewel Changi, the multi-use 10-storey structure, will combine attractions, dining outlets, shopping and accommodation for weary travelers.

While Jewel Changi will serve many of the needs you may have while travelling – early check-in counters, baggage services, passenger lounge, shopping for that last-minute souvenir – there are a few other problems you never knew you had, or have just brushed off as a mundane consequence of travelling.

Here is how Jewel Changi’s attractions will solve these problems when it opens in 2019." ...

To keep reading, visit STYLE at South China Morning Post...

From ABC News:

"Before the Transbay Transit Center opens next month, members of the public are invited to sign up for guided tours.

The Transbay Joint Power Authority is offering four themed tours between July 31 and August 4 as the Salesforce Transit Center gears up for its first day of full bus operations on August 12.

Overseen by an eight-member board of directors, TJPA was created by Caltrans, the California High Speed Rail Authority, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District and the City and County of San Francisco to develop the new terminal and surrounding neighborhood." ...

To keep reading, visit: ABC News.

From SFGATE:

"The Salesforce Transit Center is set to open with several Bay Area transit agencies starting operations next month, officials with the Transbay Joint Powers Authority announced Thursday.

After eight years of construction, the six-story transit center at Mission and First streets will open Aug. 11 with a neighborhood block party.

The event from noon to 4 p.m. will have free activities, such as fitness classes, games, music, food, performances, tours and exhibits of historic and state-of-the-art buses.

The following day Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District buses will begin inaugural service from the transit center's third-level bus deck.

On August 13, all 27 AC Transit bus lines will start operations at the new bus deck and cease operations at the Transbay Temporary Terminal.

Other transit agencies providing service at the new bus deck include Amtrak, Greyhound Bus, Western Contra Costa Transit Authority Lynx and San Francisco Municipal Railway's 25 Treasure Island line." ...

To keep reading, visit SFGATE...

Related Links: S.F.'s Long-Awaited Salesforce Transit Center Sets Opening Date for Aug. 11 (Mass Transit Magazine); Transbay Transit Center and Salesforce Park opening in August (Curbed-SF)

Built in the 1830s, the Lockkeeper's House is the oldest building on the National Mall. As part of the National Mall Winning Design Proposal for Constitution Gardens, PWP designed and delivered the landscape surrounding the Lockkeeper's House in its new location along Constitution Avenue.

From NPR:

"Built in 1837, the 350-square-foot building was home to the lockkeeper of the Washington City Canal. The house was originally situated on the corner of 17th Street and Constitution Avenue, when 17th Street was a wharf and Constitution Avenue was the canal. The canal became defunct in the middle of the 19th century, turning into an open sewer and a health hazard, until it was filled in the early 20th century. Later, a road widening project resulted in the house sticking out into the street. So, in 1916, the house was moved out of the street and placed closer to the Mall, on what is now the sidewalk along Constitution Avenue. After being boarded up for over 40 years, the house was moved once again in 2017 and now sits 30 feet inland from its previous spot."

Keep reading at NPR...

From Landscape Architecture Magazine:

"As landscape design coalesces more and more around an infrastructural and regenerative mandate, there’s been less emphasis on what is perhaps the most fundamental (and broadly shared) conception of what landscape architecture is: the aesthetic arrangement of plantings. That’s the view of a recent symposium held at the University of California, Berkeley’s Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning department, organized by the professor emeritus of architecture Marc Treib. The Aesthetics of Planting Design symposium, held February 17–18, invited landscape architects and historians to lecture on a topic that’s been lately marginalized by sustainability, resilience, and social justice.

In his introduction, Treib begins by questioning the notion that “good morals automatically yield good landscapes,” though he emphasizes that all landscapes have a dual responsibility to both art and beauty, as well as resiliency and conservation. While planting aesthetics are most commonly addressed in small gardens, according to Treib, it’s seldom discussed at a civic (or larger) scale—though notable exceptions include the designers invited to lecture at this very event. This international group of presenters includes Peter Walker, FASLA; Christine Ten Eyck, FASLA; Andrea Cochran, FASLA; and Kate Cullity."

Watch the Symposium introduction video at Landscape Architecture Magazine...

From The Washington Post:

A masterful mixing of art, architecture and nature, Glenstone has announced that October 4, 2018 will be the opening day for a much-anticipated expansion that will immediately draw national attention as a unique and contemplative cultural destination.

Nestled in the rolling meadows of a former fox-hunting estate 15 miles outside Washington, the contemporary art museum in Potomac, Md., is the brainchild of billionaire Mitch Rales and his wife, Emily. First opened in 2006 with a 30,000-square-foot building, the expanded facility will boast five times the gallery space and double the natural landscape of the original.

It becomes one of the largest private museums in the country, joining the company of the Broad in Los Angeles and the Rubell Family Collection, which plans to open its new home in Miami next year.

Moving smoothly between indoor and outdoor spaces, the new museum builds on the original mission of providing guests with the chance to enjoy nature and art in quiet meditation.

To keep reading, visit The Washington Post.

More info on the landscape design at Glenstone.

Further reading: Potomac’s Glenstone Museum plans expansion opening in October (Curbed DC); Glenstone Museum to Open 204,000-Square-Foot Expansion in October (ArtNews); Glenstone to become one of the US’ biggest private art museums (Global Times); US art museum Glenstone expands (The Nation)

From the February 2018 Issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine:

In 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, Bill Browning, an environmental designer and founder of Terrapin Bright Green, cites “material connection with nature” as a significant principle. In other words, materials from nature, with minimal processing, can be used to construct the built environment—reflecting the local geology and connecting people to a place and natural setting. More than any other material, stone fulfills this “pattern”—often seamlessly settling a built landscape into the larger natural context. Yet in some cases, heavy stone can travel thousands of miles between harvest and use—offering absolutely no connection to the local natural landscape and creating a substantial environmental footprint.

Stone holds great potential to be a highly sustainable construction material for use in paving, stairs, and walls. It can be extremely durable, with relatively low embodied energy (energy used to produce a material), and nontoxic. However, a study from the University of Tennessee estimates that more than half of all dimension stone—defined as any stone that has been cut or shaped for use in construction—is imported, primarily from China, India, and Brazil, owing to far lower labor costs and fewer worker safety regulations, which combine for a lower product cost. ...

To keep reading, visit Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Related Links: Barangaroo Reserve featured in November 2017 Landscape Architecture Magazine

On February 22, 2018, Architectural Record will present a symposium on the new Salesforce (Transbay) Transit Center, featuring Fred Clarke, FAIA, co-founder and senior principal of Pelli Clarke Pelli, the project’s lead architect, and Adam Greenspan, design partner at PWP Landscape Architecture, which designed the 5.4-acre park atop the Transit Center. Moderated by Record editor-in-chief Cathleen McGuigan, the panel will explore the design of the transit center and surrounding context, including the Salesforce Tower, also by Pelli Clarke Pelli, the most significant addition to San Francisco’s skyline in decades.

About Architectural Record On The Road:
Founded in 1891, Architectural Record is the #1 source for news and information about architecture and design. Throughout its 125 years, the award-winning publication has fostered readership among architecture, engineering, and design professionals by covering noteworthy and innovative projects in the United States and across the globe.

Continue reading on ArchitecturalRecord.com...

Related Links: Transbay Roof Park

Design Summit shows off the potential Vectorworks holds for landscapers

During the keynote presentation, PWP partner Adam Greenspan displayed how our firm uses Vectorworks to complete many of our projects, no matter where they are located in the world.

Adam's presentation focused on our recent work at Barangaroo Reserve in Sydney, Australia, which transformed an industrial container terminal into a 22-hectare waterfront precinct. The firm built up the site’s topography using sandstone extracted from the site itself to re-create the historic "Millers Point" headland which formerly stood at the site's location in precolonial times.

“Vectorworks helps us translate very technical specifications into normal people’s language,” Greenspan said.

PWP has also used Vectorworks to plot full-scale mockups of various pieces, such as park benches and fountains, for one of its ongoing projects, the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco.

To keep reading, visit Land8.com

Related Links: Total Landscape Care (September 21, 2017)

Jewel Changi will have you planning a trip to Singapore just to hang out in the airport.

From Travel + Leisure:

Singapore's Changi Airport is already the World's Best, and it has no plans to give up the title. An enormous dome-shaped facade made of glass and steel, called Jewel Changi, is due to be finished in the fourth quarter of 2018, opening to the public by early 2019.

Clad in 9,600 pieces of glass and with indoor gardens, walking trails and mazes, Jewel Changi will feature 340 species of planets, including a dedicated Avenue of Trees.

It's an attempt to keep Singapore's already famously green airport at the top, though Jewel Changi will also feature stores, restaurants and a Yotel hotel, as well as a SkyTrain, bridges and travelators to link to the passenger terminals. However, the highlight of Jewel Changi will be a five-story Forest Valley area.

The Jewel Changi was designed by architect Moshe Safdie, who designed the Salt Lake City Public Library and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. Safdie Architects also designed the Marina Bay Sands resort on the Singapore waterfront that was completed in 2011. PWP Landscape Architecture, which also worked on Marina Bay Sands, is providing landscape architectural design services on the project. Comprised of three 55-story towers connected by the Sands SkyPark, the hotel has become an iconic Singapore sight, and the firm's best-known work by far. Safdie Architects is now also now working on two residential towers in Singapore linked by three tree-lined bridges, and topped with a “sky pool.” ...Continue reading at travelandleisure.com.

Related Links: Changi's crown Jewel scales new heights

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

This is the third and final installment in The Chronicle’s exploration of the changes reshaping the blocks west of the Embarcadero. Part 1 examined the new Salesforce Transit Center and its troubled history. Part 2 focused on Salesforce Tower and how it reflects today’s San Francisco.

San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its neighborhoods, has never seen anything like the one taking shape south of Market Street right now.

Blocks once covered by freeway ramps are sprouting glitzy residential towers. A park is planned below a bridge reserved for commuter buses. On broad sidewalks, shrubbery and miniature dog runs separate pedestrians from cars.

All this is the fulfillment of 15 years of planning based on the premise that a high-rise neighborhood, where people of all incomes live and work near transit of all kinds, can be a good fit for San Francisco. But only in the past five years have the plans begun taking form in real life, with short buildings making way for tall ones and parking lots becoming construction sites.

It’s a still-ragged transformation of the area around the new Transbay Transit Center. ...Continue reading at SFChronicle.com.

Related Links: Transbay Terminal, The Beginning; Transbay Terminal, The Tower

Adam Greenspan recently participated in a press event in New York showcasing the expansion of Glenstone Museum. Located on more than 200 acres in Potomac, MD, Glenstone is a place that integrates art, architecture, and landscape. For more than a decade PWP has been working to develop this property—once slated to be a residential subdivision—into an ideal setting for quiet aesthetic contemplation. 

From the Wall Street Journal:

With little fanfare, Mitch and Emily Rales have amassed key works by many contemporary art stars. Soon an ambitious expansion of Glenstone will allow them to share more of it with the public

Across acres of meadow deep in Maryland fox-hunting country under a late-summer sun, a horse and rider appear to trot up to a small copse. This is no quivering thoroughbred, but rather a life-size cardboard model, carried a bit unsteadily by two assistants. A wiry man in beat-up blue jeans and a black cap slouches closer to peer at the creature. He is the artist Charles Ray, and the mock-up is... Continue reading at WSJ.com

Related Links: A Frick for the 21st Century? Glenstone Is About to Become One of America’s Largest Private Museums (ArtNET); Glenstone to become one of world's largest private museum (Washington Business Journal); Glenstone Museum to Complete Major Expansion Project in 2018 (Art Forum); Potomac’s Glenstone Museum to open new building in 2018 (Curbed DC); Glenstone Museum Expansion Targeted To Open in Late 2018 (Bethesda Magazine); Still life: the Glenstone Museum’s extension aims for a calming experience (Wallpaper Magazine)

The National Mall’s oldest structure will become part of a new educational site

From Curbed–Washington DC:

"As part of the Constitution Gardens revitalization project, the Lockkeeper’s House recently underwent a move, which can be seen in the video found below. The revitalization project that Constitution Gardens will undergo involves the construction of a 160-foot-long pavilion, 18-inch retaining wall along Constitution Avenue, glass-walled restaurant on the north side, and a grand staircase that leads down to the lake on the south side.

The developers behind the project are Rogers Partners and PWP Landscape Architecture, who won a national design competition in 2012.

This D.C. structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In December 2016, repairs began on the original stone with plans to construct a new brick chimney." ...

To keep reading, visit Curbed–Washington DC.

Facebook to move nextdoor to Transbay Transit Center

From The Registry Bay Area Real Estate:

Jay Paul’s San Francisco development at 181 Fremont Street has just added Menlo Park’s Facebook as its commercial tenant, according to two sources who track leasing information in San Francisco. The new, mixed use, 70-story tower that features 432,000 square feet of commercial office space and 67 condominium residences on the top 17 floors of the building marks a significant expansion for the social networking company as it continues to grow its physical footprint across the region.

In addition to the residential and office space, the building will also have 2,480 square feet of retail space that will lead directly to the Transbay Transit Center elevated 5.4-acre City Park. The tower is San Francisco’s first pre-certified LEED Platinum mixed-use building, and it features a state-of-the-art water recycling system that captures, treats and reuses greywater and rainwater, as well as a unique glass curtain wall system, which maximizes natural light, according to a statement from Jay Paul.

For more information, visit The Registry Bay Area Real Estate.

Related Links: Facebook just leased space for up to 3,000 employees in San Francisco, says report; Facebook to lease 436,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco; Facebook coming to San Francisco’s 181 Fremont; Facebook arrives in San Francisco with city's largest office lease in three years

Transbay Transit Center: Towering terminus humanizes neighborhood skyline by giving San Franciscans a rooftop park and event space

from Curbed SF:

While the South Beach and Yerba Buena neighborhoods have grown up (and up, and up) over recent years, the new Transbay Transit Center—would-be crown jewel of the neighborhood and linchpin of a transportation network that will, should all go according to plan, one day stretch all the way to Los Angeles by rail—has been spreading.

At a modest five stories tall, instead of soaring up it’s been growing out, 1,400 feet from one end to the other, like a concrete giant that decided to lie down for a nap between Beale and Second streets.

As such, it’s almost impossible to appreciate the scale of the soon-to-be-finished first phase...

To keep reading, visit Curbed SF.

from the San Francisco Chronicle:

In the coming months, The Chronicle will explore the changes reshaping the blocks between the Embarcadero and the Yerba Buena district, starting with today’s look at the Transbay Transit Center.

San Francisco has never seen a development like the new Transbay Transit Center, a 1,500-foot-long structure that stretches across First and Fremont streets, perched on huge steel trunks and wrapped in a rippling, see-through white metal veil.

Next spring, after seven years of work that began with the demolition of the aged Transbay Terminal, the doors should finally open. Visitors will be greeted by a sky-lit concourse adorned with colorful art, below a third-level bus deck with a direct ramp to and from the Bay Bridge. A rooftop park will feature 60 species of trees and a 1,000-foot-long fountain triggered by the arrival of buses below.

To keep reading, visit San Francisco Chronicle.

from San Francisco Chronicle:

When the rooftop park opens next spring at San Francisco’s new transit center, the rules will be based on the ones at Yerba Buena Gardens. The programming model is something more distant: New York City’s Bryant Park.

Both topics were on the agenda at Thursday’s board meeting of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority — evidence that as the transit center’s opening draws near, the focus is shifting from the nuts and bolts of construction to making the bus terminal and its public spaces function as smoothly and enticingly as possible.

Late March is the target date to begin bus service at the facility, which will have its main entrance at Mission and Fremont streets. That’s also when the 5.4-acre rooftop park will premiere...

To keep reading, visit San Francisco Chronicle.

from The New York Review of Books:

The creation of an expansive, charming public space at the heart of a great commercial city is a rare event. Sydney’s Barangaroo Reserve, which opened in August 2015, joined New York’s High Line and London’s East End Olympic redevelopment as a landmark public park that helps define a major metropolis’s sense of place. Barangaroo forms the northwestern section of Sydney’s main business district and was previously part of the Port of Sydney. The relocation of industrial activities to nearby Botany Bay created the opportunity for redeveloping an area of a little over fifty-four acres in the downtown of a city with a population of 4.3 million.

About fifteen acres of this site went to the creation of Barangaroo Reserve. The park includes an enormous subterranean arts space and a substantial grassy summit as well as an urban forest. Its chief designer, Peter Walker of PWP Landscape Architecture, who also worked on New York’s National September 11 Memorial, faced a difficult task in balancing the expectations of the local community, governments, and developers. The all-too-contentious battles that followed have left a residue of discontent. Australia’s former prime minister Paul Keating, who championed the concept from the beginning, is a polarizing figure. But without his constant oversight, shortcuts would doubtless have diminished the quality of the final product.

To continue reading, visit The New York Review of Books

Santa Monica's Colorado Esplanade, designed by leading landscape architecture practice Peter Walker & Partners (PWP), is among the projects recently honored by the Los Angeles Business Council with a 2017 Architectural Award. Since 1970, the Los Angeles Architectural Awards has honored projects that embrace innovative design principles and reshape our vibrant urban landscape. 

With this project, Colorado Avenue has transformed from a back alley into Santa Monica’s active front door. Active with pedestrians at all times of day, the 3-block development along the Esplanade has been stimulated, encouraging a new bike center as well as new hotels and cafés which are now open or under construction. The project makes use of municipal recycled urban runoff to irrigate the plants, and the identifiable integration of different modes of travel works to create a sustainable and provocative urban design element that is able to grow and evolve into the future.

Congratulations to all of our winners who embody the extraordinary spirit of creativity and collaboration that makes Los Angeles a world-class city.

Related Links:
Business Wire – Winners of 2017 L.A. Architectural Awards Envision a More Sustainable and Livable Urban Future;  LA Business Council – 2017 LA Architectural Award Winners; Inhabitat – Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Awards

Barangaroo Reserve in Sydney has been selected for the Landscape Architecture Foundation's Case Study Investigation (CSI) program.

LAF has selected 13 high-performing landscape projects for the 2017 CSI program. CSI is a unique research collaboration that matches LAF-funded faculty-student research teams with design practitioners to document the benefits of exemplary landscape projects.

Participants from each firm will serve as liaisons and work with the 2017 CSI Research Fellows to evaluate and quantify the environmental, social, and economic performance of the selected projects. The resulting Case Study Briefs are published in LAF’s award-winning Landscape Performance Series database of over 100 projects.

With projects spanning three continents, 2017 CSI promises to be an engaging experience with marked additions to the Landscape Performance Series. Projects this year include a pedestrian trail that connects two oceanside cities, a former ballast quarry, three healthcare facilities, a master planned community, two reclaimed elevated rail lines, and more.

For further information, visit LA Foundation.

Related Links: Study to Research Sustainability Benefits, Landscape Performance Series Case Study Briefs

On the western edge of Sydney's CBD, a disused harbour side wasteland has been transformed into a public foreshore park.

from Gardening Australia, Series 28, Episode 09:

Former Gardening Australia presenter Clarence Slockee is now Team Leader of visitor services at Barangaroo. Named after a famous Kamaraygal woman who was married to Bennelong, the 6-hectare parkland has been replanted with endemic plant species. 

Sandstone was excavated from below ground and the cut stone blocks used on the foreshore to form the headland itself. Offcuts from the blocks were ground down and mixed with soil for the plantings. Ochre pockets in the sandstone blocks provided the materials for the local indigenous people for ceremonies, art and also eaten to treat stomach upsets.

A terrace named 'Waranara' meaning 'Great View' gives visitors an elevated view of the reserve overlooking the water.

To watch the episode, visit Gardening Australia.

Related Links: Learn more about Barangaroo Reserve

Spectacular Plans For New Transbay Center Unveiled

CBS's Phil Matier reports on the mall and park that will be part of new Transbay Center at the heart of San Francisco.

Watch the Video

The Transbay Transit Center is set to open late this year and will serve numerous bus lines, including AC Transit, Muni, Golden Gate Transit and Caltrain. PWP has been busy working with architects Pelli Clarke Pelli and landscape contractor McGuire and Hester to actualize the rooftop park that is beginning to take shape.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The trees are trucked to the Transbay Transit Center in the dead of night.

Peter Walker joins Krys Boyd of KERA's Think podcast to talk about creating outdoor public spaces that are both functional and beautiful.

from the Art+Seek:

You are likely aware that someone designed the building you are in. But what about the park, courtyard or garden outside of it?  We sometimes forget the work of landscape architects. But recently,  UT-Dallas announced the Richard Brettell Award in the Arts, the richest arts prize in Texas. And the first winner? Landscape architect Peter Walker.

Walker is a California native, but he’s responsible for Dallas staples such as the Nasher Sculpture Garden and the remodeling of the UT-Dallas campus. Further afield, he worked on the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City and projects in Barangaroo in Australia. Walker is on his way to China after a stop in Dallas this week to pick up the award. He stopped by Think with Krys Boyd to talk about the art that goes into creating outdoor public spaces.

Here are 6 insights from Walker’s conversation with Boyd... visit Art+Seek.

Landscape architect Peter Walker, known worldwide, wins inaugural Brettell Award in the Arts

The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) announced that PWP Landscape Architecture has received a SCUP Excellence in Landscape Architecture for General Design Merit Award for The University of Texas at Dallas Campus Landscape Enhancement.

Winning entries appear on SCUP’s website and in an online booklet publication of the awards. In addition, members of the jury will present a concurrent session on Monday, July 10 at SCUP–52, the Annual International Conference in Washington, DC July 8-12, 2017. They will discuss observations from this year’s submittals, what was “excellent,” best practices and the challenges that lie ahead for higher education.

Now in its 23rd year, The American Architecture Awards is a distinguished design awards program that honors new and cutting-edge design in the United States. This annual program, organized by both The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies also promotes American architecture and design to a public audience in the U.S. and abroad.

This year, the Museum received a record number of projects for new buildings, landscape architecture, and urban planning from the most important firms practicing in the U.S. and globally.

From a short list of 380 projects, the 2017 Jury for Awards was held in Athens, Greece, and 79 projects were selected by a distinguished group of Greek architects and educators.

PWP Landscape Architecture is thrilled to receive an American Architecture Award on behalf of our full consultant team for Colorado Esplanade in Santa Monica, California.

A full list of winning projects for 2017 is attached and can be viewed at our Museum's website at www.chi-athenaeum.org  or at www.americanarchitectureawards.com.

More info on the Colorado Esplanade project page...

Nearly 2000 people gathered at Barangaroo in Sydney to perform ancient sacred dances in honor of peace

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

"We don't want wars in this country. We don't want hate and racism in this country."

"We perform sacred dances and ceremonies for you to enjoy and see our ancient traditions," Uncle Max told an attentive crowd gathered around the smoking fire pit at the WugolOra ceremony at Barangaroo on Thursday morning."

Nearly 2000 people attended the event, organized by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, which commenced with a smoking ceremony led by the Koomurri Aboriginal Dance Troupe.

"We were paying respects to Mother Earth and asking permission to be here," said Clarence Slockee, who helped make the bark nawi (canoe) carried by the troupe.

To keep reading. visit The Sydney Morning Herald. Learn more about the Barangaroo project.

Related Links: Australia Day Smoking Ceremony; Indigenous pain remembered in Sydney

Medical district and city plan ambitious overhaul of area around downtown Charleston hospitals and office buildings

From The Post & Courier:

What many consider downtown Charleston’s most depressing neighborhood is, ironically, the place where many people go to get well.

Now, the city and its three medical institutions between Cannon and Calhoun streets are trying to cure a set of streets many consider unwelcoming — streets that weave through a mostly bleak mix of towering hospitals, office buildings, garages and surface parking lots.

And they have hired a landscape architecture firm nationally known for designing the 9/11 Memorial in New York, a pair of deep pools where the Twin Towers once stood, framed by stones that bear the victims’ names.

To keep reading, visit The Post & Courier.

From The Hartford Courant...

Fifteen years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Lower Manhattan has been reborn.

The revitalization of the city's downtown, powered by $30 billion in government and private investment, includes not just the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site, but also two new malls filled with upscale retailers, thousands of new hotel rooms and dozens of eateries ranging from a new Eataly to a French food hall, Le District.

The statistics alone are stunning. There are 29 hotels in the neighborhood, compared to six before 9/11. More than 60,000 people live downtown, nearly triple the number in 2000. And last year, the area hosted a record 14 million visitors, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York.

To keep reading, visit Hartford Courant.

Related Links: 15 years after 9/11, iconic NYC mall to reopen at ground zero | The new downtown: Lower Manhattan reborn 15 years after 9/11

The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture and Design have awarded Project Jewel at Changi Airport the International Architecture Award for 2016.

www.chi-athenaeum.org
www.europeanarch.eu

A special exhibition will open in Istanbul in September and will travel within Europe afterwards.

Project Jewel, with Safdie Architects, will provide more than 120,000m2 of gardens, terraces and retail. More information on the project here.

Related Links: Jewel Changi Airport wins International Architecture Award; Jewel Changi Airport wins coveted architecture award

Nationally-recognized architecture firm Gould Evans on behalf of project sponsor Align Real Estate, has submitted plans to the City of San Francisco for a new mixed-use residential tower at 30 Otis Street. If approved, the proposed project will be part of the strategic revitalization of this transit-rich, underdeveloped corner of the city.

The proposed project is part of The Market Street Hub (The Hub), an historically underutilized area offering immense opportunity for the city. Well-suited to the development of a transit-oriented, high-density, mixed-use residential neighborhood, The Hub is expected to take on some 7,000 new residents and is the target of 3,700 new planned housing units, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The project will also include performance and instruction space for the City Ballet School.

Gould Evans's design responds to The Hub's twin imperatives for increased density and people-centered urban design. In addition to the 434,000 gross square foot building, the project proposes an elegant public plaza designed by PWP Landscape Architecture that will greatly enrich the neighborhood's pedestrian experience.

Related Links: Gould Evans Submits Design for 30 Otis Street Tower

Metro Los Angeles today opened its long-awaited Expo Line bringing service between downtown Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Pier.

Designed by PWP in conjunction with the City of Santa Monica, the Colorado Esplanade at the Expo's Santa Monica terminus is a three-block-long linear plaza along Colorado Boulevard between the new light-rail station on Fourth Street and the historic Santa Monica Pier.

Construction began in 2012 and is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

For more information, visit BuildExpo.com.

Related Links: Metro Expo Line opens to Santa Monica (Los Angeles Times); Long-Awaited Expo Line From L.A. to Santa Monica Opens (KTLA); All aboard! Metro Expo Line begins service to Santa Monica (mynewsLA); The Expo Line is Here! And, Here’s the Best Line of All: Thank You! (CityWatch)

Barangaroo Reserve in Sydney, Australia has won the 2016 Architizer A+ Award in the Public Parks category. The Architizer A+ Awards is the largest awards program for architecture, landscape, and product designs from around the world. The Architizer A+ Awards received entries from a 100 countries and represents the best of architecture and design worldwide.

“We’re gratified to be honored by Architizer for Barangaroo Reserve,” said Peter Walker, FASLA. “It reaffirms our belief that cities thinking creatively about investing in public space find that it complements built developments and boosts economic growth.”

David Walker, FASLA noted, “We are also delighted to be a part of the Architizer Awards as they expand their interest toward landscape projects. Being represented is an honor for our firm and our field.”

In 2015, Barangaroo Reserve also won the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects NSW President’s Award, the Banksia Foundation Sustainability in Design Build Award for Buildings, Landscapes and Infrastructure, and the World Architecture News (WAN) Waterfront Award.

For more information, visit Architizer.com; PWP on Facebook

Visit new worlds at ArtScience Museum

"The new permanent exhibition at the ArtScience Museum wants to immerse visitors in brave new worlds.

They can plunge into an ever- changing underwater universe in Sketch Aquarium, where illustrated sea creatures swim around on an aquatic projection on a wall; or step into Crystal Universe, a room filled with more than 170,000 LED lights that conjure the illusion of being suspended in outer space, surrounded by celestial bodies and stars.

These high-tech art installations are by well-known Tokyo-based art collective, teamLab. Fifteen of its works will feature in the exhibition Future World, opening tomorrow. It is jointly curated by the museum, located at Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, and teamLab. Its launch celebrates the museum's fifth anniversary." Keep reading at straightstimes.com...

Related Links: Visit new worlds at ArtScience Museum; The Future World is now in Singapore; Huffington Post Pictures of the Day; Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum

The Annual Ian McHarg Lecture:
Peter Walker

Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2016, 06:00pm

Lower Gallery, Meyerson Hall
210 South 34th Street
Pittsburgh, PA

Peter Walker, FASLA discusses his the National September 11 Memorial in the Annual Ian McHarg Lecture.

Related Links: PennDesign Landscape Architecture Events; Archinect Get Lectured at PennDesign

Expedia, Inc. today announced the initial design vision for its future campus in the City of Seattle. In April 2015, Expedia announced its plans to relocate from Bellevue, Wash. to Seattle in 2019.

Designed by the Seattle office of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in conjunction with PWP Landscape Architecture and STUDIOS Architecture, the architecture of the new Seattle campus is primarily transparent, connecting employees with views of Elliott Bay, Mt. Rainier and the Olympic Mountains.

Construction for Phase I is slated to begin by the end of 2016.

For more information, visit Expedia.com.

Related Links: Expedia Releases Design Vision for New Headquarters via Expedia.com, First look: Expedia unveils designs for huge Seattle waterfront campus via GeekWire, Expedia lays out plan for airy, expansive waterfront campus via The Seattle Times

It's official. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transporation Authority announced yesterday that the Expo Line to Santa Monica will be opening on Friday, May 20th, 2016. You can expect a trip between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles to take 46 minutes by rail. As it approaches downtown Santa Monica towards its terminus at the Pacific Ocean, the Expo Line journeys along the Colorado Esplanade.

"After a six-decade hiatus, passenger rail service will return to the traffic-choked Westside in May.

The $1.5-billion, 6.6-mile extension of the Expo Line will begin running to Santa Monica on May 20, marking the first time that passenger trains have traveled between downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean since the demise of Los Angeles County’s extensive streetcar network in the 1950s." Keep reading at Los Angeles Times...

Peter Walker at HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil, where he will present PWP's current projects catalog.

Monday, 02.22.2016, 17:15 
Aula HSR, Rapperswil

As part of the 12th Annual International Study Days Symposium exploring the theme "On the Return of the Woods" PWP Senior Partner Peter Walker, FASLA will discuss current ideas about forests in the designed landscape.

Friday, February 19, 2016:
10am-1.30pm. Woods and landscape design, coordinator Monique Mosser
MARC TREIB, Designed Forests in the Modern Landscape
GEORGES DESCOMBES, Intensifications. Trees in the landscape project
PETER WALKER, Before the National September 11 Memorial

Location: Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Via Cornarotta 7-9, 31100 Treviso, tel. 0422.5121

On the Return of the Woods
Thursday and Friday 18th-19th February 2016
Treviso, Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche

More about the symposium...

Bruce Mackenzie examines the design thinking, vegetation, soil science and collaboration that created Barangaroo Reserve.

Barangaroo Reserve, at the northern end of the Barangaroo precinct, has transformed the one-kilometre hardstand apron that was once part of Sydney’s industrial harbour into a new, though artificial, headland. US-based Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture (PWP), in association with Sydney-based Johnson Pilton Walker Architects and Landscape Architects, brought this design exercise together and helped to resolve some of the vastly convergent issues that Barangaroo inspired – both politically and in planning and design terms.

Keep reading at Landscape Architecture Australia, issue 149

The Korea Racing Authority (KRA) has launched an international competition for the design of a Horse Park in Yeongcheon, South Korea.

"Let's Run Park Yeongcheon" will bring horses and people together in a one-of-a-king experience unlike every day life. Aiming to improve the overall image of horses and horse racing, the 365-acre nature park will merge a racecourse and horse culture with local Yeongcheon culture.

Economically, the KRA anticipates the park will become a local and international destination to enrich the local economy and provide an exemplary model for theme park development.

PWP Partner Michael Dellis will join jury members Jong-Ruhl Hahn (Chair, Korean Institute of Architecture), Chris Johnson (Regional Managing Principal, Gensler UK), Stefan Rotzler (Partner Rotzler Krebs Landschaftsarchitekten), and others to assist the KRA in a selection of the winning design. Keep reading...

Nurturing a greener environment

from The Business Times

Adding to greater industry support is the third International Skyrise Greenery Conference (ISGC) held alongside GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015. Over 30 renowned architects, landscape architects, developers, city planners and academics from around the world will discuss global best practices, strategies and explore ideas of innovative solutions in view of the rapidly growing urban greening, landscaping and design industry. In 2013, this event was attended by over 600 local and international delegates with shared interest on planning and engineering sustainable environments.

Delving deeper into the technology, business, policy and management aspects of skyrise greenery, ISGC will feature four keynote speakers: Adam Greenspan, partner of PWP Landscape Architecture (US); Emilio Ambasz, founder of Emilio Ambasz & Associates (US), Kai-Uwe Bergmann, partner of BIG (Denmark), and NParks' Mr Er. Delegates can also expect three plenary and three parallel sessions from a line-up of industry speakers.

PWP Landscape Architecture are crowned the winner for Barangaroo Reserve

from World Architecture News:

We’re excited to announce the winner of the WAN Waterfront 2015 Award is PWP Landscape Architecture for their impressive Barangaroo Reserve project – Congratulations!

The winner was selected from six shortlisted projects that were chosen by our experienced jury panel. On board to judge this award was: Bryan Avery MBE, Principal of Avery Associates Architects, Maarten Buijs, Project Manager and Landscape Architect of West8 urban design & landscape architecture bv, Niels de Bruin, Landscape Architect and Partner of White Arkitekter, and Vishnu Anishetty, Lead Designer of Atkins. They were all in agreement that the winning scheme had a rich outcome and deserved to be championed as this year’s winner of the WAN Waterfront 2015 Award. Keep reading at WorldArchitectureNews.com...

New pedestrian mall at UT will take the speed out of Speedway

from myStateman:

It’s been 16 years since a campus master plan recognized that growth was shifting the geographic center of the University of Texas to the east, from the iconic Main Building and UT Tower to Speedway. The 1999 plan said transforming Speedway into an area for people, not vehicles, ranked as the university’s most important public space initiative.

[...]

Speedway will essentially be remade into a pedestrian mall. Vehicular traffic and parking spaces will largely be banished between UT’s Blanton Museum of Art and Dean Keeton Street, a stretch of just over half a mile. Asphalt will be replaced with yellow pavers arranged in a herringbone pattern. Sidewalks as such will no longer exist. Ditto for curbs.

There will be dedicated parking spaces for three food trucks, as well as picnic tables and a tent tie-down system for student groups. New light fixtures will have outlets for recharging cellphones and other devices.

The 12-acre area will see a 20 percent decrease in paved surfaces, and the number of trees will increase to 290 from 150, with boxwood hedges adding a touch of “formal and collegiate” character, said Brian Gillett, an associate with PWP Landscape Architecture, based in Berkeley, Calif. Keep reading...

360 MALL commences massive expansion project to enrich its success in Kuwait

from Gulf News 24/7:

The massive expansion of 360 MALL, Kuwait’s iconic shopping destination, has commenced through the development of the new state-of-the-art Sheikh Jaber Al Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah International Tennis Complex, which will put Kuwait firmly on the world’s professional tennis map.

The newly expanded mall with the tennis complex is expected to open doors by 2019. The expansion will build on the huge success and identity of the existing 360 MALL with an added offering which includes sports, entertainment, a hotel, and additional shopping. The mall is owned by a subsidiary of Tamdeen Shopping Centers Company, one of the Tamdeen Holding Group of Companies.

"This will be the first time in the world that retail, sports and entertainment come together under one roof and on this scale. When the expansion work is complete, 360 MALL will be further enhanced and together with the tennis complex will become a landmark in Kuwait. We aim to promote the very best brands from around the world under one roof whilst simultaneously encouraging a healthier and more active lifestyle for Kuwait residents."—Mohammad Al Marzouq Keep reading...

How Paul Keating saved Barangaroo headland park on Sydney Harbour

from The Australian:

The newly opened Barangaroo headland park is the first stage of a $6 billion, three-tiered 22ha development rivalling megaprojects such as London’s Canary Wharf, Hamburg’s HafenCity or Chicago’s Millennium Park. Hailed as a once-in-a-200-year opportunity to reclaim the prized waterfrontage, Barangaroo has haunted the imagination of this big-picture man for more than 15 years. ...

[...]

Once the headland park was won [Keating] spent “hundreds of hours” with American landscape architect Peter Walker, who links the “naturalistic” philosophy behind this new public space to ­Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for Central Park in New York. When Walker described Keating as “the client” in a media interview, the Barangaroo Delivery Authority stepped in swiftly to correct him. Walker laughs at the slap and goes one ­better: “He’s the king.” Keep reading...

Read more about the opening of Barangaroo Reserve »

Four Things to Know About the Changes Coming to Speedway

From Alcalde:

As any UT student will tell you, crossing Speedway Avenue during the change of classes is akin to playing a game of Frogger. Throngs of students walking to class jockey for space with speedy cyclists and cars inching their way through the crosswalks. This half-mile stretch of road runs through the center of the UT campus, and it’s one of the most congested spots on the Forty Acres.

That’s why next month, the university will begin a $36-million, two-year renovation that will turn the area into a pedestrian mall. Here’s what you need to know about this major campus construction project.

1. It has a yellow-brick road and a green philosophy. Keep reading...

Speedway Mall renovation project presented to students, public

from The Daily Texan:

The Speedway Mall renovation project, a long-standing goal for several UT presidents, was presented to students and the general public in a meeting Monday.

After years of planning and revisions, a final version of the Walker plan, designed by landscape architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners, was approved to move forward in May this year. According to the current plan, construction will be done in a series of five stages, beginning in October and concluding in December 2017. There will be a 20 percent decrease in paved areas and a 20 percent increase in planted areas to improve aesthetics and mobility while maintaining room for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians, according to the plan. Keep reading...

How public and private interests combined forces to overhaul the transit hub, soon to be home to San Francisco’s largest rooftop park, City Park.

A year later, after ranking the three finalists on design excellence, functionality, and financial feasibility, a jury selected the team of the San Francisco office of Hines and the New Haven, Connecticut, office of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (PCPA), and the Berkeley, California, office of PWP Landscape Architecture (PWP). Hines/PCPA/PWP was the only team to propose placing a park on the transit center’s roof. “We realized that this building was going to be at the center of a very dense, new high-rise neighborhood and that the transit center itself was going to give rise to transit-based development,” says Fred Clarke, senior principal of PCPA.

The team decided that a 5.4-acre (2.2 ha) park running the length of the transit center’s roof would express San Francisco’s strong value for sustainability. PWP Landscape Architecture worked with Pelli Clarke Pelli to design the park, which includes cafés, gathering places, overlooks, and an amphitheater that can hold up to 1,000 people.” “This part of town is starved for open space,” says Paul Paradis, senior managing director of Hines in San Francisco. “And when we priced it with our construction experts, we realized that the pricing was not substantially different from what it would be with an elaborate sculptural roof.” Keep reading...

Landscape architect who built 9/11 memorial in NYC visits UMD

From The Diamonback:

While Peter Walker delivered a guest lecture at the University of Maryland, a member of the audience asked him to explain the message behind the memorial he helped design after the 9/11 attacks.

'It’s a place where a lot of people look for closure,' Walker said. 'It represents something very emotional — it’s very private.'

Walker is one designer whose architecture firm was behind the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. The landscape architect came to this university Wednesday night to discuss his design concepts and the process of the memorial’s creation to about 100 people in the Biosciences Research Building. Keep reading...

Read more about the National 9/11 Memorial »

Brook Andrew was one of the artists invited to explore this concrete canvas, and he was struck at once by its power. He describes it as “awe-inspiring”, reminiscent of the Tate Modern experience in London. It seemed as though he was inside the land, or perhaps inside the body of a whale." Keep reading...

"The reserve, Sydney's newest harbour visitor attraction, opened on Saturday having been closed to the public for more than a century. The weather helped as hundreds took in the sights of the city from a vantage point previously denied.

There are two new harbour coves and a new cultural space called the Cutaway, which is as long as the Sydney Cricket Ground and as tall as a six-storey building.

The historic 22-hectare site, once lined with wharves and bordered by Hickson Road, scene of the Hungry Mile, has been transformed into a space described by Premier Mike Baird, who opened the site, as 'a cornerstone of this city.'" Keep reading...

"The Barangaroo Reserve opens to the public on Saturday, August 22. Here's what you need to know about Sydney's newest harbour foreshore park.

The opening of the Barangaroo Reserve will allow Sydneysiders to walk around a part of the Sydney harbour foreshore that has been closed off to the public for more than 100 years. The six hectare parkland has transformed one of Sydney's oldest industrial sites. The topography of the park was inspired by the shape of the 1836 shoreline, which was cut away over time to make way for wharves and docking activities. The reserve has been designed to compliment the other headlands parks of the harbour (such as Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Goat Island) and aims to let visitors get up close to the water of the harbour. The official opening on Saturday August 22, will mark the first major public area of the $6 billion Barangaroo precinct to open." Keep reading...

Marina Bay is located at the heart of Singapore’s city center, against the backdrop of its signature skyline. The urban space, including the 48ha waterbody, is about 56.2ha in size. It comprises a 3.5 km-long loop with a tiered waterfront promenade, two pedestrian bridges, an event plaza, and open spaces. PWP worked with the Singapore government, Moshe Safdie, and a team of local landscape architects and horticulturalists as well as engineering, architectural, and business professionals at the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, among the signature places along Marina Bay. Keep reading...

While wrangles over the location and height of Barangaroo's most controversial element – its James Packer-backed Crown casino development – are far from over, final preparations are under way for the opening of Barangaroo Point Reserve on August 22, when the public will see the fruits of an ambitious design project that has "dereclaimed" industrial land and attempted to reinstate its former, pre-settlement coastline.

Designed by eminent US-based landscape architect Peter Walker, the man behind Manhattan's 9/11 memorial, the six-hectare park is the first major public area of the $6 billion precinct to be opened.

For its engineering feats and cleverly hidden water tanks, car park and 5500-people event space – one of its walls is made from a pre-existing sandstone rock cutting and in part open to the elements – the space brings the inner city area's former historical significance into focus. Keep reading...

A new train station will be built at Barangaroo, the New South Wales state government will announce in Tuesday's budget.

The idea of a Barangaroo station forming part of the planned new "metro" rail line through central Sydney had previously been listed only as a possibility under early plans for the line.

But it is understood Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian will commit the government to building the Barangaroo station, likely to cost around half a billion dollars.

Premier Mike Baird's government says it will use money raised from the privatisation of electricity assets to build a new rail line from Chatswood in the city's north to Sydenham in the inner south, between 2017 and 2024. 

The line will connect the north-west rail link – now called Sydney Metro Northwest – at Chatswood to the existing Bankstown Line at Sydenham, to be called Sydney Metro Southwest. Keep reading...

HNTB with PWP Landscape Architecture team moves forward with planning and design of a complex expansion of the venerable military cemetery outside the nation's capital.

Officials at Arlington National Cemetery are moving forward with the planning and design of an ambitious and complex expansion project to the south of the cemetery that would accommodate military interments there until approximately 2056. The exapansion encompasses planning and design work on a potential 39-acre expansion to the south on land formerly occupied by an office complex known as the Navy Annex. The addition would be a high-profile site with a sloping landscape. 

SYDNEY, Australia – In the lead up to the opening of Sydney’s Barangaroo Point Reserve in July, the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) and Barangaroo Delivery Authority have released a preview of the new six hectare public park.

Designed by Johnson Pilton Walker in association with Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture, the new urban space located on the northern end of the Barangaroo precinct will give the public access to the old shipping yard for the first time in 100 years. Driving the design is the re-imagination of what the natural bush would have looked like when the Aboriginal Gadigal people still lived there.

“One of the elements of the harbour headlands is that in their natural form they were examples of the bush. They still play a strong part of this symbolic meaning of the Sydney Cove area so we were determined to recreate that rich, complicated and more interesting plant composition for the forum of the headland, while adding a dimension of naturalness to the overall park,” explained Landscape Architect and Lead Designer, Peter Walker.

On April 21, the extraordinary transformation of Barangaroo was shared with 370 million households around the world.

Aired during the news program Connect The World, CNN’s Transformations takes viewers around the most important and exciting global infrastructure projects.

Click the link below to see how Barangaroo is "lifting the curtain" on Sydney's western harbour.

Watch CNN's video

The Newport Beach Civic Center and Park is featured in the new book, Designed for the Future: 80 Practical Ideas for a Sustainable World, which was released April 21 by Princeton Architectural Press (PAP). 

The book asks 80 leading designers from around the world the same one question: What gives you hope that a sustainable future is possible?

The answers from the architects, urban planners, landscape architects, journalists, artists, and environmentalists author Jared Green spoke to are insightful and inspiring. If interested, you can read reviews by Dwell and F. Kaid Benfield in The Huffington Post. 

Special thanks to journalist John King for his words about our work.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Adam Greenspan will present a lecture titled “Maximum Minimalism” at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 2, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture lecture series.

Maximum Minimalism

Form in landscape architecture can be deceptive. What seems so simple in form or materiality is often the product of complicated networks of negotiation between different stake holders, ecological systems, economic drivers, politics, governmental policy and more. Can designed landscapes that have strength and readability address these complex relationships? PWP Landscape Architecture is known for producing memorable landscapes guided by the concepts of Minimalism often through strong geometric compositions. The complexity, scale and cultural diversity of the firm’s projects have grown immensely over the years, which have created unique challenges and fantastic opportunities. The office is producing work that cannot be summarized by its aesthetic alone. Adam Greenspan will present PWP’s current projects and discuss how design visions are realized through the complex realities of their contexts.  He will focus on the challenges of the work in the office today and the effort to maximize integration of life within designs that are enduring and memorable.

Adam will also address PWP’s success in maximizing ecological and socio-economic potential as well as biodiversity in international and local projects that will range from the Marina Bay Sands -  a 1km waterfront public promenade at Singapore's first casino, to the Transbay Transit Center Rooftop Park in San Francisco, to Glenstone - a new museum and 250 acre art park in the suburban outskirts of Washington DC and others. Keep reading...

It is still three months until the public will get its first chance to visit Barangaroo's headland park, but the area appears to have passed what might be its toughest test.

Former prime minister Paul Keating, who had strongly advocated transforming part of the former industrial precinct into a naturalistic headland, was "generally happy" with how the park was taking shape, the project's landscape architect and lead designer Peter Walker said.

"What I've heard from him is general satisfaction, which doesn't mean that tomorrow morning I wouldn't get an email saying: 'what the hell are you doing there?'" said Mr Walker, of PWP Landscape Architecture. 

"In that respect he's been a really terrific client because he keeps asking the questions and then you have to stay on your toes and keep trying to answer them."

Mr Walker, whose projects include the National September 11 Memorial in New York, said the almost-completed headland would offer Sydneysiders something they could not find elsewhere in central Sydney: native bushland recreated "so accurately that you can pretty much take to the bank that it's legitimate." Keep reading...

"Barangaroo Point – Sydney’s new six-hectare harbour foreshore park – was opened today for an industry and media preview co-hosted by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, ahead of a mid-2015 opening for the public.

Showcasing world-class work by leaders in landscape architecture, engineering and horticulture, the preview marks the return of this part of the western Sydney Harbour foreshore to the public for the first time in more than 100 years.

Among luminaries of the global design community who attended the opening were landscape architect and founder of PWP Landscape Architecture, Peter Walker, who designed the park.

A global reference point of design excellence, Barangaroo Point will be completed in June this year and is set to be a key section of one of the most spectacular urban waterfronts in the world.

For a selection of images of the day, follow Barangaroo's Facebook page and for features of the speaker presentations visit Barangaroo's Twitter feed."

"For five years, I have been documenting the design and creation of the landscaping at the National September 11 Memorial plaza, the grove of swamp white oak trees planted in a green roof that shelters the 9/11 museum. I’ve followed the growth and progress of these 400 trees, and the stories of the men and women who tended them and designed and built the plaza, in a feature-length documentary, “The Trees.”

Of those 400 trees, the story of the Survivor Tree stands out for me.

It was the last living thing to come out of the rubble of ground zero — a charred stump that, to an untrained eye, looked dead. The tale of its rescue took on mythic proportions for Ron Vega, director of design and construction at the memorial. He knew the memorial plaza would not be complete without it. The only problem was, he didn’t know where it was. He knew that someone from some governmental agency had rescued the tree, but it took a lot of tracking down before he finally located it in a Parks Department nursery in the Bronx.

'This pear tree represents to me the ability of not only an organism to regrow and thrive, it also represents how our great city of New York is that. Yes, we will take a hit, but we’re a survivor city.'”

"Kuwait - Tamdeen Group - Kuwait's leading mixed-use property developer that is reshaping the urban and social landscape of the country through innovative projects - has announced the multi-million dollar Al Khiran development which will be at the heart of the Sabah Al Ahmed Sea City.

Valued at US$ 700 million, the resort-style project which will be spread across 350,000-sqm of water-front will eventually create significant opportunities for Kuwait's tourism and business growth.

...A lot of thought and input has gone into landscaping design for the entire project which in itself will be an attraction for tourists and residents alike. A massive promenade covered with palms will create the pedestrian space between the mall and the marina. Celebrated landscape architects PWP from the USA have worked hard to create the landscape link for the entire project while providing terraced seating options for customers' dining pleasure."

"When the City of Newport Beach, California needed a city hall more central in its location, designers took the opportunity to construct more than just an administrative building, creating an inviting civic space that includes a community room, city council chambers, family-friendly parkland, and an expansion to a branch of the city's library—all on a site that offers stunning views of the Pacific Ocean."

"The Transbay Transit Center has been rising above ground for, what, all of two months now, and our social media feeds are full of photos from all vantage points. Favorite spots include the garden at 100 First Street, and the sun terracePOPOS there (as long as security doesn't get in the way!), as well as neighboring offices and points within the construction site itself. We took a tourback in December, and already the steel fame has reached a length of 200 feet(it will eventually be 1,400), living up to a style John King has dubbed 'megaproject moderne.'"

Near a busy corner in Newport Beach, at the edge of Civic Center Park, 14 concrete rabbits sit on their haunches in a tight circle, staring at each other through painted pastel eyes.

The child-size creatures — known by some in this picturesque beach city as "bunnyhenge" — were added as a playful touch to the massive Civic Center complex, which rises like a white ship from the hillside below, its undulating roof mimicking the waves on the distant horizon.

Safdie's plan for Project Jewel has a number of features that make it both spectacular and striking. First, there is the glass dome itself, which will encompass a space of 134,000 square meters and looks like a science fiction daydream come true. Within the structure, a 130-foot-high waterfall called "Rain Vortex" will tumble continuously and at night be the backdrop for a sound and light show. The space itself showcases natural elements: walking trails travel through an indoor topography of trees, palms, and ferns called "Forest Valley" and crafted by Safdie Architects working with PWP Landscape Architecture. The different elements — dining, accommodations, and retail — are spread throughout the structure so as to give each of them impressive views of the natural features. The waterfall emerges from an oculus at the top of the glass dome...

CBS's The Amazing Race made its way to Singapore in Episode 9, Season 25, stopping at the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort Hotel, a project completed in 2011 by Safdie Architects and PWP Landscape Architecture. On the show, the teams had to walk a tightrope 600 feet above the ground stretched from one tower of the hotel to the other. Far below the tightrope, solid ground awaited the racers. The episode is full of outstanding views down to the waterfront promenade's triple rows of Roystonia palms. Watch the episode

After nearly ten years of planning and development, Barangaroo, a 22-hectare port on the Sydney waterfront, is coming together as a rich, $6 billion, mixed-use development that will fill in missing gaps in the city’s waterfront promenade and offer a stunning, one-of-a-kind park with an embedded Aboriginal cultural center. As Peter Walker, FASLA, PWP Landscape Architecture, described at the ASLA 2014 Annual Meeting in Denver, “it’s the most amazing project I’ve ever worked on.”

We are pleased that the revitalization of Constitution Gardens is moving forward after a unanimous concept approval by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Constitution Gardens will retain its original purpose as a pastoral setting and respite within the National Mall, but offer new uses and events, in all seasons, day and night. The commissioners recommended that the project be completed as soon as possible. Noted by Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall, as “one of the most important and exciting projects the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall are undertaking as part of the historic 2010 National Mall Plan”, with the help of private donors the first phase of restorations will be completed for the National Park Service's 2016 centennial celebrations.

Ten pieces of artwork that were selected by a special panel of jurors for installation in the Newport Beach Civic Center Park Exhibition has officially opened. The works are comprised of ten unique sculptures and will be prominently showcased in Newport Beach for a period of two years, beginning summer 2014 and ending summer 2016.

A six-member jury made up of arts professionals and members of the city arts commission chose the ten sculptures from 260 submissions. The city sought to have a well-balanced representation of public art that would appeal to a diverse audience of all ages, while including artistic merit, durability, practicality and site responsiveness as criteria in the selection.

A walk through the Civic Center Park, designed by renowned landscape architect firm Peter Walker Partners, now brings art and nature together with the addition of these ten larger-than-life sculptures...

Ask anyone where Constitution Gardens is, and they're as likely to say it's in Philadelphia as in Washington, D.C.

That's because, while millions actually set foot in this 38-acre area inside the National Mall each year, almost no one knows what it's called. And those who do know about it are shocked at the sorry state it's in. ...And so, the Trust for the National Mall, the National Park Service's official nonprofit partner, brought together world-class landscape architects and designers in a national design competition to present plans for the space.

The winning designs, by Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers and PWP Landscape Architecture, will create a lush setting of rolling hills, gardens, and forest, with state-of-the-art sustainable design features.

A couple of months ago, the New Yorker magazine put an illustration of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on its cover. Drawn by the graphic novelist Adrian Tomine, it pictured a couple taking a selfie, a mourner, a pair of tourists with heads buried in a folding map, a kid with an ice-pop, his mother slurping a soda, more tourists posing for pictures, a security guard and various others wandering about aimlessly, all with one of the liquid voids of the memorial as a backdrop.

With the knowing humor that is that magazine’s signature, Tomine’s cartoon captured the essential atmosphere of the space that was once the site of the World Trade Center. The architect Michael Arad, whose competition-winning design for the 9/11 Memorial was titled “Reflecting Absence,” had conceived of this hallowed ground as a space of austere solemnity organized around the footprints of the fallen towers.

But in the intervening years, that design has mutated into something more gracious, a verdant space animated by a pair of water features. 

The American Society for Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced that Douglas Findlay and David Walker will both be elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows, one of the highest honors a landscape architect may receive. The investiture ceremony will take place during the Annual Meeting and EXPO in Denver on November 23, 2014. Doug and David have worked together at PWP Landscape for nearly 30 years expanding their craft through design excellence, helping to build an extraordinary portfolio of extraordinary projects throughout the world.

ASLA’s announcement noted that both Doug and David received their nominations in the Works Category, which recognizes “the mastery of design in significant works which have advanced the art, stewardship and social responsibility of landscape architecture”. Both were nominated by the Northern California Chapter of ASLA. Among the 32 landscape architects elevated to the Council of Fellows, five were nominated by the Northern California Chapter, including Kevin Conger, Mark Holliger, and Jacinta McCann. 

PWP worked with San Francisco-based architect Bohlin Cywinski Jackson to design a new City Hall and public park in Newport Beach, CA. The project, featured in the August 2014 issue of Architect Magazine, is a study in edge conditions, merging building, landscape, and civic presence in one transparent package. 

On Friday, New Yorkers will be able to do something they have not done in nearly half a century: stand on the corner of Cortlandt and Greenwich. 

A round of applause for The Philippine Arena, 50-hectare complex called Ciudad de Victoria or City of Victory, in Bocaue town, Bulacan province, a domed indoor arena, is the centerpiece of the centennial projects of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) for its grand celebration on July 27. All is set for its inauguration tomorrow, to be led by INC executive minister Eduardo V. Manalo.

A child of the Depression, Walker was born in Pasadena, California in 1932. After his father's death he lived for a time with his grandparents before joining his mother and step-father, Richard A. Walker in Berkeley. Throughout his childhood he frequently took the train to visit his grandparents in Central and Southern California, an experience that imprinted him with a defining vision of the agricultural landscape. 

When five of the nation's leading landscape architects gathered before their peers last weekend in Berkeley, the projects they discussed were located in Massachusetts and Minnesota, China and Spain. 

PWP Hosted the 2014 Landscape Design Forum, a discussion of the state fo design in contemporary Landscdape Architecture. The event featured five respected designers who presented their latest work - both built and un-built - to profile projects that indicate where they think the design field is headed. A panel discussion followed, moderated by Peter Walker.

P A N E L 

Kathryn Gustafson
Gary Hilderbrand
Tom Oslund
Martin Poirier
Martha Schwatrz

M O D E R A T O R  |  Peter Walker 

The Newport Beach Civic Center and Park project has been LEED certified to the Gold level by the U.S. Green Building Council. 

Constitution Gardens long has been a focal point of the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., but it also long has suffered from lack of proper maintenance. An ambitious campaign mounted by the Trust for the National Mall aims to revitalize the Gardens, though it won't happen overnight.

Santa Monica looks to create a more engaging and pedestrian friendly streetscape. 

They are not intended to be art. They are a feature for kids. The landscape architect for the Civic Center Park, PWP Landscape Architecture wanted to place unique children's elements in the park. To PWP, a traditional tot lot with manufactured play equipment just wasn’t the right fit for this site. 

PWP Landscape Architecture of Berkeley has again earned one of the top honors from the American Society of Landscape Architects. Last year it won for the National 9/11 Memorial, and now it has won for the Novartis Headquarters in Switzerland.

Walker and his firm, Peter Walker and Partners landscape architecture, or PWP, were chosen as the architects for UTD’s Campus Enhancement project. Part of the plans that the firm has drawn up involve shifting the focus to the northern part of the campus in anticipation for coming projects such as the proposed UTD DART station and Comet Town.

The University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design kicked off their annual Robert B. Church III Memorial Lecture Series with Peter Walker, the landscape architect who designed the National September 11 Memorial. 

Marking the end of a 30 year endeavor, the fourth and final phase of the Skirball Center by Moshe Safdie and PWP is complete and set to open to the public in October. 

Today, 12 years after nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, the memorial plaza in lower Manhattan designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker appears to have accomplished its mission. 

Nasher officials have consistently rejected any changes to the roof during the often contentious discussions between the two sides over the issue, now well into its second year. The sculpture museum was designed by famed architect Renzo Piano, and the gardens by PWP Landscape Architecture

“The damage to the garden may be imperceptible to them,” he said. “But it’s very perceptible to us and our consultants. They’re simply looking at the garden and saying, ‘This doesn’t make any difference.’ Over long periods of time, it makes a lot of difference.” -Peter Walker

The new facility includes an expanded library, 1.23 miles of walking trails that wind through wetlands and a dog park, which several attendees took advantage of by bringing their pets.

The Newport Beach Civic Center complex, which broke ground three years ago in May, opened to the public today with a party that included speeches, music, tours, food and more.

Newport Beach Civic Center and Park, designed by PWP Landscape Architecture and architects BCJ will have an official opening this Saturday. "The move from the ugly, crumbling, crowded City Hall that served this city for so many years has finally taken place."

Discussing New York’s 9/11 Memorial forest, she shows how the design by PWP Landscape Architecture of Berkeley, California, uses pedestrian allées formed by 30 rows of swamp white oaks to direct visitors to the park’s two waterfalls within the footprints of the destroyed World Trade Center towers.

PWP Landscape Architecture, a Berkeley-based landscape architecture firm, is planting more than 5,000 trees from 40 native species and creating a sustainable meadow along with a flowering water garden. “We’re out to create something different,” Mr. Rales said.

The campus landscape upgrades, again led by the acclaimed landscape architect Peter Walker and his firm PWP Landscape Architecture of Berkeley, Calif., will enhance the area north of the original mall project, from the plaza to the Administration Building.

The crowning design element of Transbay, though, is its 5.4-acre roof park designed by Berkeley-based PWP Landscape Architecture. The long plinth of green is organized into three giant sinkhole skylights, which descend to bring natural light all the way to the subterranean level of the hub, where BART trains will stop beginning in 2017. 

“We are trying to make spaces that work, spaces that are beautiful, and if we’re lucky and we have the right client and a little budget, to try and make something which is memorable and I think that’s crucial. Most landscape architects are not the top of the power structure, but they all feel that they are important and they all work for those things all the time.” -Peter Walker

The University of Texas at Dallas Campus Landscape Architecture makes the top 13 list for Texas architecture.

Peter Walker, founder and partner at PWP Landscape Architecture, speaks during the Bloomberg Businessweek Design 2013 conference in San Francisco. 

“The sandstone is the showpiece of the future public space and using the existing natural stone on site is a fundamental part of Barangaroo’s design philosophy,”

American-based PWP Landscape Architecture will transform the 20-acre mixed used site into new waterside parks for retail, leisure, cultural and community uses, with European-style streets and squares complementing the environmentally-friendly buildings.

Canary Wharf Group plc has appointed award-winning landscape architects Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture (PWP Landscape Architecture) to landscape design the 20 acre mixed-use site at Wood Wharf, which sits immediately east of Canary Wharf and is one of central London’s most exciting future waterfront developments.

The project – with a wave-shaped roof and several lookout points with ocean views – make it unique to Newport and much more than a City Hall.

The American landscape architect Peter Walker designed the proposed works. They feature a low-lying timber boardwalk along the water's edge, and an upper level promenade featuring ''honey locust trees set in a soft pavement of decomposed granite''.

PWP Landscape Architecture of Berkeley, Calif., is the designer of Cortlandt Way, as well as the landscape designer of the 9/11 Memorial across Greenwich Street. The trees chosen for Cortlandt Way, thornless honeylocusts, are intended to complement the swamp white oaks of the memorial, creating a green veil through which the memorial can be viewed from Church Street.

“For ULI, choosing Peter Walker makes a statement about the importance of landscape architecture to the built environment, and especially the necessity of providing sustainable systems, both built and natural,” said the jury’s chairman, John Bucksbaum, in a statement prepared by ULI.

A redesign of Constitution Gardens could transform the area into a winter wonderland... In the summer, visitors could relax and even grab a bite to eat.

"For ULI, choosing Peter Walker makes a statement about the importance of landscape architecture to the built environment, and especially the necessity of providing sustainable systems, both built and natural," said jury chairman John Bucksbaum

One of the Bay Area's top landscape architects is on a roll. That's Peter Walker, whose Berkeley firm's recent work includes the acclaimed plaza at the National September 11 Memorial. 

Now a funicular elevator will glide upward to the park through a landscape of 20 redwood trees spaced 30 feet apart, part of the plaza design by PWP Landscape Architecture.

Walker, one of the world's leading landscape architects, worked in a unique and close collaboration with the former Australian prime minister to conceive Barangaroo's controversial $200 million Headland Park, due for completion in 2015.

"Barangaroo's Headland Park will be a newly-made bush headland following very strictly on the vocabulary of the natural bush when the Aboriginal Gadigal people were living there." - Peter Walker

“We like landscape projects that seem like crazy ideas, but can actually be permitted andconstructed,” said Adam Greenspan, design partner with the firm

The original design was inspired by Roberto Burle Marx’s “biomorphic modernism.” Honoring the past design intent, Greenspan said he liked “that it’s an alternate reality, or that it should be.” To enhance this sense of separation from the Mall, the design team raised the outer edge near the street, bringing the grade up by 8 feet in order to create that “ensconced feeling” and block out traffic noises. 

The winning design for the Constitution Gardens proposes to bring renewed identity to this often overlooked part of the National Mall by building on the legacy of the original 1970s plan and creating a lush landscape of rolling hills, gardens and forests with a pavilion overlooking the lake.

“Honoring the clear and optimistic legacy of Constitution Gardens through amplified morphology, aesthetic ecology and pastoral recreation. A vibrant haven on the National Mall” – PWP Landscape Architecture + Rogers Marvel Architects

Rogers Marvel Architects and PWP Landscape Architects will redesign Constitution Gardens, near the Lincoln Memorial. The plans include a pavilion with a restaurant, maybe even a bar. The decrepit pond will be rebuilt so people can sail model boats in the summer and ice skate in the winter.

PWP Landscape Architecture & Rogers Marvel Architects will redesign Constitution Gardens

PWP Landscape Architecture and Rogers Marvel Architects proposed a restaurant pavilion cantilevered over the reflecting basin at Constitution Gardens. Now a source of drainage problems, the site is addressed by the winning design with an innovative water-management plan allowing water infiltration across the site and an aquatic shelf for filtration. The basin allows model boating in summer and ice skating in winter. 

The winning design for Constitution Gardens, put together by PWP Landscape Architecture & Rogers Marvel Architects, features a new restaurant and pavilion, a grass amphitheatre and other gathering spaces along Constitution Gardens' pond, part of which can be used as an ice skating rink in the winter.

Inspired by the 1976 plan developed for the bicentennial, PWP Landscape Architecture & Rogers Marvel Architects will redesign the Constitution Gardens, between the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

Three teams will redesign Constitution Gardens, Union Square, an 11-acre area, west of the Capitol, that contains the Capitol Reflecting Pool and Grant Memorial, and the Washington Monument grounds. The trust plans to make these designs a reality in time for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. Winners are: PWP Landscape Archtiecture & Rogers Marvel Architects for Constitution Gardens.

"Of all of the areas under the aegis of the National Park Service ... it seems to me the one that's the most neglected, Constitution Gardens,"

PWP Landscape Architecture and Rogers Marvel Architects' submission for a new pond that can double as an ice-skating rink and a new restaurant won over judges for Constitution Gardens.

“We were struck by the optimism and clarity of the original design,” said winning team member and landscape architect Peter Walker. “It’s engaged with the timeless quality of the Mall.”

How about an ice skating rink on the National Mall, just a stone's throw from the Lincoln Memorial? 

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum architecture and engineering team—Michael Arad (Handel Architects), Davis Brody Bond, Snøhetta, Peter Walker (PWP Landscape Architecture) and their colleagues—who have created a beautiful and moving memorial that has transformed the Downtown landscape.

“And what Mr. Walker is going to do is build on the current project, go out laterally on some of our major walkways, work on the perimeter of campus, and continue to truly build a campus of excellence.” –David E. Daniel, UT Dallas President

The National 9/11 Memorial, New York City and Sands SkyPark at Marina Bay, Singapore are named among the "Coolest New Landmarks Around the World." 

“Barangaroo is a unique setting in Sydney and an unprecedented opportunity to reclaim the industrial waterfront, reinterpreting the historic 1836 form as an exemplary park for the 21st century. The Headland Park design will repair one of the greatest blights of the Sydney Harbour, creating a place that is as dignified and timeless as the Royal Botanic Gardens and Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair." -Peter Walker

“We think every civic space should be treated as if it’s important, not just to its community and its function, but also to its long-range goal of being something that emblemizes and extends the quality of the city and the quality of spaces that people could use,” Peter Walker said.

Renowned American landscape architect Peter Walker was in Sydney this week to  discuss his vision for Barangaroo Headland Park, which will reclaim an important piece of Sydney's history.

Peter Walker, founder of PWP Landscape Architecture, told the council that the design will ultimately create a space with “a character, a dignity and a festivity about it.”

PWP Landscape Architecture releases new depictions of the Colorado Esplanade, a thoroughfare that will serve as the future gateway into downtown Santa Monica. The City Council gives favorable reviews.

PWP Landscape Architecture created the Colorado Esplanade designs, which “orchestrates the complex circulation functions with a legible and elegant design that achieves a sense of arrival and departure and celebrate this location in Santa Monica.”

The design team [PWP] has responded to the community requests to create a sense of place and arrival at the key gateway locations, improve the aesthetics of the site, and provide an urban design framework that creates legible, intuitive, and appealing orientation and wayfinding in this highly complex space.

"I loved working with him because he was very subjective and intuitive," Walker said this week.

Designed by PWP Landscape Architecture, the topography of the new Pacific Park complements neighboring Sydney G. Walton Square Park which was designed by Peter Walker with SWA Group in 1968.

The design of the project has been conceived by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's architect Craig W. Hartman, and Peter Walker of Berkeley-based PWP Landscape Architecture. 

Less than four months after opening, the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site has welcomed its one millionth visitor...

Designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker. 2011. The world famous 911 Memorial occupies two acres at Ground Zero at the foot of the soon to be completed Freedom Tower. 

Trust for the National Mall has announced the Stage II results, naming the ten design teams selected to continue in the third and final stage of the National Mall Design Competition. 

"Visitors arrive and they know they arrived at the new VMware," David Walker, the landscape architect for the project, told the board.

"There's nothing wrong with the Embarcadero being grand, but every piece doesn't have to be grand," says Walker, whose firm PWP Landscape Architecture..." 

Michael Arad and Peter Walker are both extremely experienced in their fields of work. They have worked together exceedingly well, building one of the most meaningful and aesthetically pleasing memorials ever made.

Santa Monica residents agreed that the esplanade should have a “spontaneous” feel and that the Pier sign should always be visible. The design should be something that would “show up on a postcard,” said PWP partner Adam Greenspan.

Jury chooses 15 design teams to compete to redesign features of the mall; Rogers Marvel Architects with PWP Landscape Architecture will compete for both Union Square and Constitution Gardens.

Santa Monicans were invited to walk the site of the new esplanade—Colorado Boulevard from 4^th Street to the Pier—and imagine what it will look like; representatives of Peter Walker Partners will identify the features at the basis of their design.

Walker: "I can't affect the field through some new theory; I can only provide an example. The separation of landscape architecture and planning was a disaster so I am going to dedicate my remaining time and energy to getting this dialogue to work easier. When the fields separated, planners took away politics, sociology. Landscape architects took away botanical knowledge, knowledge of spaces."

‘The rebuilding of both the memorial together with the surrounding buildings will give the American people a sense of rebirth from the terrible attacks of 9/11.’ -Peter Walker

PWP is designing a pedestrian area that will funnel visitors from the Expo Line to Santa Monica’s oceanfront amenities.

Planted trees by Peter Walker and Partners continue the grid throughout the enormous site, transforming it into an urban park.

Internationally renowned architect Peter Walker is the lead designer of the Headland Park.

Just as obtaining tickets for Broadway hit shows requires planning and strategizing, so will a visit to the World Trade Center memorial.

What better way to bring hope for the future than by incorporating eco design and planning for a sustainable future?

Peter Walker and Partners presented its vision of a pedestrian-friendly stretch of Colorado Avenue, which will carry thousands of visitors a day from the Expo line terminal at 4th Street to the Santa Monica Pier, with side trips to the downtown commercial district and the Civic Center and the to-be-completed Palisades Garden Walk Park. 

“We’re sometimes dismissed as the guys who put the trees in,” says David Walker about his firm’s seminal role in the design of the 9/11 memorial site. The 50-year-old Walker, who co-led the project for Peter Walker & Partners, his father’s renowned landscape architecture firm, is in equal measure self-effacing and self-assured, both traits that served him well throughout the seven-year odyssey that lead to this week’s opening of the site. Moreover, he is also part of what, by all appearances, is an extraordinary design accomplishment.

Anybody watching yesterday or anybody who's been fortunate to visit it can say that it's done a remarkable job of creating a kind of poetic communion.

Visitors were allowed to walk among hundreds of white oak trees on the eight-acre site and gaze at the water on the exact spots where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood.

Walker said his vision for the 9/11 Memorial and surrounding plaza, which carried a price tag of around $50 million, was the interworking of three metaphors: If Arad's voids represented loss and sadness, then the flat plane of the design would symbolize the earth, and the trees, a forest of 412 swamp white oaks, life.

His most recent project was the National September 11 Memorial in New York. Walker received that commission for a reason, as he has created many classically elegant modern parks and streetscapes in cities around the world since he began his career 50 years ago.

Peter Walker's landscape of oaks, benches, and pale gray granite paving will probably prove to be a crucial element in the design.

People will have the very special feeling of stepping on the ground that people have not seen for the past ten years.

Veteran landscape designer Peter Walker is also shaping Paul Keating's beloved headland park at Sydney's controversial Barangaroo development.

“I was in San Francisco; my wife was in Muncie and called and said, 'Turn on the TV.'”

When the fountains open there's an expectation that people will throw all sorts of things down into them.

To have hid the names below ground and had a park above would have been to hide in some sense from the true gravity of the attacks.

More than 400 trees will be planted at the memorial plaza, considered to be one of the world's most eco-friendly sites.

Designed by landscape artist Peter Walker, the plaza is one of the most eco-friendly places in New York City today.

Protected by trees whose leaves quietly track the passage of time with seasonal changes of color, the memorial offers a haven away from shrieking traffic and overbearing pressure of the city environment.

The trees -- more than 400 -- line the walkways and plaza leading to the voids. All but one are recent transplants. The lone "Survivor Tree," a callery pear, was found in the ruins and nursed back to health. The greenery provides a bucolic sense in the midst of city concrete.

In the mind of Mr. Donham, his company, and the team under Michael Arad, a new space has been forged that will at once denote new life—“the trees are key”—and the uncluttered conditions  . . . for a place of remembrance.

“The rebuilding of the memorial together with the surrounding buildings will give the American people a sense of rebirth from the terrible attacks of 9/11.”—Peter Walker 

How the memorial and plaza will fit into Manhattan will depend as much on what the city brings to it as what it brings to the city.

...Landscape architect Peter Walker was brought in to add greenery. Hundreds of swamp white oak trees have been trucked in to provide a canopy over the memorial plaza.

The memorial component of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is just about finished, and scheduled to open next Sunday. Early reviews have been largely positive.

"It's the most complicated, the most technically demanding project of anything we've done," ... "It's more than three-dimensional chess, and it has gone on for seven years."

Animation showing the memorial plaza animation showing , with fountains among the largest ever created, is at the heart of ground zero.

Rest easy: the 225 five-year-old Swamp White Oak trees at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum site were saved from the wrath of Irene.

In this rigorously minimalist aesthetic of straight lines, Walker throws one curve, and it's a doozy. The so-called survivor tree, a Callery pear that was found alive in the rubble and nursed back to health, has been installed just west of the pools. Its limbs were burned off on 9/11, but they have grown back to form a living candelabra.

Matthew Donham, the project manager at PWP Landscape Architecture, the firm that helped design the memorial plaza, says, “It’s never good to have a hurricane two weeks before opening.”

Designed by the global competition winners architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, the memorial consists of a peaceful tree-filled plaza and two reflecting pools.

Arad and Walker have worked hard to keep the memorial site open to the city, unbounded, neither raised on a plinth nor set into a frame.

The voids are combined with trees that represent rebirth; “the result is a memorial that expresses both the incalculable loss of life and regeneration.”

“We’ll actually fare better than a nearby street tree,” predicted Matthew Donham, project manager at PWP Landscape Architecture.

Premieres commercial free on Discovery Channel, Thursday, August 25 at 8PM e/p.

AN‘s recent visit to the plaza, crowded with workers laboring toward the anniversary opening, revealed a vast, contemplative space that we predict will function well as both a memorial and a public space for New Yorkers.

The devastated area around the site of the two world Trade Center towers is once again becoming a vibrant neighbourhood packed with restaurants and hotels, places to live and spots to shop.

A tough work of abstract minimalism, softened by waterfalls and oak trees, seeks to meld remembrance and regeneration.

Once you've read the names and confronted the void, you'll make your way back out toward the cacophony of Manhattan, with the green landscape both giving you time to consider what you've just seen and suggesting a sense of growth and rebirth.

“I think the landscape is very beautiful. It has trees (that soften Arad’s stark original plaza design) and creates places where people can sit. It’s full of symbols and also full of the liveliness which a plan of this scale has to have.”

The pedestrian plaza, landscaped by Peter Walker and Partners, could yet prove the perfect, verdant buffer between temple of memory and profane street.

The site will be a place of reflection and contemplation for many, and the memorial, designed by the winning team of Michael Arad and Peter Walker, will be open in time for the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Spiega Matthew Donham, l’architetto dei paesaggi di Pwp, lo studio californiano responsabile del Memorial, che i riflessi delle cascade d’acqua nella vasca saranno la traduzione piu visiblile del concetto firmato Michael Arad & Peter Walker: “Assenza riflettente.”

The combination of the fountains and the canopy of trees is intended to house both death and life, both acts of pilgrimage and lunchtime sandwich eating by office workers. "You walk through trees," says Walker, "and suddenly these waterfalls open up underneath you. Then you turn around and you're in a forest, which is a symbol of life."

The memorial is scheduled to be dedicated on September 11, 2001, the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center.

“We’ve got the best landscape architects in the world in this room today, and they’re all working on gardens in Dallas," said symposium moderator Peter Walker.

If landscape architects want to be the leaders of the team, they have to learn to speak the languages of these experts and they have to learn how to use those experts in a fluid and economically efficient way.

The design of the 9/11 memorial, by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, was selected from a world-wide competition, from 5,200 competition entries received from 63 countries.

Designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, the memorial consists of a peaceful tree-filled plaza and two reflecting pools in the exact places where the towers once stood. Sustainable design principles were used to create the space.

Mr. Arad worked with Peter Walker, a landscape designer, who added in more than 400 trees to the original barren design.

The new images also show progress being made on the 9/11 Memorial, designed by the winning team of Michael Arad and Peter Walker.

Inspired by the steepness of the site, Gwathmey conceived of a collection of separate pavilions—a private, pristine hill town, as it were. 

The Santa Monica Daily Press reports that the Council chose Peter Walker and Partners of Berkeley . . . .

“You need a place to calm down and to feel a little less tense,” says Peter Walker.

A look at the state of construction at Ground Zero as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 draws nearer.

The facility is designed around a series of smaller buildings with varied social and academic spaces.

“The park will help make the transit center a 'great neighbor,' not merely a functional hub for daily commuters.”

Online journal focusing on architecture, landscape, and urbanism features a photograph of the San Diego Children's Park Fountain.

“This is an abstraction,” says Walker, "a painting or a sculpture of a headland, rather than a headland.”

This will be a place where people can touch the water and interact with natural beauty that has not existed on the site for more than 170 years.

Designed by Peter Walker, the park suggests an alpine meadow with mountains—think skyscrapers—towering above.

This one of a kind public space will be perched atop the hotel's three 55-story towers.