Who’s Around Underground?

February 2021 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine  Republic Square in Austin, Texas, is one of the city’s most historic, sensitive, and heavily trafficked public green spaces. In the heart of downtown, it’s one of the original four public squares dating back to the city’s founding. In 1839, the city’s initial run of surveyed and platted blocks… Continue reading Who’s Around Underground?

This Conservative City Built a $132 Million Park Using One Weird Trick

The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι Oct. 11, 2019 In the early 1990s, a crisis of confidence—and urbanism—gripped Oklahoma City. Oklahoma’s capital wanted a bustling, active city center that would attract and retain large corporations and the people who would staff them. But the city had mostly been a luckless suitor. Foreshadowing the Amazon HQ2 cage match, in… Continue reading This Conservative City Built a $132 Million Park Using One Weird Trick

Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction

Architectural Record Ι February 20, 2019  A federal judge’s decision yesterday to allow a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the Chicago Parks District to proceed will delay the progress of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), which has been designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburg Associates.  Controversially sited… Continue reading Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction

Circle of Light

Landscape Architecture Magazine Ι January 2019  From the University of Chicago’s Crerar Science Quad, one can see the entire scope of the 128-year-old university’s built history. Bordered by science buildings and one medical school facility, the dominant Collegiate Gothic flavor of the university’s campus is present in the quad’s southern and southeastern edge, anchored by the… Continue reading Circle of Light

At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories

Metropolis Magazine Ι May 23, 2018 “How do you make the stones talk?” asks the architect Jeanne Gang. It’s not a philosophical posture, but an earnest question and one at the center of Studio Gang’s soon-to-open 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale installation at the U.S. Pavilion. The stones Gang refers to were plucked out of storage, but… Continue reading At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories

The Final Hill

Landscape Architecture Magazine Ι October 2017  The first thing you notice is all the cars. The are a strange landscape divided by Jersey barriers and concrete retaining walls that carve up the site’s topography. Endless rows of cars are parked along its curving streets and in front of 62 three- and four-story barracks-style buildings that plod… Continue reading The Final Hill

Underneath, Overlooked

Landscape Architecture Magazine Ι February 2017 In 2002, the Design Trust for Public Space published Reclaiming the High Line, a critical voice of support that helped jump-start the growing momentum to preserve that rusting hulk of a rail bed in Lower Manhattan. Now a city- and pedestrian-scaled outdoor art walk and landscape, the High Line is likely the most influential… Continue reading Underneath, Overlooked