Cat Scan Underway

The 1986 ASLA National Convention will be held November 22-25 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Next month we will provide a complete list of the time and places of the various events of the show. Here are some of the highlights you can expect.

A Community Assistance Team (CAT) of landscape architects has inventoried the natural, historic, scenic and recreational resources of the Presidio as a first step in a project designed to provide a framework for decision-making on the 1,400-acre tract.

The team will present its project to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) at the organization’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco November 22-25. Through the CAT program, professional services are contributed for a project of lasting significance to the host city of the Society’s Annual Meeting.

More than 3,000 landscape architects are expected to attend the meeting which features speakers including William D. Ruckelshaus, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, William Penn Mott, Director of the National Park Service, and a wide array of educational sessions and an exhibit at the Moscone Center.

Interest in studying the Presidio grew out of the realization that conflicts between interest groups were being generated in part because of a lack of comprehensive and adequately detailed information on visual, recreational, cultural and natural resources,” said team chairman, Tito Patri.

The site is the headquarters of the Sixth Army, Letterman Army Hospital and various other military tenants. Legislation which established the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972 encompassed by Presidio within the Area’s boundaries, and the base is widely used by the public for recreation.

The CAT has been working with the Army, neighborhood groups and city officials with the goal of developing a mechanism that recognizes everyone’s values and begins a process toward comprehensive land management policies which are mutually advantageous to the separate interest groups.

Grants of $10,000 from the Columbia Foundation and $20,000 from The San Francisco Foundation are funding the study. Support has also been provided by the Landscape Architecture Foundation.