The museum, a branch of the Smithsonian since 1967, devotes itself to historic and contemporary design, presenting perspectives on the impact of design on daily life. The museum was founded in 1897 by the granddaughters of industrialist Peter Cooper, as part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Among the designers showcased are five landscape architects:

Ken Smith Landscape Architect, NYC
The exhibit says Ken Smith ?EUR??,,????'??can make a blank wall into a field of daisies, a rail yard into a picnic grove, and a blacktop roof into a fanciful garden.?EUR??,,????'?? As a landscape architect of urban areas, Smith believes in creating livable, renewable, and inspiring urban areas as one way to curtail sprawl and the waste of natural resources. He?EUR??,,????'???s also quoted as saying, ?EUR??,,????'??Landscape architecture has always been about making synthetic nature.?EUR??,,????'??

Ken Smith?EUR??,,????'???s recent work includes the rooftop garden at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and winning the design competition for the long-awaited Great Park in Orange County, Calif. in 2006, now under construction.

Cao|Perrot Studio, NYC, L.A., Paris
The exhibit notes the duo of Andy Cao and Xavier Perrot uses natural and artificial materials to design environments that transport us beyond the everyday. One example is ?EUR??,,????'??Cocoons,?EUR??,,????'?? a commissioned, temporary art-installation on a rocky point opposite the Golden Gate Bridge of ?EUR??,,????'??three spinning cocoons that resemble a cross between gigantic tops and moored air balloons.?EUR??,,????'?? Five miles of colored monofilament were wrapped around laser-cut stainless-steel armatures fabricated by architect William Massie.

James Carpenter Design Associates (JCDA), NYC
James Carpenter works with glass and designing with light, reflection, refraction, luminosity and transparency in mind. The exhibit says Carpenter draws from architecture, engineering, materials science, landscape architecture and sculpture to accomplish his goals.

JCDA worked with HOK to develop the winning entry in a 2005 design competition for the redevelopment of the new Pennsylvania Station on the site of the James Farley Post Office, across the street from New York City?EUR??,,????'???s Penn Station.

Field Operations, NYC
Field Operations has a hybrid practice that integrates landscape, ecology, art, architecture, economic development and city life. The studio?EUR??,,????'???s work ranges from intimate garden designs to redeveloping large tracts of postindustrial land, such as the master plan for Fresh Kills on Staten Island, reviving an enormous landfill into 890 hectares of public parkland.

Michael van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., NYC
Michael Van Valkenburgh and his firm draw upon their flora expertise to make parkland and garden designs look like nature did all the work. At Teardrop Park in Manhattan, Van Valkenburgh used plantings inspired by upstate New York?EUR??,,????'???s woodland ecology and collaborated with artists Ann Hamilton and Michael Mercil to craft 3,000 tons of bluestone into walls and outcroppings. In summer, water runs off the stone; in winter it becomes a wall of ice.

Tom Leader, Berkeley, Calif.
Tom Leader acknowledges the importance of the community actively using the places he creates. He is comfortably using both modern and humble materials, from designing pedestrian plazas in Shanghai to playfully installing walls of hay bales surrounded by a maze of screen doors for visitors to go in and out at the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens in Sonoma County, Calif.