2024 Class of Fellows, Dale Schafer, FASLA, New York Chapter
Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture, Hudson, NY
Dale Schafer's award-winning work, his holistic approach to design, and his passion for horticulture are a living testament to the significance of landscape architecture leadership in designing public spaces. He is an exemplary collaborator, designer, and problem solver with a keen understanding of scale, function, and aesthetics, able to engage and lead allied disciplines on complex assignments. His modernist style balances the utilitarian and ecological nature of rural vernacular and contemporary design. At the award-winning Hunter's Point South Waterfront Park in Queens, New York, Schafer led the overall park design refinement and details, as well as community engagement, to transform this post-industrial site into a climate-resilient park that provides public access to the waterfront and a superb view of the New York skyline. A series of landscape interventions and innovative planting strategies add ecological resiliency to the vulnerable East River shoreline. Heritage Field at Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx is a 13-acre recreational park located directly adjacent to the new Yankee Stadium with a portion of it on the roof of the stadium parking garage. The park provides the community with extensive and diverse recreation facilities, playgrounds, and pedestrian thoroughfares with an overlay of interpretive elements that honor the site's history. In the Baoshan District of Shanghai, Schafer was challenged to design a park and open space plan for a series of high-density neighborhoods situated among cranes and shipping containers on the inaccessible Yangtze River. The two new Baoshan Harbor City Parks and the open space plan set a precedent for post-industrial waterfront design.
