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ASLA to Receive National Endowment for the Arts Grant 06-01-15 | News

ASLA to Receive National Endowment for the Arts Grant

The ASLA's Chinatown green street demonstration project https://aslagreenstreet.org aims to create a master plan that uses vegetated areas to manage stormwater, while beautifying the public right of way. The design focus is more on accommodating pedestrians and bicycles than motorized vehicles.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) promotes opportunities for people in communities across America to experience the arts and exercise their creativity. In its current funding round, the NEA arts.gov will make 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million nationwide.

Among those NEA grants is a $40,000 award to the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Chinatown green street demonstration project https://aslagreenstreet.org/, which uses a series of vegetated areas to manage stormwater, while beautifying the public right of way. The project gives priority to pedestrians and bicycles over motorized transport.

"The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States," said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. "Funding these new projects like the one from ASLA represents an investment in local communities and our nation's creative vitality."

"ASLA is extremely appreciative for NEA's recognition and support of the project," said Nancy Somerville, ASLA CEO and executive vp. "The funding will allow us to create a master plan for innovative green street technologies that will meet the highest standards of design excellence and combine advanced technologies, beautiful vegetated landscapes, artistic public outreach pieces and integrated access for automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians."

The Design Workshop team has spent time exploring the streets of the Chinatown neighborhood to observe the pedestrian sidewalk use, bicycle and vehicular circulation and parking and loading use; to examine the conditions of the vegetation, trees and pavements; to observe the drainage patterns; and to catalogue the social nodes and places of art and cultural expression. The team is analyzing this data and will report back to ASLA with maps and diagrams of the site conditions.