Boston ASLA Chapter

By Kathleen Ogden, ASLA, Chapter President

The BSLA gave Stephen Stimson Associates an Award of Excellence for the design work on the reconstruction of the University of Massachusetts' southwest concourse. The project doubled the amount of pervious surfacing, added sustainable ipe hardwood decking, recycled granite, aboveground runnels and bioswales for stormwater management and energy-efficient lighting.

The ASLA's Boston chapter (BSLA) represents landscape architects in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Boston is the next town to host the national ASLA show November 15–18, 2013.

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Richard Burck, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows by the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) in the Works category. Burck, head of the Somerville, Mass.-based firm Richard Burck Associates, was awarded the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture and named a finalist in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Competition, and was instrumental in advancing the city of Boston's street planting plan and improvements to the South Boston waterfront.

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In 2012, the BSLA presented Falmouth, Mass.-based landscape architecture firm Stephen Stimson Associates with an Award of Excellence – the highest award a chapter can bestow – for design work on the UMass Southwest Concourse in Amherst. The concourse was designed with a series of runnels, in essence a surface channel that collect the storm water run-off, which flows into infiltration areas along the concourse.

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Samuel Coplon, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows by the BSLA in the Works category. Coplon has contributed to land protection and conservation in the region, in addition to crafting notable landscape designs in public, institutional, historic and residential projects alike.

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During a rainstorm, water is distributed visibly beneath a series of elevated decks and walkways throughout the concourse, arriving at the infiltration areas, which are located under wooden patios at dining halls. The end effect is that the students are walking and dining over water and plantings, all of which are indigenous to the area.

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Jennifer Jones, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows by the BSLA in the Service category. Jones has taken her volunteerism around the world, assisting communities with projects like stabilizing a slope for a local clinic in Haiti, and creating demonstration gardens in Rwanda.

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The storm drains were incorporated into the landscape as a visual, sustainable feature, causing minimal disturbance and reusing existing stone, granite and other materials. The design doubled the pervious surfacing and planting areas, which included a palette of native shrubs and grasses. A series of bioswales infiltrates, collects and cleanses stormwater along the pedestrian corridor. BSLA also sponsored the two-day Landscape Architecture track at the ArchitectureBoston Expo (formerly BuildBoston) November 14-16 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Local LAs earned as many as 15 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and attended workshops that included "Growing Trends in Urban and Suburban Sustainable Agriculture, Part 1: Local Edible Landscapes"; "Boston Permitting: Concept to Construction"; "Ten Ways to Sell, Execute and Measure a Sustainable Project" and "Green Building with Accountability".

Keith LeBlanc, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows by the BSLA in the Works category. LeBlanc has crafted projects throughout the United States, and is known for adding a high level of detail and finish to difficult sites.

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Robert Pine, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows by the BSLA in the Knowledge category. Pine has developed breakthrough quality-control procedures to ensure blending, installation, and maintenance of optimally effective landscape soils, drainage, and plantings, and expanding the body of knowledge in regional ecosystems analysis.

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Cynthia Smith, ASLA, was nominated to the 2012 Class of Fellows in the Works category. Smith is recognized in the Boston and Cambridge region for her waterfronts, over-deck landscapes, multi-modal plans, art collaborations and campus projects – the latter including a notable redesign of the MIT Sloan School campus.

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