A current Landscape Architect and Specifier News survey indicates that 68% of Landscape Architects offer in-house hardscape design, while 21% hire subcontractors, and 11% rely on vendors. Principal L. Azeo Torre, FASLA, of Design Consortium, Ltd. in New Orleans, LA explains that in his 13-member staff, "Typically, all the hardscape designs are done by the Landscape Architects." Virtually all of their projects include hardscape design.

Community participation played a key role in one of his firm's dynamic hardscape designs. The renovation of the Memphis Zoo and Aquarium in Memphis, TN involved creating an entry complex that would serve as a portal from local to global biomes. Torre served as a prime consultant and team leader for the master plan, community consensus building, fund-raising, and construction.

The $30 million series of improvements has taken a worn-down old zoo and created a dramatic new facility which has captured the community's imagination. The zoo's entry sequence follows the design of the ancient temple of Memphis from the Avenue of the Animals, to the Hypostyle Court--featuring a lapis and gold reflecting pond, obelisk (the transition point between the Hypostyle Court to Nile Plaza) and Rosetta Stone replica--to a recreation of the Nile and its five cataracts (waterfalls) at the center of the orientation plaza, which displays a concrete pavement decorated in a two-color system with an infill pattern of brick red and tan bonding. A small late period temple serves as a tram stop at the Nile's junction with the Mediterranean near Alexandria. Great colonnades provide weather protection along the edges, with hieroglyphs translating the Zoo's mission statement and other environmental quotes by Baba Diome and Chief Seattle. Torre explains that, "The toughest part of the project was getting it started and making it coming to life."

In another instance, Clara Batchelor, principal of CBA Landscape Architects, was selected to redesign two city blocks in Rockland, ME when The Farnsworth Art Museum added a 9,000 square foot wing and renovated the former Pratt Memorial Church to house paintings and archives. Five separate buildings, located on two adjacent city blocks, comprise the total museum property. Prior to the renovation, the access to-- and focus of-- the buildings were on surrounding streets, and the majority of the open space was covered with asphalt parking lots. CBA created a plan to relocate the parking, thus allowing for the greening of the Farnsworth campus-- opening up the interior of the site for a courtyard, walkways, lawns and gardens.

The courtyard, enclosed by the new wing and the back of an historic carriage house, has the loose informality of a farmhouse. A low stone wall narrows the entrance to the courtyard, and the higher land of the carriage house slopes down to a granite patio and granite walkway. This slope not only softened the courtyard, but it also allowed for the preservation of two specimen lilacs. Along the other edge of granite, a flourishing perennial garden includes Black-Eyed Susans, Cone Flowers, and Joe Pye Weed. From the courtyard, visitors walk along stone dust paths by a grove of birch trees, and through a crabapple orchard towards the renovated church. A white wooden fence with ornate posts encloses this part of the site. This fence is repeated across the street in front of the church where it serves as a railing on the new granite porch.

The challenge for CBA was to unite the existing buildings with a design that reflected the Maine landscape and New England architecture. Batchelor explains, "I tried to create a very memorable environment so that people not only remember the paintings but also the experience of being there. The challenge also lied in the process of working with many different people with different goals."

In Atlanta, GA, the Atlanta University Center/West Side (AUC/WS) Corridor System is the largest of twelve pedestrian corridors developed by the Corporation for Olympic Development. This project was viewed as critical to the success of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. Consisting primarily of public rights-of-way, and totalling over six miles of streetscape improvements, the AUC/WS Pedestrian Corridor links the six universities that constitute the Atlanta University Center, four historic in-town neighborhoods, three MARTA stations, and three Olympic venues.

The corridor was developed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals, in which the Landscape Architects, urban planners, and traffic planners worked closely with urban sociologists, historians, and engineers. The landscape architectural firm HOK Planning led community workshops and collaborated on design issues through completion construction documents and contract administration. Due to the project's connection with the Olympics, Landscape Architect James Johnson believes the most challenging aspect of the project was "trying to get everything done on schedule."

The design team conceptualized a plan that evolved from ancient African village planning principles, the core of which is the "interdependent village." By applying this concept to this community, the result was a series of "district gateways," "unity plazas," campus gates, and a historic area linked by well-lighted, tree-lined pedestrian paths. These are embellished by amenities such as paving, benches, information kiosks, bus shelters, and historic markers. The architectural character of the design complements the historic context while providing a distinct style which would become an indigenous vocabulary for the entire area. Distinct patterns, evident in the paving and architectural elements, were developed from ancient African textiles and symbolize an underlying theme of "I kan I wa" (we are one). These symbols are present throughout the design, and resound the need for unity among residents, businesses and institutions. Durable materials such as concrete pavers, precast concrete, and stone walls in reddish-brown, black and tan hues were used.

In the Northwest, Harry Jackson Plaza also displays hardscape with a symbolic nature. As a another pearl in the necklace of revitalization of Northeast Portland, the plaza is located at the intersection of N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Alberta Street. The plaza serves as a hingepoint for resurgence along both important thoroughfares. The Portland, OR-based Landscape Architecture firm GreenWorks, P.C. worked on the project as lead designers of the plaza and adjacent Adidas store; their responsibilities included hardscape elements such as paving, seat walls, and site furnishings, in addition to planting and irrigation. The Landscape Architects also worked together with Roslyn Hill--a local artist. Her familiarity with the attitudes and desires of the neighborhood, along with her artistic vision, were key elements in the conceptual design of the plaza.

Since so much of the plaza needed to be open paved area to accommodate public events, the Landscape Architect felt strongly that the paving material needed to be rich in appearance. Through multiple rounds of budget-cutting, the Landscape Architect pushed the partners to provide brick pavers in the plaza. Pattern stacked pavers in shades of dessert sand, charley brown, and toast decorate the ground. All concrete paver units and styles varied from regular brick shape to hexagonal and square pavers focusing on earth tone reds, browns and light tans.

Play environments can also feature hardscape in an innovative way. In a sunken courtyard on the south side of the east wing of Iowa Lutheran Hospital lies a unique playground in a courtyard. Designed by R D G Crose Gardner Shukert, Inc., this courtyard provides mental health patients and day care children with learning and recreational opportunities in an outdoor setting. Emphasizing environmental education, cognitive and social interaction as well as typical motor skill development, a previously static visual space has been transformed into a functional asset for the hospital staff and a dynamic setting for patients, visitors and employees. Project Landscape Architect David Nicholas states, "The most unique aspect of the project was that it was an environment for kids in an adult institution. The adjacent five-story patient wing provided some dynamic aerial views of the garden and that translated into some of the aspects of the internal walkway designs."

Secured by its perimeter walls, the playground is divided by age group, and its design is determined largely by its linear form and high visibility. An irregular, meandering, "figure-eight" path of colored concrete is the most eye-catching element of the space. This walk defines spaces along the way while remaining functional for use by tricycle, wagon or foot. Also anchoring the east end is a play structure for large motor skill development.

In addition, a donor recognition walk divides the space of the courtyard and establishes a relationship to the hospital's architecture. Individuals--who financially made the project possible--are recognized by donor bricks as a border to a lifesize checkerboard. Located in the center of the courtyard, this walk also provides a common group gathering space about the three panel "paint wall," giving the staff a unique outdoor classroom environment for education activities.

For Perimeter Summit in Atlanta, Georgia (See pages 38)-designed by Hughes Good O'Leary & Ryan (HGOR)--the purpose was to develop an overall landscape/hardscape theme, which would provide both a comprehensive sense of place and various human scale environments for the planned 83 acre 3.2 million square foot office/hotel development. It demonstrates the importance of the Landscape Architect's role as comprehensive in nature with regards to defining and preserving a sence of place in the built environment. The Landscape Architect was responsible for establishing the design philosophy in both hardscape and landscape elements.

The project is a collage of three primary spatial experiences: project infrastructure and roadway system, a plaza garden over a parking structure, and the Park. Special mix concrete pavements (colored and exposed aggregates) were used in concert with the natural stone. The park is punctuated with a creek totally manmade, but created to mimic nature and blend with the elements--blurring the lines between what existed and what was created.

Hardscape can be a "hard" facet to escape for landscape industry professionals. Today's urban plazas and courtyards demand intricate paving designs filled with bold colors, textures and symbolism. Not only can hardscape function as a walkway for pedestrians, a retaining wall that holds up a slope, planters or columns, but--with the creativity and knowledge of a Landscape Architect--it can also be designed to set apart a project and make it truly dynamic. lasn