Towers|Golde is a full service site planning and landscape architectural firm known for elegant design, environmental stewardship, and collaborative service. The partners and staff undertake each project as a unique design challenge whose solution is specific to the client, the site, and the larger physical context, whether that is ecological, architectural, historical or institutional. Partner Bob Golde practices personal and collaborative approach to project design and implementation. Partner Shavaun Towers, FASLA, practices landscape architecture as a responsive art.

Centra at Metropark, Iselin, N.J.

Centra was a total rehabilitation of an existing office building complex. The design objective was to complement the angular aesthetic of the building to create a new, integrated identity for the complex. Sustainability was a major focus throughout the project. Native plants and grasses, minimal irrigation, and balanced cut and fill were part of the solution. A massive stone pyramid is positioned adjacent to the entry plaza while angular landscape berms planted with native plants enhance the exterior.
Courtesy of ???(R)???AE???(R)???(C) Michael Moran/OTTO

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Betty Ruth and Milton B. Hollander Healing Garden Smilow Cancer Center at Yale, New Haven, Conn.

 

This innovative seventh floor rooftop healing garden provides an outdoor place for relaxation, contemplation or intimate conversation. Patients can meet with family members or health care professionals at one of the seating areas, or visit the garden alone. One can traverse the circulation loop on foot or via wheelchair, experiencing different views of the garden or the city beyond. An unexpected naturalistic, recirculating stream meanders through the garden, terminating in a reflecting pool.

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University of Massachusetts Laboratory Science Building, Amherst, Mass.

This state of the art graduate and research facility creates a new eastern edge to the core of the campus and terminates a major pedestrian corridor that links the arts and the sciences. The curvilinear mass of the structure is built into a steeply sloping site at the base of a woodland preserve. The landscape design emphasizes the forms of the building and the ecology of the site, extending the vegetation of the hillside on to the campus.

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Gateway Community College, New Haven, Conn.

This LEED Gold certified college project incorporated green spaces, intensive green roofs and storm water mitigation. Local and recycled construction materials were used. The project included community and transportation linkages, and green education commitments.

Photo: Peter Brown