Landscape Architect Articles

LASN 40th: David B. Linstrum (1935-2011)07-22-25 | Feature

LASN 40th: David B. Linstrum (1935-2011)

LASN Remembers
by Mike Dahl, LASN Contributing Editor

David Linstrum on the campus of Valencia Community College, for which he was selected as the leader of a team of designers tasked with creating an environmentally conscientious master plan for this school east of Orlando, Florida.

David Linstrum (left) with artist, architect and senior Fulbright lecturer James R. Turner, FAAR, FASLA. The site rendering David is holding is of Nouvelleville, a fictional community he designed after witnessing Hurricane Katrina's devastation as a way to minimize damage from future storm surges. Starting with the belief that small, integrated communities are the key, Nouvelleville was planned to be environmentally and economically sustainable, allowing townspeople to walk to jobs at regionally suitable industries that encircle a residential core.

As good of a start to a career as it gets, David Linstrum was hired right out of college in 1966 by the prominent landscape architect Eldridge Lovelace to work in the St. Louis office of the distinguished firm led by Harland Bartholomew, who was in David's words, "one of America's greatest urban planners whose work (still) influences us."

A registered landscape architect in three states, David eventually settled in the Tampa Bay area plying his trade with the firm of George F. Young, and then Benson Engineering. He served as an LASN associate editor-at-large and international associate editor, and was recognized as an effective advocate of the industry's environmental movement in the early 70s.

LASN's January 2003 issue paid tribute to a project of David's from 1973: the master plan for Valencia Community College near Orlando. A lineup of four Landscape Architects and one architect was tasked with fusing the school's educational objectives, physical area requirements, and natural environs to create the optimal "arrangement of required campus facilities interrelated with the ecological characteristics of the site."

David wrote, "It was my privilege to be planner-in-charge of this talented team. The master plan has stood the test of time. On a recent visit, I queried both students and faculty - they love this place."

David traveled extensively in Europe, including the new communities in the London area built following the New Towns Act after WWII, and the Middle East where he acted as a principal on land-planning projects in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Back home he served as a planner for Fairfax County, Virginia.

Guidance David gave to the industry holds as true today as when he asserted over 25 years ago, "The enlightened Landscape Architect will respond to the needs of environmentally-responsible clients by performing a detailed, quantifiable site analysis as a prelude to site planning. They can then fulfill the client infrastructure program for the best environmental fit."

Click here to see this entry in the LASN 40th Anniversary Timeline.

As seen in LASN magazine, July 2025.