Landscape Architect Articles

Moment of Silence "?u Peter Lindsay Schaudt, FASLA, FAAR 07-22-15 | News

Moment of Silence "?u Peter Lindsay Schaudt, FASLA, FAAR (May 10, 1959-July 19, 2015)

Peter Lindsay Schaudt, FASLA, FAAR

Chicago landscape architect Peter Schaudt passed away Sunday July 19, 2015 in Villa Park, Illinois, following a heart attack. He was 56 years old.

Peter Schaudt (pronounced "Shout") grew up in Villa Park, a suburb west of Chicago. He trained as an architect first, receiving a Bachelor of Architecture in Design at University of Illinois Chicago in 1982. He received an MLA from the Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1984, then spent three years in Vermont as an associate with the late Daniel Kiley. Schaudt considered Kiley his mentor.

Peter Schaudt's design for Chicago's Soldier Field/North Burnham Park in 2003 placed the stadium's 2,500 parking spaces beneath a nine-acre green roof, and used sculpted landforms to surround the stadium with 17 acres of parkland. The green space includes a Children's Garden, a sledding hill and a view of the skyline. The project won the 2004 Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Awards of Excellence in the intensive industrial/commercial category. Image: Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects

In 1991, Schaudt moving back to Chicago to found his own landscape architect firm, focusing on institutional and corporate campus work. In 2008, Schaudt's firm (about 7 people) merged with Douglas Hoerr's firm (about 35 people) to create Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, instantly becoming the largest landscape architecture firm in Chicago. Hoerr, coincidentally also started his firm in 1991, but concentrated on private and public botanical gardens. Schaudt credits Mayor Daley's advocacy for green design and open space as important to his success.

Among his outdoor space designs is the 1996 landscaping of Chicago's Daley Plaza (in collaboration with DLK Architecture); landscaping for the 2005 Hyatt Center; the 2010 riverfront plaza at Trump International Hotel & Tower; the sunken lawn for the Illinois Institute of Technology campus landscape; the planted roof at the Gary Comer Youth Center (both ASLA national awards); the garden at Midway Plaisance in Washington Park; and the design of three NFL stadium landscapes.

He has collaborated with a team in Toronto for the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization, served on two Chicago mayoral design committees and as a General Services Administration (GSA) national peer, part of the GSA Design Excellence Program, where he reviewed several landscape design security projects. He was also a member of the 2016 Olympic bid design committee. Schaudt designed several alternatives for the Olympic stadium.

His numerous awards and honors include the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture (1990-91), Fellowship in the American Society of Landscape Architects (2006) and the AIA Collaborative Achievement award (2011).

Peter leaves behind wife Janet Bratschun, two children, Elaine and Elliot, brothers Eric and James and Harry W. Schaudt, his father.