As our infrastructure cries out for repair, as our natural areas cry out for protection, as our brownfields cry out for renovation, the role of aesthetics is being firmly melded into the planning. Accordingly, the social, cultural, political, aesthetic and economic requirements of the citizens are being given their proper place as Landscape Architects step up to the plate. They are quietly but powerfully changing the way the profession interacts with the global community.

Things have changed a lot since Martha Schwartz joined the profession. She?EUR??,,????'?????<

Located in Mesa, Arizona, the Mesa Arts Center landscape design by Martha Schwartz is being given the ASLA 2007 Award of Honor for General Design.
Photo credit Alan Ward

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This dramatic design for the Dublin Docklands creates an interactive public space that is an urban magnet both day and night. The red resin-glass paving is highlighted with red LED bands as well as underlit to cast a red glow on the water. The planters are surrounded by green LED bands.

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New Village Green, Fryston, West Yorkshire?EUR??,,????'?????<

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An Interview with Ken Smith, ASLA

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Ken Smith often delivers a lecture he likes to call, ?EUR??,,????'?????<

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Formulas are one of the biggest problems we have in the profession. It is easy to follow the formulas?EUR??,,????'?????<

Cornerstone Gardens: Daisy Border by Ken Smith?EUR??,,????'?????<

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The Orange County Great Park, of which Smith is the Master Designer, is almost twice the size of Central Park and will include extensive natural areas and open space plus recreational and cultural uses. The iconic orange Great Park Balloon was just inaugurated. Seen here carrying LASN staff members (left to right) designer Guy Nelson, Kim Schmok, publisher George Schmok, and managing editor Leslie McGuire, The balloon can take 25 passengers 400 feet up for a spectacular view of the site.

A Landscape Architect of urban areas, Smith is convinced that ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Smith creates distinct, often playful environments designed to improve the quality of urban life. While he has a love of natural resources, he is conscious that landscape architecture is about creating ?EUR??,,????'?????<

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An Interview with Walter Hood, ASLA

Walter Hood, ASLA
Photos courtesy of Hood Design

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The new De Young Museum is a building layered with greenery and draped by intricate folds of trees and shrubs. The landscape scheme is composed of several different spaces. The Sculpture Garden, a lawn area designed around specific pieces of sculpture also creates a transitional bamboo edge between the existing Japanese Garden and the building.

Hood is interested in working in places where he feels the issue lie.

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You have to want to be creative. You have to want to make things that are new and different. Lots of times either people don?EUR??,,????'?????<

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An Interview with Laurie Olin, FASLA

Laurie Olin, FASLA
Images courtesy of Olin Partnership

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The construction of the J. Paul Getty Center complex presented one of the most complex landscape design problems today: the installation of verdant gardens and water features atop a structure, in this case, museum archives housing priceless artworks and rare manuscripts. The outside of the Center is as much of an artwork as the works of art inside the display pavilions. At the far south end of the complex the cactus garden looks out over the entire Los Angeles basin.

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One of the things that happened to me, at the bedrock level, is discovering that nature moves me. But it?EUR??,,????'?????<

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