Partner Hallie Boyce (right) participated in a review panel with other design professionals and key stakeholders. © Dominic Mercier

OLIN Partner Hallie Boyce participated as a member of a review panel made up of key stakeholders and design professionals. The panel reviewed design concepts developed by four volunteer design teams. Landscape Architect Jen Martel also participated as a member of one of the design teams.

The designs included ideas about how to maximize green infrastructure to clean air, mediate microclimate, manage stormwater and provide public places of beauty that encourage children to become stewards of the environment. Features such as rain gardens, bio-swales, cisterns, curb bump-outs and infiltration tree trenches were incorporated into all the designs.

Site plans, green infrastructure strategies and overall goals for the Henry C. Lea Elementary School and the John B. Kelly Elementary School were created by the design teams. © Community Design Collabortative

In speaking of the design teams’ approach to the charrette, Jen said, “We considered how the schoolyards could become valued community assets that are populated by individuals, families and community groups when school is not in session. This took the form of modifying existing fences and walls to make the schoolyards more welcoming, creating gateways, and re-thinking the schools’ main entrances. Wellness was another major theme of the day, as we looked at ways to encourage physical fitness and nutrition, such as walking trails, open fields for free play, garden beds and orchards.”

Within the larger objective of preparing local schools and community leaders to transform their schoolyards, the design concepts responded to the needs of the local communities and will serve as models for schools throughout Philadelphia

“Landscape architects must recognize and understand all the ways environmental systems and utilitarian infrastructure affect and shape our communities,” said Richard. He added, “In fact, I find it ironic that these elements seem to get lost amidst the goals of creating design excellence. What’s exciting about green infrastructure design is that it encourages us to think more broadly about how these systems shape us, how utilities deliver services and treat waste, and it provides us the opportunity to design for the inclusion of natural systems.”

To learn more about OLIN’s approach to Green Infrastructure, read our journal.

Listen to the podcast: A New Home for the Barnes Collection

© OLIN & WEISS/MANFREDI

As our nation’s center stage, the National Mall is the site of some of the most important acts of communication and communion in the country. The Washington Monument, positioned at the heart of the Mall, is visible for miles and is the literal and philosophical compass for our nation. Extending from this central landmark is the Sylvan Theater and Sylvan Grove. OLIN & WEISS/MANFREDI’s approach for this performance landscape embodies the surprise and magic of the Shakespearean forest that inspired the name of the original theater nearly a century ago. The design team’s vision reinvigorates the Monument Grounds; clarifies visual connections between the White House, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial; provides new physical connections between the cultural landscape of the Mall and the Tidal Basin; and, most importantly, creates a transformed setting for the nation’s most visible stage.

© OLIN & WEISS/MANFREDI

“The design seamlessly integrates building and landform to serve as both a visitor gateway and destination and reconnects the southern Monument Grounds and Tidal Basin to the National Mall,” said Partner Skip Graffam.

© OLIN & WEISS/MANFREDI

The design of Sylvan Grove is oriented around a sequence of settings that together, imagine a new performance landscape. A new wooded canopy and terraced lawn define the amphitheater, where a wide range of performances and events are experienced against the backdrop of the Washington Monument. The ascending landform reorients the theater to views of the Mall, conceals traffic and lines of tour buses, and creates new pedestrian connections to the Tidal Basin. To solve the physical disconnect between the Tidal Basin and the Mall, the design includes a tree lined “balcony,” serving as a viewing terrace, which continues across the roadways and descends to the water’s edge to create a physical link between the Tidal Basin and the Mall.

Commenting on the scheme, Partner Hallie Boyce said, “Our team’s design sculpts the ground plane and amplifies the existing canopy to create a flexible and magical performance venue while infusing the site with critical visitor amenities.”

© OLIN & WEISS/MANFREDI

The Sylvan Pavilion—visible from the Mall, the Metro and 15th Street—is designed as an extension of Sylvan Grove. Serving as a multi-use destination, the Pavilion hosts impromptu performances and offers an all-weather café for visitors. The Pavilion bends along a pathway, south of Independence Avenue, where a new exhibition atrium frames an arrival plaza and drop-off area for tour buses. Inspired by filtered rays in a shaded forest, the roof of the Pavilion forms a cultural canopy of dappled light that illuminates activities below. The Pavilion offers panoramic views of the Mall and performances. The café terraces and theater stage accommodate a generous shaded setting for café tables, gatherings and events.

OLIN Design Team: Design Partners Skip Graffam and Hallie Boyce, Associate Greg Burrell, Senior Landscape Architect Benjamin Monette, Landscape Designers Jennifer Birkeland, Vivian Martinez and Laura Rennekamp, Visualizers Chris Landau and Henry Moll, and Intern Nick Mitchell.

Rhett Russo is the founder of Specific Objects, Inc., an interdisciplinary sustainable design practice based in New York, and the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the SOM Fellowship, the Van Alen Institute Dinkeloo Fellow at The American Academy in Rome, and the Young Architect’s Award from the Architectural League of New York. In his presentation, Rhett spoke about his work exploring the transmissive capacities of matter and the natural world’s ecologies, as well as the methods in which the natural world has been represented throughout history.

Suzanne Mathew, a designer at Landworks Studio in Boston, earned dual master’s degrees in Landscape Architecture and Architecture from the University of Virginia. She has also been the recipient of numerous academic honors including the Stanley and Helen Abott Award for Excellence in Landscape Architecture and the Carlo Pelliccia Fellowship. Having conducted extensive research on temporal and dynamic phenomena, Suzanne described her approach to utilizing digital parametric programs to represent and observe phenomenological processes.

Following the presentations, studio members and guests engaged in an open discussion about the processes of representation and how those processes influence the ways designers envision and realize the ephemeral qualities of landscape.

To learn more about OLIN’s continuing lecture series, click here.

Members of OLIN participated in an event at John F. Collins Park in Philadelphia, which included speeches by Mayor Michael Nutter, Deputy Mayor for Environmental and Community Resources Michael DiBerardinis and Philadelphia Water Department Commissioner Howard Neukrug. At the event, Senior Landscape Architect Benjamin Monette, Landscape Architect Sally Reynolds and Landscape Designer Will Belcher spoke with members of the public about the ways in which landscape architecture connects the city to nature.

Senior Landscape Architect Benjamin Monette explained how landscape architecture connects the urban realm.

Special cake in honor of Frederick Law Olmsted's birthday designed by landscape architecture students at Philadelphia University.

In an interview with Architects + Artisans, Partner Susan Weiler said, “Johns Hopkins is creating a new standard of excellence for patient care and hospital design. The gardens have been designed as places of orientation, respite, rejuvenation and calm, with a visual simplicity that accentuates the aesthetic pleasures of the gardens. The newly conceived circulation pattern allowed us to keep one-third of the enormous football-field-sized site for the courtyard gardens.”

Plan of the Phipps Garden with the Little Prince Garden to the east

The Entry Court is designed to facilitate pedestrian safety as well as to provide ease of movement and clear views for anxious drivers. The new entrance will provide ample and efficient space for cars to drop off and pick up patients. All entrances to the hospital, including the new Adult and Pediatric Emergency Departments, are located in this area for easy patient access. Valet service will be available and parking is conveniently located across the streets in the Orleans Street Garage, which will be connected to the hospital by two pedestrian bridges. The rich and durable paving palette of bluestone, brick, quartzite and granite will provide visual continuity to the vehicular and garden spaces. This continuity helps to emphasize the patterns and colors of the paving and planting, which is also intended to be viewed from above by patients, visitors and staff.

The Western Courtyard Gardens, including the Entrance Garden, the Healing Garden and the Mediation Garden, each offer different experiences through varying forms, shapes, fragrances, colors and sounds. The unique auditory characteristics of the plantings in the Entrance Garden help mitigate the sound of local traffic by utilizing plants such as Witch-hazels, which pop their flower casings in the fall or the Moneyplant and the Japanese Snowbell, whose dried fruits and loose leaves rattle against each other.

Illustrative Rendering of the Healing Garden at the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center and Sheik Zayed Tower

The Healing Garden is comprised of two distinct spaces, including a geometrically shaped area with a simple sloped lawn panel framed by a seating wall and plantings of shrub roses and Lambs’ ears. The other space is a more enclosed, secret garden with substantial seating, and includes a circular planting of flowering Crabapples. Rhododendrons, Spicebush and Oakleaf Hydrangeas are under-planted with Christmas Ferns, Hayscented Ferns and Black Snakeroot.

Within its clipped Hornbeam walls, the Meditation Garden is a refuge of quiet and calm. A fountain, a small paved terrace, a grove of Paper Bark Maples and a sculptural Japanese Maple provide a sense of scale, visual interest and a meditative mood.

Illustrative Rendering of the Little Prince Garden, a space for children based on the classic book by Saint-Exupéry

The Phipps Courtyard is the exterior garden for the hospital café. Adjacent to this is the Little Prince Garden, an enclosed space for children. Based on the adventures of Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince, this garden features large and small asteroids, a few volcanoes, overhead stars and the “Birdgola,” a trellis-like structure that has a colorful flock of birds suspended from maneuverable tracks. The plants in the Little Prince Garden were selected for their unusual characteristics, textures and colors such as Franklinia, Smoketree, Sunflowers, Shooting Stars and Roses.

OLIN Team Members: Partner-In-Charge Susan Weiler, Associate Greg Burrell and Senior Landscape Architect Benjamin Monette.

OLIN’s proposed plan will transform the park’s Cultural Crescent, parcels of land adjacent to the towers, into a cohesive site that welcomes viewing and enjoyment of the towers while celebrating the rich arts programs that exist currently on site at the Arts Center Campus.

Currently, Tiffany and Jenny are working with the Trust for Public Land to gather input from community stakeholders to generate ideas and build consensus on the development of the space’s aesthetics and programming. So far, they have participated in three community meetings and are beginning the process of incorporating community feedback into design concepts.

Regarding the vision for the site and the community, Tiffany says, “This community is one that has an incredibly rich history and culture rooted in the arts, which extends beyond the towers themselves. Participating in the community meetings has been wonderfully informative and energizing, and we are looking forward to providing Watts with a master plan that will allow future generations of artists to thrive.”

The Trust for Public Land, a non-profit organization active in 34 states, conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens and other natural places. In cities, The Trust for Public Land reclaims vacant lots and then crafts strategies for transforming the lots into community-designed parks and playgrounds. After development, they turn these parks and lands over to their cities for public use. In Los Angeles, they have reclaimed between 10,000-12,000 acres of land.