Richard Roark Joins the Landscape Architecture Foundation Board of Directors

Congratulations to OLIN Partner, Richard Roark, who is one of nine new members of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Board of Directors. This new class brings LAF’s board to 34 individuals who bring experience and insights from landscape architecture practice, academia, industry, allied professions, and the nonprofit sector.

Throughout his 22-year career, Richard has become an advocate for equitable design, crafting public designs that are sustainable, economical, and bring beauty to underserved communities. He is currently leading OLIN’s design of the LA River Master Plan, a newly unified vision for the 51-mile corridor to reconnect the river to the diverse communities of LA County, and Northwest Resiliency Park, which transforms a former industrial site in Hoboken, New Jersey into the city’s largest public park that will also incorporate rigorous green infrastructural standards.

The Landscape Architecture Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC. Established in 1966, LAF invests in research, scholarships, and leadership initiatives to increase the influence and impact of landscape architects to create a more sustainable, just, and resilient future.

Dilworth Park Earns 2020 ASLA Award of Excellence

We are thrilled to announce that Dilworth Park has earned the first-ever Award of Excellence in Urban Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects! The Urban Design category was launched this year to recognize projects that mediate between social equity, economic viability, infrastructure, environmental stewardship, and beautiful place-making in the public and private realm. The Award of Excellence is the highest honor offered in each of ASLA’s award categories, with the potential of only one project in each category earning this distinguished accolade each year. 

Dilworth Park at Philadelphia’s City Hall is a lively and contemporary embodiment of William Penn’s vision for Philadelphia as a ‘Green Country Town.’ Today the park is an inclusive hub of Philadelphia’s life outdoors but for decades this was not the case. Prior to renovation Dilworth was an uninviting and inaccessible maze of raised and sunken terraces, hidden passageways, and defunct fountains surrounded by gloomy malnourished trees. The opportunity for change raised the park, both physically and metaphorically, to the prominence of its location at the foot of Philadelphia’s City Hall. The new park provides universal accessibility by bringing the entire site to street level, and encourages use throughout the day with a variety of programming. The park features a generous lawn, a café, ample seating amidst green groves of native plantings, a flexible plaza integrated with a dynamic and interactive fountain, and Pulse, a dramatic, kinetic public artwork which uses mist and light to illustrate the movement of the transit networks below-ground, simultaneously evoking the site’s history as the city’s first modern water distribution system and Philadelphia’s rich industrial legacy. The park functions as a 2.5-acre green roof, built entirely atop the nexus of Philadelphia’s multi-modal transit system. Through these interwoven layers of landscape, infrastructure, architecture, programming, and civic expression, Dilworth Park serves as a connective gateway to all of Philly’s neighborhoods and a welcoming, all-season spot for relaxation and public recreation. 

Dilworth Park was the result of a deeply collaborative, community-focused process, rooted in the vision of Philadelphia’s Center City District, led by Paul Levy. Award-winning Philadelphia-based consultancy Urban Engineers served as the prime consultant for this project, which necessitated careful navigation of dense layers of infrastructure. OLIN was the landscape architect for the project, led by Partners Susan K. Weiler, FASLA, and Richard Roark, ASLA, LEED/SITES AP, and supported by a multi-generational team of landscape architects and designers. KieranTimberlake, the celebrated architecture office, crafted the park’s iconic arched glass headhouses and the cafe, all of which provide access to the subway and trolley lines that converge directly below the site. CMS Collaborative worked with OLIN and Urban Engineers to design the custom, fully programmable scrim fountain, and world-renowned artist Janet Echelman created Pulse, which she describes as "a living X-ray of the city's circulatory system." Many other consultants contributed to the completion of the project, including CVM for structural engineering, Arup for lighting design, Lynch & Associates for irrigation systems design, and more. A full list of consultants and product suppliers can be found on the ASLA awards website here. 

“ASLA Professional Awards acknowledge exceptional projects that define and move the profession of landscape architecture forward,” said Curt Millay, Executive Secretary of the American Society of Landscape Architects. “We congratulate OLIN on this incredible achievement.”

The award will be presented during a virtual Professional Awards Ceremony later in the fall. Dilworth Park is one of 31 projects out of more than 550 applicants to be recognized across seven categories: general design, residential design, urban design, analysis & planning, communications, research, and The Landmark Award.

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are part of a tragic and ongoing list of deaths, often occurring at the hands of law enforcement, due to racist hatred and stereotypes that perpetuate harm, harassment, and the killing of Black Americans, of which there appears to be no end. We recognize that there is an infrastructure of disenfranchisement in our country’s social systems, that sanctions hate in our communities and stifles the opportunities afforded to Black people.  

There are fundamental questions that we as part of the design community have to address: how has the design of the built environment contributed to the perpetuation of these injustices and how can we contribute to ending these ingrained social and economic harms? From this moment forward our team is committed to actively serving as an ally to the Black community, toward racial, social and economic justice. We know that to move forward we must contribute to the development of public policies that empower Black and other minority voices and seek knowledge and understanding. We have to cross barriers between each other and across communities to achieve a common goal of justice and the pursuit of happiness and equity for all. 

In this moment of protest, OLIN is re-examining our capacity to do more. There is much for us to do but here are our first actions: 

• OLIN will donate $10,000 to Black-led organizations that foster social and economic justice for Black and other oppressed communities.

• OLIN, in consultation with Black leaders in Landscape Architecture will develop Black and minority hiring goals to increase minority leadership in our own studio and in our field of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.

• OLIN will invest in our employees to build a more inclusive and aware organization that is prepared to confront and redress these deeply disturbing ingrained patterns.

• Through OLIN Labs, the research component of our practice, we are launching research initiatives to expand the capacity of our practice to combat disparities caused by racial and ethnic disenfranchisement. 

These long-standing societal failures are compounded in particular with the intensification of climate change, because through generations of racist practices we have forced so many minority communities into harm's way. These social, environmental, and economic inequalities in our landscape will only intensify if we do nothing. We must act quickly with compassion and fortitude to support those communities suffering as a result of discriminatory policies. OLIN is committed to design that brings value to all, not just the privileged, and which strengthens economically challenged communities. These are the first steps to grow our commitments to help heal the traumas perpetuated by racism, but we understand the journey has just started.