October 24, 2015 - Renowned Seattle historian, Paul Dorpat, was interviewed by his collaborator Jean Sherrard at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus, designed by GGN to evoke its natural history. Today's Seattle Times / Pacific Magazine's Seattle Now & Then includes Dorpat and Sherrard's dramatic comparison of historic and new photos of this site.
Read MoreOctober 22, 2015 - This evening Yakima Central Plaza received a Citation Award from AIA Central Washington. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is working closely on this project with Graham Baba Architects and Magnusson Klemencic Associates.
Read MoreOctober 10, 2015 - Today Sara Zewde will present at the Black in Design conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. "Dedicated to the pursuit of just and equitable spaces across all scales, this conference will broach conversations in increasing orders of magnitude: the building, the neighborhood, the city, the region, and the globe." Sara's presentation will take place during the City session with Justin Garrett Moore, Liz Ogbu, and Sherri Franklin.
Update: On October 21, Petra Marar reported on the conference, quoting Sara in her article for The Dirt,Harvard’s "Black in Design” Conference: Addressing Social Injustice with Design.
Read MoreSeptember 24, 2015 - Sara Zewde asked "Who is fighting for equitable access to delight?" during her Design for Equity presentation this evening. Through examples of her design work in Freedmen’s Town, the 4th Ward neighborhood of Houston, Texas, Sara explored the challenges designers face within the discourse of equity.
The event was hosted by Pecha Kucha Seattle in partnership with Design in Public, the Northwest African American Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Public Library, the City of Seattle Department of Planning, Urban Land Institute Northwest, Forterra, and the Seattle Architecture Foundation. It took place at the Seattle Central Library.
Read MoreSeptember 14, 2015 - Several talented individuals have joined the staff of landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN).
Meg Herndon joined as an Associate, and Jasmine Aryana joined as a Project Manager. Michael Benson, Kristelle Boulos, Peter Malandra, Philip Syvertsen, Joan Walbert, and Sara Zewde joined GGN as Designers, with Aria Goodman joining as Graphic Designer. Mary Lange and Laurel Li joined the team as Design Interns. Caitlin Jorgensen and Adrienne Leach joined as Administrators.
Learn more about each of these individuals.
Read MoreSeptember 14, 2015 - Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) is pleased to announce the promotion of several key team members.
Tess Schiavone was promoted to Principal. Jill Fortuna, Lynda Olson, Cass Salzwedel, and Emily Scott were promoted to Senior Associates. Annelise Aldrich, Jordan Bell, Chihiro Shinohara Donovan, Patrick Keegan, Makie Suzuki, and Yuichiro Tsutsumi were promoted to Associates. Selina Hunstiger, Bryn Kepler, Ju Liu, and Katia Rios were promoted to Designers.
Learn more about each of these individuals.
Read MoreJuly 13, 2015 - Today Lynn Porter of the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce (DJC) announced the opening of the University of Washington Lower Rainier Vista. Named for its view to Mt. Rainier, the Rainier Vista is a half-mile long pedestrian mall that visually connects Red Square to Mt. Rainier through Drumheller Fountain. It is a historic component of the University of Washington’s campus layout, and the “fountain to mountain” experience is a memorable one for generations of the university and broader communities.
Read MoreJune 29, 2015 - DeepRoot has released a video featuring David Malda explaining how Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is rethinking downtown streets. The video, “The Street as the Future Opportunity – Perspectives on the Right-of-Way,” is one of several discussions developed during a recent design charrette hosted by DeepRoot and the Landscape Architecture Foundation in Seattle, WA.
During this short 3-minute video, David outlines GGN’s streets philosophy and inquiry. "As we're thinking about streets and trying to approach them as landscapes, we're seeing that this has got to be a broader discussion than just a narrow strip of planting... this has got to be about the whole idea of a street and how people think about cities. What do we expect from our downtown?"
The charrette was the topic of two blog posts: “Sustaining nature and natural processes in the ultra-urban environment” by Matthew Alcide of Land8 and “When ‘Parking’ Meant ‘Space for Trees’” by Michelle Richmond of DeepRoot.
June 24, 2015 - Today, Kathryn Gustafson received an honorary doctorate from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain.
Read MoreJune 23, 2015 - Today the American Society for Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced that Kathryn Gustafson has been elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows, one of the highest honors a landscape architect may receive. The new class of Fellows will be recognized at the 2015 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO, November 6-9, in Chicago.
Today’s ASLA announcement noted that Kathryn received her nomination from the Washington Chapter. The announcement stated that Kathryn "is working throughout Europe, North America, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Her methodology empowers others, and her design process centers on rigorous site analysis. She shapes sensually pleasing and beguilingly simple landforms as the basis of her design. Her landscapes can be dramatic or remarkably understated. She believes passionately in the importance of everyday, public spaces and their ability to foster civic responsibility.”
Read MoreMarch 24, 2015 - Jennifer Guthrie and Shannon Nichol will present a lecture in Knowlton Hall’s Gui Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25. The lecture is free and open to the public. Guthrie and Nichol are the Spring 2015 Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professors at the Knowlton School.
As part of the Knowlton School’s commitment to bringing the highest level of design thinking to its students and the community at large, the Baumer Lecture Series invites prominent researchers and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture and city planning to present their work in a variety of areas. These lectures offer technical, cultural and theoretical understanding of the contemporary built environment and represent the contemporary and future state of the art in design thinking.
The Baumer Lecture Series is made possible from support provided by the Herbert Baumer Fund.
March 24, 2015 - Tomorrow evening is the opening reception for the exhibit The City: Beautiful | Gustafson Guthrie Nichol at The Cleveland Mall at the Knowlton School’s Banvard Gallery. The 7:00pm opening reception is timed to follow the Baumer Lecture Series presentation by Jennifer Guthrie and Shannon Nichol, who are the Spring 2015 Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professors.
The exhibit is a collaboration between GGN and Landscape Architecture students at Ohio State University. The show documents GGN’s work on The Cleveland Mall and attempts to situate and contextualize The Cleveland Group Plan within the larger canon of the City Beautiful Movement – an urban design movement that had major ramifications for many American cities at the turn of the century. Ohio State student drawings included in the show capture and analyze the physical changes that have occurred within the boundaries of the Group Plan over the last century.
The Gallery is located on the first floor of Knowlton Hall on the campus of The Ohio State University. It is open Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm and admission is free. The exhibit runs through April 10.
January 28, 2015 - It was announced this week that Jennifer Guthrie and Shannon Nichol are the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professors at the Knowlton School at Ohio State University during the spring 2015 semester.
Seminar students will visit Cleveland this week with Shannon and GGN Senior Associate David Malda. In February, students will travel to the GGN offices in Seattle and tour several GGN-designed landscapes. In March, Shannon and Jennifer will teach in the Glimcher Seminar in the school’s Landscape Architecture Section and give a public presentation as part of the Baumer Lecture Series. An exhibit at the school's Banvard Gallery is also planned.
For more than a decade, the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professorship is held each year by an internationally acclaimed practitioner in the field of landscape architecture. Previous Glimcher Professors have included Michel Desvigne, Adriaan Geuze, Tom Leader, Peter Walker and Michael Van Valkenburgh.
December 17, 2014 - This morning, several San Antonio news sources are reporting on the design for the civic park at Hemisfair. The Gustafson Guthrie Nichol team unveiled the design for the new 16-acre civic park last night at the Institute of Texan Cultures. The public presentation shared the design team’s research of the city and the region, specifics of the park’s features, and conceptual renderings of the civic park.
The Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation (HPARC) has shepherded the development of the civic park’s program with active community participation through public work sessions and surveys. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol participated in this outreach, and the publicly generated programming ideas formed the foundation of the design process.
The Gustafson Guthrie Nichol design creates a place that fits San Antonio’s life, character, and vision. "San Antonio's unique culture is rooted in a rich heritage of outdoor gathering,” said Founding Principal Kathryn Gustafson. “The civic park presents a new capacity for the city's greatest celebrations while also establishing the foundation for new urban growth and connections."
Learn more in reports by Katherine Nickas for the Rivard Report, Benjamin Olivo for the San Antonio Express News, and Stephanie Serna for KSAT TV-12. [Also Aaron Seward for The Architect's Newspaper, published April 2015.]
December 9, 2014 - The Press-Telegram reported today that "Plenary-Edgemoor Civic Partners has been tapped to develop a new Civic Center through a public-private partnership blending residential units, retail shops, restaurants and a hotel with government facilities in shared space."
GGN is part of the Plenary-Edgemoor team. "The committee strongly preferred Plenary-Edgemoor’s design as 'cohesive' and 'attractive,' with crucial design goals fulfilled such as the placement of a civic plaza between the government buildings, and integrating the Main Library and Lincoln Park into the urban surroundings."
Read the full article here.
December 3, 2014 - Today Seattle’s first Downtown parklet opened for public use. The Chromer Building Parklet, located just a block from Pike Place Market at 1516 Second Avenue in the heart of Downtown, was designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and built by Krekow Jennings. Developer Urban Visions invested in the urban parklet nestled between Pike and Pine streets.
In addition to providing much-needed, comfortable, and free places to sit for the many people who visit the popular food trucks and takeout businesses in the Pike Place Market area, the Chromer Building Parklet will also serve as a flexible, central platform for Seattle’s design community.
“Parklets are useful because they are small, exciting transformations that can be applied independently of more substantial work, on top of the existing surface of a street. They can go specifically where property owners and neighbors request and initiate them,” said Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Founding Principal Shannon Nichol. "The City's parklet program is well-aligned with the Downtown Seattle Association's Pike-Pine Renaissance Streetscape Plan, in which avenues become greener, more richly used ‘rooms’ with great places to sit – including parklets.”
More information can be found in articles by Josh Feit of PubliCola at Seattle Met and Sam Lubell of The Architect's Newspaper.
November 19, 2014 - Today landscape architect Kathryn Gustasfon received the eighth Obayashi Prize from the Obayashi Foundation in Tokyo, Japan. The Obayashi Foundation is dedicated to support comprehensive, interdisciplinary research related to cities. Previous recipients of the prize have included the economist Paul Krugman, the curator Germain Viatte, and the urban planner Zhou Ganzhi.
The Obayashi Foundation noted the reasons for selecting Kathryn Gustafson. “During her career Ms. Kathryn Gustafson has contributed numerous works to the world of landscape architecture. By perceptively reading the ecological, cultural, and historical attributes of the land and sculpting spaces that evoke a sense of unity with the site, her works let those who gather there feel physically and spiritually at one with the land, promoting integration of people and space and creating places that enrich our lives. The key to her skill lies in making the most of the special allure of the land to craft a new place, rather than simply continuing to remodel spaces with no regard to what has gone before.
“. . . Ms. Gustafson’s ideas, which focus on designing landscapes and places to revitalize our relationships with the spaces around us, have had a profound impact on people involved with various aspects of cities. Her many achievements based on these concepts help to fulfill the mission of our foundation and are truly worthy of the Obayashi Prize.”
September 29, 2014 - Today the American Society of Landscape Architecture announced that Gustafson Guthrie Nichol has received an Honor Award in Analysis and Planning for Unified Ground: Union Square – National Mall Competition.
Principal Rodrigo Abela commented, "Our design greatly improves the connections between the National Mall and the Capitol grounds. That connectivity enhances the monumental character of the site while simultaneously giving it a more human scale that will bring life and activity to Union Square and make it a vital part of the Capitol city."
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol has also received the singular 2014 ASLA Award of Excellence in General Design for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus. More information about these awards is available on the ASLA website.
September 29, 2014 - Today the American Society of Landscape Architecture announced that Gustafson Guthrie Nichol has received the singular Award of Excellence in General Design for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus.
“The Award of Excellence is a wonderful honor for our team and for this outstanding client,” said Founding Principal Shannon Nichol. “For eight years, we worked closely with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NBBJ, and our other collaborators, forming, testing, and fine-tuning this campus landscape design – both above and below the surface. In the spirit of the Foundation's work, the landscape is designed to be boldly welcoming, warmly textured, and precisely detailed. New solutions for water handling and habitat creation were integrated into welcoming spaces for people.”
The landscape design is “a new model for an urban campus, where craft, beauty, and green technology all come together,” stated a jury member commenting on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus. Another jury member remarked, “It’s a beautiful landscape in the very active way they make sure employees walk through the place, and it’s wonderfully crafted.”
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol has also received a national Honor Award in Analysis and Planning for Unified Ground: Union Square – National Mall Competition.
More information about these awards is available on the ASLA website.
July 30, 2014 - Yesterday Gustafson Guthrie Nichol presented three design options for the Hemisfair Civic Park. Over 200 people attended the public workshop to ask questions and give feedback about the Park’s design.
Andres Andujar, CEO of Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation (HPARC), introduced the design team. Kathryn Gustafson, founding principal of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), presented the team’s design ideas, along with Drew Gangnes, senior principal at Magnusson Klemencic Associates. Joined by several members of GGN’s Seattle office, the design team interacted with 20 round tables led by volunteer facilitators.
Civic engagement is a vital part of the design process. Last year, the public helped produce the Civic Park Vision and Programming Plan, which became the foundation for the design options presented at yesterday’s public meeting. Then during yesterday's meeting, each round table evaluated the design concepts and identified common themes with the help of a volunteer facilitator, who presented each group’s preferences and concerns to the room. This information will inform Gustafson Guthrie Nichol’s final design.
Learn more about the public workshop in this article by Iris Dimmick for the Rivard Report.
