April 21, 2017 – Today Bernie Alonzo presented at the 2017 Utah Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Meeting. He also led tour of the NuSkin Campus and Grounds with Matthew Burke, Global Facilities Director of NuSkin.
Read MoreApril 19, 2017 – Three talented individuals have joined the staff of GGN.
Lesley Conroy joins the DC branch as a Designer, holding a Master of Landscape Architecture from Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Architecture Center.
Azzurra Cox joins the Seattle office as a Designer with a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She returns to the United States after working in Lisbon, Portugal.
Jillian Strobel joins as a Marketing Coordinator in Seattle. She earned a Masters in Business Administration from Claremont Graduate University.
Read MoreApril 13, 2017 – Rebecca Fuchs, Jill Fortuna and Chihiro Donovan will be presenting at the 2017 Washington Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Conference on Friday April 21, 2017.
Rebecca Fuchs will present “Grown to Survive: How the New Burke Museum Project is Using Forestry Science to Change the Way We Grow and Specify Plants in Landscape Architecture Projects,” with Bridget McNassar from Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center. The Burke Museum project team is learning from the fields of forestry and restoration how to increase the survival rates of new plantings in harsh urban environments, which has implications for changes to plant specifications and project bid timelines.
Jill Fortuna and Chihiro Donovan will present “Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture: Lessons Learned – How Construction informs Placemaking” with Brett Rugo and Duane Kreuger. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), which opened in September of 2016, is located on the last open site in the National Mall in Washington, DC, sharing an adjacency to both the Washington Monument and the White House. Jill Fortuna will begin the session discussing how the design evolved from respecting the unique and inherent location of the Museum, then focusing on how the construction process was influenced by the important historical themes of the project.
Both presentations will take place from 3:15 – 4:15pm on April 21, 2017 at the Spokane Convention Center, 334 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201.
Read MoreApril 11, 2017 – Yesterday, the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) announced that GGN has received the Excellence in Landscape Architecture for General Design for Lower Rainier Vista & Pedestrian Land Bridge as an Honor Award Recipient for 2017.
Winning entries appear on SCUP’s website and in an online booklet publication of the awards. In addition, members of the jury will present a concurrent session on Monday, July 10 at SCUP–52, the Annual International Conference in Washington, DC July 8-12, 2017. They will discuss observations from this year’s submittals, what was “excellent,” best practices and the challenges that lie ahead for higher education.
Photo credit: Catherine Tighe
Read MoreApril 10, 2017 – Kathryn Gustafson will deliver a lecture as part of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Public Lecture Series. The series is part of the Spring 2017 program of lectures, panels, exhibitions and conferences aimed at bringing creative leaders to the School.
The presentation will take place at Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium on Thursday, April 13, 2017 from 6:30 – 8:30PM and is free and open to the public.
Read MoreApril 6, 2017 – “Pratt Fine Arts Center is marking its 40th birthday by announcing plans for a full-block expansion of its campus in Seattle's Central District,” writes Marc Stiles for the Puget Sound Business Journal. “The nonprofit on Monday said it will work with Seattle development company Daniels Real Estate. Daniels is planning a six-story mixed-use apartment building that will be anchored by new studio, gallery and office spaces for Pratt Fine Arts Center.”
Graham Baba Architects and GGN are working to extend the campus across three-quarters of the block between South Jackson and Main streets and 19th and 20th Avenues South. The Studio expansion will surround an outdoor public courtyard and the project will include a new community art gallery on South Jackson Street.
Read MoreApril 5, 2017 – Rodrigo Abela has been selected as a member of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations Industry Advisory Group. The group is comprised of up to 35 noted professionals drawn a wide range of design-related industries.
The IAG serves the U.S. government in a solely advisory capacity concerning industry and academia's latest concepts, methods, best practices, innovations and ideas related to OBO's mission to provide safe, secure and functional facilities that represent the U.S. government to the host nation and support diplomatic staff in the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives. These facilities represent the best in American architecture, engineering, technology, sustainability, art, culture, and construction execution.
Read MoreMarch 29, 2017 – The groundbreaking celebration for Frost Tower took place today at 10:00am, 111 West Houston Street in San Antonio, TX. Grant Stewart, Managing Principal, attended with members of the project team.
Frost Tower is a welcome addition to the San Antonio skyline, which has not seen a new office tower since 1989. The project is part of an ongoing revitalization of downtown San Antonio, and will connect San Pedro Creek and the adjacent Frost Park through the creation of a promenade along Houston Street. The 400,000 sq. ft. tower is designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli for Weston Urban and its development partner KDC.
"Excitement is a word too-often used at groundbreakings, but after all of the work, time and manpower that went into the intricate public-private partnership agreement among Weston Urban, the City of San Antonio and Frost Bank, it's a valid one to describe the start of one of the city's largest developments." writes Katie Burke for the San Antonio Business Journal. GGN is pleased to be working with this exceptional team.
Photo: Mayor Ivy Taylor speaks at the groundbreaking (photo credit: Grant Stewart)
March 23, 2017 – Today the Puget Sound Business Journal announced that GGN is designing the landscape for REI’s new headquarters at the Spring District in Bellevue, WA. Marc Stiles writes, “The campus will have bridges spanning courtyards, outdoor staircases, rooftop walkways and outdoor meeting spaces. There will also be outdoor space for employees to exercise and host community events.”
GGN is the landscape architect for the Spring District, being developed by Wright Runstad. In addition to REI, the development includes the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), currently under construction. Earlier in the development process, GGN completed the Spring District Park.
Read MoreMarch 24, 2017 – As part of the inaugural symposium of the University of Virginia’s Center for Cultural Landscapes, “Race and Public Space: Commemorative Practices in the American South”, Sara Zewde will be presenting on the panel: “Spatializing Commemoration: Urban Design Considerations” on Saturday, March 25. Sara explores the relationship between ecology, culture, and memory as powerful departure points for design and urban planning. For the panel, she considers contested sites of commemoration in the southeastern United States and proposes methods of design to draw from their cultural memory.
This two-day event is sponsored by the UVA School of Architecture Sara Shallenberger Brown Cultural Landscapes & Sites Initiative. The symposium will take place at the UVA School of Architecture in Charlottesville, Virginia. All events are free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Read MoreMarch 23, 2017 – Today the Puget Sound Business Journal announced that GGN is designing the landscape for REI’s new headquarters at the Spring District in Bellevue, WA. Marc Stiles writes, “The campus will have bridges spanning courtyards, outdoor staircases, rooftop walkways and outdoor meeting spaces. There will also be outdoor space for employees to exercise and host community events.”
The article notes that the “eight-acre REI campus is just one part of the [36-acre] Spring District, which at $2.3 billion is the second-largest construction project in the region.” Developed by Wright Runstad Co., the Spring District “will have 5.3 million square feet of office, residential and retail space. Apartments are going up in the district along with the Global Innovation Exchange. GIX is an institute that will offer master's degrees through a partnership of the University of Washington, Microsoft and China's Tsinghua University.”
GGN is the landscape architect for the Spring District. The GIX landscape is under construction, and earlier in the development process, GGN completed the Spring District Park.
Read MoreMarch 21, 2017 – Shannon Nichol is the 2017 John R. Bracken Lecturer and Exhibitor at the Penn State Department of Landscape Architecture.
The exhibit of Shannon’s process drawings, titled “Repair Works,” is open today, March 21 at the Stuckeman School's Rouse Gallery. The exhibit features two projects, Lower Rainier Vista & Pedestrian Land Bridge at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago, IL. Free to the public, the gallery is open from 9am – 4pm each weekday, and the exhibit will run through the end of May.
The lecture, to be delivered on Wednesday, March 22 from 6:00 – 8:00pm at the Stuckeman Jury Space, will build on the “Repair Works” theme of the exhibit. “GGN is particularly interested in design work that does not bestow a novel layer of design onto a clean-slate site, but, instead, strategically repairs a ‘messy and broken’ transitional space in a city,” says Shannon. “Novel solutions can be found by fixing the old, in situ systems and designs of a highly altered site.”
The Penn State Department of Landscape Architecture lecture series, which began in the spring of 1982, honors Dr. Bracken, who was among the first to graduate from Penn State with an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture. Dr. Bracken served as department head from 1924 to 1957 and active professor emeritus until 1979.
Read MoreMarch 8, 2017 – Lesia Mokrycke is exhibiting work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Arthur Ross Gallery in Philadelphia. The group show, Landscape / Soundscape, explores the desire to unite image and sound through compelling pairings of photographs and soundscapes. The exhibit is on display through March 26.
Sound artists from throughout the United States and United Kingdom were invited to create soundscapes in response to photographs from Penn’s University Art Collection. In tandem with Landscape / Soundscape, Lesia was selected through a juried selection of MFA projects to show her photograph titled Passage with an accompanying sound piece on the gallery’s digital interactive kiosk.
Lesia’s work, Passage, investigates landscape as a line walked between two undisclosed sites in Alberta’s boreal forest. These routes of travel form connections between places, but they also point toward layers of history and time. Traversals across landscapes mark points of orientation, inform decisions made at critical moments along a journey, and embody the implications of choices made and enacted. A path is not just a line drawn across the surface of the ground, it is also a cultural expression.
Read MoreMarch 8, 2017 – Kara Weaver hosted a council meeting for members of the University of Washington’s Professional Advisory Council (PAC) at GGN. This is a volunteer group of practicing landscape architects, formed to support the Department’s teaching, outreach and fundraising efforts.
The PAC participates in various departmental events, serves as a sounding board for the Chair, and provides valuable input to the Department on professional issues, trends and opportunities as they relate to the teaching of landscape architecture. In doing so, it connects the Department with the professional community, grounds the program in actual practice, and expands the capacity of the Department at a time when University resources are limited.
Read MoreFebruary 13, 2017 - GGN is pleased to be a founding sponsor of Drawing in Design at the University of Washington College of Built Environments. This year’s series opened on Friday evening with the lecture "Drawing the Pictures in Your Mind" by Alan Maskin, a partner at Olson Kundig. The lecture was followed by a weekend drawing workshop at Olson Kundig led by Alan, Laura Bartunek, and Jerome Tryon. Several university students attended the workshop, and they were joined by GGNers Katherine Liss, Stephanie Brucart, Therese Graf, and Philip Syvertsen.
Update, March 8, 2017: A video of Alan Maskin’s lecture “Drawing the Pictures in Your Mind” is now available, with an introduction by Thaisa Way.
Read MoreFebruary 7 2017 - Kathryn Gustafson will be lecturing at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, Gin D. Wong, FAIA Conference Center, Harris Hall tomorrow, Wednesday, February 8 at 6pm. Lectures are free and open to the public. No reservations are required.
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2017 - GGN is currently seeking applicants for 2017 summer internships in Seattle, WA and Washington, DC. Landscape architecture students, architecture students and recent graduates are encouraged to apply.
GGN’s internship program offers exposure to many facets of the profession and the opportunity to work on projects with all members of the firm. Interns will gain experience in design, documentation, coordination with other disciplines, project management, marketing, and construction administration.
More information is available here. Should you wish to post information about this opportunity, a printable flyer is also available at the link.
Application deadline is February 21, 2017.
Read MoreJanuary 23, 2017 - Jill Fortuna began her 4-year term as a volunteer on the Clarb LARE Exam writing committee this past weekend in Orlando, FL, where she met with her group, "Section 3 - Design," for two full days to review, edit, evaluate and re-write part of the Landscape Architecture licensing exam. She will continue this process with Clarb twice a year. "The organization, intelligence and sophistication of the committee that Clarb has formulated is truly inspiring and impressive,” said Jill. “I feel confident that we are working to keep the LARE exam relevant and of the highest standards for today's candidates and for the future of the Landscape Architecture profession, and I’m thrilled and honored to be part of such a dedicated team."
Read MoreJanuary 11, 2017 - Several talented individuals have joined the staff of GGN and a key team member has been promoted.
Stephanie Brucart joins as a Designer with a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, where she also taught several design studios and drawing classes.
Therese Graf joins as a Designer, bringing her national and international experience and studies.
Seth Gray joins as an Associate. With 13 years experience, he has collaborated significant projects throughout the Midwest.
Rikerrious Geter has been promoted from Design Intern to Designer. Rikerrious is a LEED Green Associate and recent graduate of the University of Georgia College of Environment and Design.
Read MoreJanuary 9, 2017 – This evening, Architecture in the Schools is hosting a reception at the District Architecture Center for students and parents to celebrate the work created during the Fall 2016 semester. As part of this program, Emily Scott volunteered in a kindergarten class for eight weeks at Bunker Hill Elementary School teaching “Motion and Stability.” The students learned about measuring, stability, shapes, and materials. In the photo above, the students are drawing the shapes they see on the façade of the school.
Architecture in the Schools (AIS) matches volunteer architects with public school teachers to enrich the learning experience of children. AIS has reached more than 20,000 children in metropolitan Washington DC schools all wards of the District since it began in 1992.
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