Category Archives: Landscape Design
Polling all Kids!: Landscape for Play
This week one of our design teams had an opportunity to brainstorm about what makes a really great play space. We design many play areas in private gardens – ranging from sport courts to open lawn – but this was for a public space geared toward engaging kids with natural… Read More >
Garden Fence – Favorite Landscape Design Detail of the Week
A beautiful residential landscape we photographed this Spring includes one of my favorite examples of a functional element that is transformed by good design. A fence running along the length of the property is barely visible in some seasons and a highlighted design element in others. In this photo of… Read More >
Garden Landscape Details
Eye-candy time! A few of my favorite ‘detail’ shots from a variety of projects: Many of the hardscape details on this project, like this iron fence and concrete water feature, reflect the rectangular planes of the architecture. (photo Scott Shigley). Natural stone is used in a variety… Read More >
Terrarium Landscape Design for Rush University Medical Center Pavilion
Several weeks ago I posted some images on the theme of inside/outside. The open-air terrarium in the lobby of the newly completed Rush University Medical Center Brennan Entry Pavilion is a good example of the challenges and planning it takes to successfully translate the concept into reality. In the entry,… Read More >
Garden Views – Inside/Outside
Just some eye candy based on a theme today. Enjoy!
Gardens and Walkways in the University of Chicago’s Main Quad
Last week we received the great news that our work at the University of Chicago will be given a Design Excellence Award by the Society of College and University Planners (SCUP) at their national conference this year. The award commends several projects we completed within the University’s Main quad that… Read More >
Family Courtyard on the Lake
This week, Architectural Record profiled a pair of family residences in Michigan’s Harbor Country for which we designed the landscape. Not surprisingly, the feature highlights photographs of the architecture, designed by Margaret McCurry, more than the landscape design, so I thought I’d show a few images of the landscape element… Read More >
World Food Prize Hall of Laureates Garden Blooms
It’s Spring in Des Moines, Iowa. Last autumn, Nick Fobes posted a bit on what it took to complete the World Food Prize garden. Last weekend, we sent a photographer back to capture what it looks like in a new season. photo Jack Coyier The… Read More >
A Spring Like No Other on Michigan Avenue
I know this Spring is different from all other Springs, with five consecutive days at 80 degrees or higher here in Chicago alone, but nothing illustrates this to me quite as concretely as what’s happening on Michigan Avenue. Exactly one year ago, we posted a ‘Never Fear, Tulips are Nearly… Read More >
Garden Design, Runway Sublime: Photographic Landscape in Fashion
“This world is but a canvas to our imaginations.” – Henry David Thoreau, American Poet and Philosopher (1817-1862) Like all designers, I am always looking for new sources of creative inspiration and while reliable mainstays continue to be film, photography, travel and fashion, I particularly enjoy finding examples of creative… Read More >
Urban Garden Design for a Historic Home
We’re very pleased that the Illinois Chapter of the ASLA will give an honor award next month to the redesigned garden at a historic urban property in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. As a five-parcel lot, this property could easily have become over-programmed with dozens of vogue landscape amenities like a… Read More >
A Call to Urban Agriculture
I first became interested in urban agriculture in graduate school when a discussion about how to make cities more ‘sustainable’ turned to the topics of food security and food deserts. This pushed me to explore how landscape architecture can and should not only be about aesthetics but also about… Read More >
When Designing Planters, Remember the Plants
Every now and then in our travels we get a kick out of finding design solutions that are at the opposite pole of how we approach something. So as a firm that prioritizes horticulture in the public realm – and by the way, Lynden Miller’s book called Parks, Plants,… Read More >
Engaging Plants in the Garden
Camp Rosemary is a garden designed in the 1920s by Rose Standish Nichols. On a tour of the garden this summer, I took time to reflect on the formal and evocative qualities of several types of plants. Two opposing elements; the vertical and the planar, are used in this… Read More >
A Green Roof Threesome
We’re excited that the Illinois Chapter of the ASLA just awarded its highest honor for our design of three green roofs at one of the largest mixed-use complexes on Michigan Avenue. Green roofs in Chicago are hardly a new phenomenon. The city has been at the forefront… Read More >