News

The London 2012 Olympic Park has won two awards at the UK’s most prestigious landscape awards ceremony held at the Congress Centre in central London. LDA-Design, Hargreaves Associates, Arup and Atkins, the design team behind the Olympic Park, have been named winner of the 2012 Landscape Institute President’s Award. The Olympic Delivery Authority has been named winner of the 2012 Landscape Institute Peter Youngman Award. Both awards recognize not only the special nature of the Olympic Park project, but also the extraordinary achievement it represents.

Speaking about her choice for the President’s Award, Landscape Institute President Sue Illman said: “It is rare that a project can attract so many superlatives and such a consensus as to its achievements, whilst also providing practical lessons in restoration, sustainability, regeneration and the art of the possible. In selecting this project for the President’s Award I salute the skill, determination and commitment of the project team in delivering the Olympic Park that inspired us all, and made the country proud.?

The Peter Youngman Award, which is awarded to a project or individual that has made an outstanding contribution to landscape architecture, is presented to the Olympic Delivery Authority as a celebration of the leadership, innovation, skill and dedication shown by all members of the profession involved in the planning, design and creation of the Olympic Park. The Award recognizes the role the project has played as the most significant demonstration of the value and importance of investment in landscape at the heart of high quality public open space. It is presented to the Olympic Delivery Authority as the client body responsible for the creation of the Olympic Park.

21 years in the making, the Louisville Waterfront Master Plan is fully realized:

Please visit this website for further details.

Working with architects Williams and Tsien, Hargreaves Associates designed the landscape for The Logan Arts Center at the University of Chicago. The project’s grand opening is scheduled for October, 2012. The 2 acre landscape is a series of garden rooms ?courtyard, terrace, garden, lawn, and meadow ?that extend off the building. Each room contains a single row or allee of trees. A distinct species is selected for each room, enhancing the individual character of each space as well as contributing to the campus as botanic garden. Read more

Keppel Bay, a project completed with Studio Daniel Libeskind, has been awarded The International Architecture Award by the Chicago Athenaeum. The International Architecture Awards are the highest and most prestigious building awards program that honor new and cutting-edge design. In October 2012, a special exhibition of all awarded buildings will be presented at an annual symposium, “The City and the World?in Istabul, Turkey in conjunction with the Istanbul Biennial.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones announces that the Richmond Riverfront Plan is a transformative element of the larger city master planning effort that, “redefines the City-River relationship.? Hargreaves Associates issued the draft document in February 2012, with City Council adoption expected in the fall of 2012.

The Richmond, Virginia City Council unanimously approved the Hargreaves Associates-authored Riverfront Master Plan on 26 November 2012. The Plan amends the 2002 City of Richmond Master Plan, and builds upon the 2009 Downtown Plan to identify priority connections between the James River and downtown Richmond. The Richmond, Virginia Planning Commission approved the plan on 4 September 2012.

The Riverfront Plan focuses on the James River landscape, redevelopment parcels, and connective transportation corridors to improve access and establish new and diverse destinations for recreation, living and commerce along one of the best urban rivers in the country. The Plan provides a phased strategy for achieving a sustainable riverfront corridor that reaffirms the James River as the heart of Richmond.

Outside magazine recently designated Richmond as the “best river town,” based in part on residents enthusiastic readiness to engage and advocate for the potential of the James River that the Riverfront Plan has helped catalyze. Please visit this website for further details.

Belo Garden opened on May 10th, 2012 with a formal dedication ceremony and weekend full of community oriented events. As the second of three downtown parks proposed by Hargreaves Associates and Carter & Burgess in the Dallas Downtown Parks Master Plan, Belo Garden will play an important role in realizing the Master Plan’s goal of transforming the character, perception, and livability of downtown Dallas. Belo Garden is conceived as a rich and diverse respite within the urban environment, offering native perennial gardens and shaded groves that take their cue from the regional Texas landscape, a central plaza for casual gatherings and informal performances, and an interactive leaf-shaped fountain that creates playful visual interest and activity in the heart of the park while mitigating summer heat. A 9?high hill provides enclosure from the street and views over the central fountain plaza, while the Garden Grove offers a shaded lunchtime retreat. Belo Garden is a public private partnership with major contributions from the Belo Foundation and the City of Dallas. Read more

Located on the Cumberland River’s east bank under the Shelby Street Bridge, the 6.5 acre Cumberland Park creates a special place that gives Nashvillians many more reasons to enjoy downtown. The park is the flagship for the New Riverfront Revitalization Plan endorsed by the community in 2010 and features an undulating washboard with embedded play equipment, an interactive splash pad with jets and wading pool, a stone climbing wall featuring local Tennessee Crab Orchard sandstone, ropes and nets courses, and a 4-person wide embankment slide. Several areas of free play are also provided, including a shaded picnic lawn, stepping stone paths dipping through drifts of mist, meandering paths weaving through butterfly meadows, and an outdoor amphitheater and stage with a spectacular backdrop of the Shelby Street Bridge and downtown Nashville. A restored gantry crane and catwalk projecting over the river provide for views of passing boats. A rain water harvesting cistern collects 1,000,000 gallons of stormwater annually that is reused for park irrigation. Inspired by the geology of Tennessee, the landscape provides all the fun needed with water, light, stone, rolling grass, trees, ridges and valleys. Children’s imaginations provide the rest so the design does not rely on conventional playground equipment. It is a park that turns its site-specific qualities into a great place where families can spend a day, have fun and learn something of their riverfront history.

Hargreaves Associates, in collaboration with Ratcliff Architects, has received the AIA East Bay Honor Award for design excellence for the recently completed UC Berkeley School of Law project. The project includes a major new library addition which will house high efficiency archival stacks, classroom and lecture facilities, student center, and an at-grade cafe pavilion. The centerpiece pavilion is flanked by two shaded courtyards with custom benches that are configured for multiple scales of group gathering in support of the school’s unique team study curriculum. Atop the pavilion is a 6,000sf rooftop garden, including outdoor dining areas, teaching and event space, and drought tolerant succulent plantings, all oriented to maximize western views to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The UC Berkeley School of Law Renovation has received a SCUP, AIA-CAE award for Excellence in Architecture for Building Additions or Adaptive Reuse. The Hargreaves Associates design with Ratcliff Architecture included the transformation of College Avenue Plaza, the West Terrace and the Law School, replacing aged and inwardly-focused landscapes with open and inviting plazas, courtyards and roof decks at the university’s west gate.