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Peter Rothschild, ASLA
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J. Patrick Shea Jr., ASLA, has served the National Park Service for over 30 years. From his early professional experience as the first landscape architect assigned to Redwood National Park, where he facilitated partnerships between the three state parks within the national park boundary, to his current position as project manager and transportation technical specialist at the Denver Service Center charged with creating NPS's Alternative Transportation program, Shea has consistently produced innovative solutions that have enhanced the experience of visitors and nearby communities in park regions across the nation.
Shea directed the multidisciplinary, multiagency team that created the $28 million alternative transportation project at Zion National Park and the gateway community of Springdale, Utah—recognized as a model of sustainable design, collaborative gateway community planning and development, and public-private partnerships. Unanimously supported by visitors, park managers, and surrounding communities, this effort has revitalized transportation programs throughout the NPS and encouraged the agency to reach out to surrounding communities as never before. Zion Canyon Transportation System and Visitors Center has garnered numerous awards from organizations including ASLA, AIA, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Energy.
His work at Zion would be a fitting capstone to his lengthy career at NPS. However, in his current position, Shea now aims to bring similar programs to other parks within the national system. Becoming an ASLA Fellow provides momentum for his ongoing work as a public-service landscape architect. "This honor is energizing," Shea says. "It challenges me to continually cultivate professional passion and pass these values and opportunities on to others."
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Through her scholarship, teaching, and outreach efforts to underserved urban neighborhoods, Anne Whiston Spirn, ASLA, has distinguished herself among her academic and professional colleagues. She publishes regularly, and her writing includes not only scholarly monographs but also articles in environmental, design, and popular magazines. As dedicated to practice as to theory, Spirn uses her classes at the University of Pennsylvania and now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach and learn about how landscape architects can serve neglected inner-city landscapes. In 2001, the Cosmos Prize jury singled out her philosophy of "urban areas harmoniously coexisting with nature" and her willingness to work actively toward that goal. She is the only designer, the only woman, and the youngest person to win that coveted international award.
Spirn's childhood love of nature initially led her to study sixteenth- and seventeenth-century landscape painting at Radcliffe College. Ian McHarg's documentary "Multiply and Subdue the Earth" convinced her to apply to the landscape architecture department at Penn, where she received her MLA under his mentorship. Spirn instills her own students with the promise and principles of community design. At Penn, where she served from 1986 to 2000, she established the West Philadelphia Landscape Project (WPLP). Building on her earlier community outreach efforts at Harvard, the project became more than an inner-city regreening effort. Spirn's classes began to attack neighborhood issues within the context of more broad-based environmental issues like sustainable development, watershed management, and environmental education. Now based at MIT, the WPLP continues to this day.
In addition to teaching and community service, Spirn explores the meaning of landscape itself through poetry, writing, and photography. The Granite Garden, published in 1984, won an ASLA Award of Excellence in the category of communication. More recently, The Language of Landscape examined the role of landscape in shaping human speech. Always, Spirn's work contributes to the broader debate about the relationship between humans and nature.
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Through his teaching, research, and published writing, Frederick R. Steiner, ASLA, Dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture at Austin, has consistently advanced and broadened the practice and scope of landscape architecture. Steiner's research efforts have influenced the urban development and preservation policies of America's cities, states, and federal agencies. An internationally recognized expert on environmental planning, he has advanced the cause of sustainability around the world. His teaching and academic leadership at four universities have increased integration of sustainability into both education and practice.
Steiner has authored 12 books and 57 refereed articles in addition to countless magazine articles. His book, The Living Landscape, is a standard text in many landscape architecture programs. These substantial contributions to the profession's body of knowledge in the area of ecologically based landscape planning exist alongside very real efforts to expand the profession itself. While serving as the Director of the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture at Arizona State, Steiner established the undergraduate degree program in landscape architecture and oversaw the initial accreditation of the degree. In his current position, Steiner presided over the creation of a Master's of Landscape Architecture degree at UT Austin.
Although trained as an urban planner, Steiner has so thoroughly championed landscape architecture that he is often thought of as a landscape architect himself. Reflecting on his election to Fellowship in ASLA, Steiner observes, "I am a planner who has devoted much of my life to landscape architecture education, including helping to establish three new landscape architecture degree programs." He goes on to say, "By becoming a Fellow, I feel embraced by my fellow landscape architects. I am deeply honored and humbled."
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After receiving a Master's degree in landscape architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, Stephen C. Stimson, ASLA, opened the multidisciplinary design firm of Bunker, Stimson, Solien. The firm's first project, Site Planning Guidelines for Affordable Housing, for which Stimson was design principal, set a precedent that would become familiar to him over the years: a Merit Award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects. Later, he founded his own firm to pursue his passion for landscape architecture. Awards for planning, landscape planning, design, residential design, and institutional design followed.
Many of Stimson's notable, award-winning projects grace his native Massachusetts, where he grew up on the family dairy farm. The residential master plan for Boldwater Farm, in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard, reinterprets New England agrarian elements with a modernist expression while sensitively integrating an ambitious program with an ecologically sensitive site. A private residential design for Stone Meadow in Chilmark demonstrates restraint of form while bridging a gap between old and new with elegantly combined historic and new materials. Thomas Prince School in Princeton, for which Stimson volunteered design and construction administration services, translates elements found in the surrounding countryside. Stimson's work on the Dr. Seuss National Memorial revitalized an important civic space within the historic heart of downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. The project includes site design for a portion of a city block along with the siting of five major bronze sculptures commemorating the renowned children's author.
Stimson's projects and attention to detail led to the publication of Ten Landscapes: Stephen Simpson Associates in 2002. The book highlights not only a great designer's impeccable art and craft, but also underscores what Stimson considers an even more important accomplishment: "Building a project is not as significant as building a design practice."
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During his 42-year landscape architecture career, James R. Taylor, ASLA, has excelled as a practitioner, educator, and strong national and international advocate for the profession. With degrees from Iowa State University and the University of California, Berkeley, Taylor was founding principal of the Canadian firm Lombard North Group Ltd. He played a key role in building the profession in Canada and extending its influence to the prairie provinces.
Taylor's years of practice led to a professorship in the school of landscape architecture at the University of Guelph, including five years as the school's director. In addition to his courses in landscape planning and community design, his contributions include expanding the scope of traditional practice in Canada through research in visual assessment, tourism planning, and other regional topics.
Taylor served as president of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) and was a founding member of the Alberta Association of Landscape Architects and the CSLA/ASLA International Committee. He also was founding president of the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation and is a member and past chair of CSLA's College of Fellows. He was the CSLA representative to the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) reunification meetings and has served on numerous IFLA governing bodies. Taylor has consistently focused on promoting the profession, increasing public understanding of landscape architecture, and broadening its sphere of influence. He initiated a program introducing landscape architecture to professors in Brazil and other South American countries, helping to jump start the profession in the Southern Hemisphere. Reflecting on his many accomplishments, Taylor especially relishes the challenges of his years in academia, and "the reward of seeing former students successfully in practice."
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From early childhood, Ronald C. Tyne, ASLA, enjoyed a fascination with the natural world. As a landscape architect, business manager, and real estate developer, his strong sense of stewardship and respect for the land has made him a role model for environmentally sensitive planning and development.
While landscape architecture was in its infancy in Arkansas, Tyne made major inroads for the profession. He served as president of the Arkansas Association of Landscape Architects—predecessor of ASLA's Arkansas Chapter—and was president and CEO of a major development company, Winrock Development Company. Under Tyne's direction, Winrock became the first developer in the state to create an environmentally sensitive residential community. He assembled a natural resource conservation team of experts to analyze the land and mold the design--the first collaborative effort of its kind in Arkansas to focus on a residential community. Early in its development, the project received a Global Releaf for New Communities Award under a program jointly sponsored by American Forests and the National Association of Home Builders. Subsequent model projects won recognition from the National Arbor Day Foundation and the Arkansas Urban & Community Forestry Council, among others.
Municipal review authorities and others noted the many benefits of this low-impact approach to development. In addition to advantages for residents, improvements in stormwater runoff, air quality, and lower long-term maintenance costs proved a boon for cities. Tyne's educational efforts have redefined the knowledge base available to practicing professionals in design and engineering fields. Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Rockefeller has lauded Tyne's environmental stewardship, integrity as a developer, and focus on preserving the natural landscape. Tyne explains simply, "We really do not own the land; we only borrow it from our grandchildren."
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Perry L. Wood, ASLA, has projects to his credit along the East Coast and around the world. After 12 years with Edward Pinckney/Associates Ltd., Wood founded Wood+Partners Inc., which has exerted particular influence on development in the South Carolina Low Country. Concern for the local environment led to Wood's participation in crafting local policies concerning development, design, and preservation. He was instrumental in establishing a standard for environmentally sensitive development, setting benchmarks for architectural and site development, and creating Hilton Head Island's land management ordinance.
In charge of conceptual design for his firm, Wood has produced hallmark works that complement their natural and cultural environments. For example, the planning process for the Coastal Discovery Museum at Hilton Head Island's Honey Horn Plantation uncovered various opportunities for the museum to become an indoor and outdoor interpretive and educational site. The resulting master plan includes maritime exhibits of the salt marsh ecology and cultural history trails through restored farm areas. With hands-on educational experiences, native islander structures, and Gullah culture exhibits, the project has already attracted interest from educational and research institutions. A very different example—Perry's Berkeley Hall golf course community development in Bluffton, South Carolina—demonstrates how a highly environmentally sensitive design can meet mainstream marketing goals. The community's waterways are part of a stormwater management plan that preserves the quality of the Okatie River and marshes.
Wood doesn't consider individual projects the most satisfying aspect of his decades in the profession. Instead, he cites building a very successful practice, repeated accolades from clients, and the gratification of mentoring young people. "It's really about the talented people that work with me every day," Wood says. "It's definitely a 'we' thing, not a 'me' thing."
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Thomas F. Zarfoss, ASLA, has made his masterful mark all over Northeastern Ohio. Projects along the Lake Erie waterfront and throughout the Cuyahoga River and Doan Brook valleys have rescued and transformed important but deteriorating natural and cultural resources. Zarfoss directed his firm, Behnke Associates, Inc., in developing the Lakefront State Park Master Plan—one of the first in the nation to encourage public/private partnerships. An 18-mile lakefront bikeway, a protected harbor surrounded by museums, and an 11-mile-long urban park helped inspire and sustain Cleveland's well-known renaissance.
Zarfoss's body of work includes bold recommendations for the Cuyahoga River, which flows through Cleveland to Lake Erie. He designed parks to be juxtaposed on opposite banks of the river in an area known as "The Flats." Within a decade, The Flats became the major entertainment district between New York City and Chicago. A position on the planning team for the Ohio & Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor Management Plan followed. Within the corridor lies the 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park, where Zarfoss oversaw design and construction of a spectacular overlook deck system providing visitors safe access to Brandywine Falls, one of the park's most outstanding features. On another project, Zarfoss worked with a park trust to leverage $10 million in improvements along Doan Brook, which flows through Cleveland's Rockefeller Park. The resurrection of this urban park and its historic lagoon, along with the restoration of the parkway and Olmsted's design of the Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts Garden, have brought new life to this Lake Erie tributary.
Although Zarfoss can point to numerous notable works of landscape architecture, his colleagues remain a primary source of pride and satisfaction. "I've had wonderful people to work for and with me. This is more important to me than any single project."
LAND Online has profiled each of the 32 members of the 2004 Class of ASLA Fellows. Read part one and part two of this series.
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