Become a Landscape Architect
Landscape Architects Got Game: Get Swept Up in March Madness in Your Classroom
For any kid who loves basketball, their lives will be dominated by March Madness beginning March 19, ending April 8. And while your students might know every stat for the top-seeded teams, do they know that landscape architects are leaders in designing the courts used by their favorite players – and the courts they play on with their friends?
Here are a few resources to help get your landscape architecture game on in the classroom!
This Dutch Court Holds Water
On a normal day, “Water Square” in
the Dutch city of Rotterdam is a public plaza with a basketball court in the
center. But with the help of landscape architecture firm De Urbanisten, this
square is designed to be so much more than that. In extreme rain events, the
court acts as a temporary water storage space that “holds the water while the
sewage system is over-taxed and then lets the water go later.”
Learn how Rotterdam Redesigns Itself to Handle More Water in The DIRT.
The Long Game Pays Off
Brooklyn Bridge Park is a success because its designers embraced the realities of the site when they envisioned what the park could become. Winner of the ASLA 2018
Professional Award of Excellence in General Design, this unique
park was built in part over abandoned piers, guided by landscape
architect
Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA, president and CEO of Michael Van
Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. "If someone was to ask me what the coolest
part of Brookly Bridge Park was, I'd say it's the sports pier. It
attracts a cross-section of people. We have people from all walks of
life. It's kind of like a temple of basketball in the center of the
harbor," said Van
Valkenburgh.
Read more about the team of landscape Architects who breathed life into Brooklyn Bridge Park.
He Shoots, He Scores: It's All Net with This Photographer!
In Hoops, a new exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., photographer Bill Bamberger and curator Chrysanthe Broikos edited 22,000 images of basketball courts Bamberger shot around the world over the past 15 years to just 75. The focus of this exhibition is entirely on one built object — the basketball court. Completely devoid of people, Bamberger decided instead to focus on the courts themselves and what those courts tell us about the communities that created them.
Landscape Architects Slam Dunk This Solution to Stormwater!
The Mill Creek Playground was built above the buried Mill Creek, which is now one of the largest combined sewers in Philadelphia. Rain that falls on the new basketball courts passes through the porous surface and is stored in a subsurface stone bed until it can soak into the ground. The porous basketball court system was designed to manage the rainfall that falls directly onto the two basketball courts, which occupy approximately 9,000 square feet of the playground.
Laboratories of Spatial Invention
We often think of how
key players or coaches affect the evolution of a game like basketball. But we
don’t often think of how the spaces of play (i.e., the court) shape the sports
we know and love – or how they affect the neighborhoods and communities around
them. See how summer streetball tournaments in the inner-city neighborhoods of Boston
place the game within a broader mission of community building and healing
in The
Architecture of Sports.
K-12 Teachers - Inspire and Design Hoop Dreams
in Your Classroom!
Fun and Inspirational Suit up! Grab your VR goggles (cell phone, laptop or desktop computer) and immerse yourself in the
Brooklyn Bridge Park Virtual Reality Tour.
Did your school make the cut? Check out 9 of the most interesting court
designs in college basketball
Can you spot the basketball court in this Denmark park?
Basketball Court Designers for NBA, NCAA, and Teams Who Want to Dominate
At Expressing Their School Pride
This Basketball Court in Hong Kong Made National Geographic’s Photo of
the Day
Her Pro Dreams Shot, This Muslim Player Pivots To The Next
Generation
UTEP Don Haskins gets a new design
Memphis Basketball: New Court Build and Reveal Time-Lapse
GW Court Redesign Unveiling
Have questions about ASLA's Career Discovery and Diversity efforts? Contact Lisa J. Jennings, Career Discovery and Diversity Manager at ljennings@asla.org.