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Jessica Schwartz
The Infrastructure Act & New Landscape Opportunities
The House of Representatives recently passed the bi-partisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which makes significant investments in the nation’s transportation, water, renewable energy, and broadband infrastructure. So what could it mean for landscape professionals? Here’s just a few highlights as summarized from the article “Landscape Architects Poised to Lead New Era of Infrastructure” by Roxanne Blackwell, Esq., director of federal government affairs at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The legislation incorporates 13 of the transportation, water, and natural resource policy recommendations sent by ASLA’s Government Affairs team to Congressional leaders. The package creates new programs that will allow landscape opportunities nationwide. These include the Healthy Streets Initiative, as well as programs to remove invasive plants, create habitat for pollinators on highway rights-of-way, and plan and design new wildlife crossings. Healthy Streets Program: $500 million over five years ($100 million a year) for a new trust fund-financed grant program that can be used for cool and porous pavements and expanding tree cover in order to mitigate urban heat islands, improve air quality, and reduce impervious surfaces, stormwater runoff, and flood risks. Priority is given to projects in low-income or disadvantaged communities. Maximum grant amount is $15 million. Invasive Plant Elimination: $250 million over five years to eliminate or control existing invasive plants along transportation corridors. Support for Pollinators: $10 million over five years to benefit pollinators on roadsides and highway rights-of-way. Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program: $350 million over five years from the Highway Trust Fund. ...
The Infrastructure Act & New Landscape Opportunities
The House of Representatives recently passed the bi-partisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which makes significant investments in the nation’s transportation, water, renewable energy, and broadband infrastructure. So what could it mean for landscape professionals? Here’s just a few highlights as summarized from the article “Landscape Architects Poised to Lead New Era of Infrastructure” by Roxanne Blackwell, Esq., director of federal government affairs at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The legislation incorporates 13 of the transportation, water, and natural resource policy recommendations sent by ASLA’s Government Affairs team to Congressional leaders. The package creates new programs that will allow landscape opportunities nationwide. These include the Healthy Streets Initiative, as well as programs to remove invasive plants, create habitat for pollinators on highway rights-of-way, and plan and design new wildlife crossings. Healthy Streets Program: $500 million over five years ($100 million a year) for a new trust fund-financed grant program that can be used for cool and porous pavements and expanding tree cover in order to mitigate urban heat islands, improve air quality, and reduce impervious surfaces, stormwater runoff, and flood risks. Priority is given to projects in low-income or disadvantaged communities. Maximum grant amount is $15 million. Invasive Plant Elimination: $250 million over five years to eliminate or control existing invasive plants along transportation corridors. Support for Pollinators: $10 million over five years to benefit pollinators on roadsides and highway rights-of-way. Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program: $350 million over five years from the Highway Trust Fund. ...
Brooklyn Bridge Park Wins International Landscape Prize
A U.S. landscape project, the Brooklyn Bridge Park, beat out ten other entries to win the 2021 Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize last month at the 11th International Landscape Architecture Biennial in Barcelona, Spain. Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh and built over the past 20 years, Brooklyn Bridge Park in NY spans 85 acres along 1.3 miles of the East River waterfront. The project has transformed the hardened industrial site of abandoned warehouses, obsolete piers, and decaying bulkheads into a vibrant public space. Today, park elements improve public access, reanimate six piers, and restore ecological diversity, blurring the edge between the East River and the park. The majority of the site was a defunct bulk cargo shipping and storage complex, built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the 1950s but rendered obsolete by the rise of container shipping. Out of operation since 1983 and cut off from the surrounding residential neighborhood by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the complex included six piers and several upland warehouse buildings. The north end of the site is under and between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and was an underutilized landscape surrounded by light industrial and loft complexes. Brooklyn Bridge Park has now transformed this stretch of post-industrial waterfront into a thriving civic landscape . The park facilitates a system of new and refurbished connections between the city and the river, becoming a vital urban space for a wide variety of activities and programming, all with spectacular views of the Manhattan ...
Brooklyn Bridge Park Wins International Landscape Prize
A U.S. landscape project, the Brooklyn Bridge Park, beat out ten other entries to win the 2021 Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize last month at the 11th International Landscape Architecture Biennial in Barcelona, Spain. Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh and built over the past 20 years, Brooklyn Bridge Park in NY spans 85 acres along 1.3 miles of the East River waterfront. The project has transformed the hardened industrial site of abandoned warehouses, obsolete piers, and decaying bulkheads into a vibrant public space. Today, park elements improve public access, reanimate six piers, and restore ecological diversity, blurring the edge between the East River and the park. The majority of the site was a defunct bulk cargo shipping and storage complex, built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the 1950s but rendered obsolete by the rise of container shipping. Out of operation since 1983 and cut off from the surrounding residential neighborhood by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the complex included six piers and several upland warehouse buildings. The north end of the site is under and between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and was an underutilized landscape surrounded by light industrial and loft complexes. Brooklyn Bridge Park has now transformed this stretch of post-industrial waterfront into a thriving civic landscape . The park facilitates a system of new and refurbished connections between the city and the river, becoming a vital urban space for a wide variety of activities and programming, all with spectacular views of the Manhattan ...
Ten New ASLA Projects Represent Climate Resilient Landscape Design
It’s Earth Day! And for inspiration, here’s 10 new projects that were recently added to the Smart Policies for a Changing Climate Online Exhibition from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The exhibit demonstrates smart landscape design solutions to climate impacts, such as flooding, extreme heat, drought, and sea level rise and exemplifies best practice approaches in an era of climate change. The projects include a mix of landscape-based and nature-based solutions across the U.S., which range in scale from residential and school landscapes to masterplans for entire cities and counties. There is also a focus on projects that address climate injustices and meet the needs of historically-marginalized and underserved communities. “These projects clearly show how landscape architects can help all kinds of communities reduce their risk to increasingly severe climate impacts. Landscape architects design with nature, which leads to more resilient solutions that also improve community health, safety, and well-being over the long-term,” said Torey Carter-Conneen, ASLA CEO. With these 10 new projects, which were selected with ASLA’s Climate Action Committee, there are now a total of 30 projects featured in the online exhibition, which opened in 2019. Each project was selected to illustrate policy recommendations outlined in the 2017 report produced by ASLA’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Climate Change & Resilience. The new projects were submitted by ASLA members through an open call released in 2019. In partnership with the ASLA Climate Action Committee, projects were selected to represent a range of U.S. regions, scales (from ...
