New York Botanical Garden Landscape Design Portfolio 2010 Features West 8:Lead Designers for NYC’s Governor Island Park

November 1^st launched the new month – and autumn in New York.  After what had been an extended Indian Summer, Monday was as crisp as a just-picked fall apple. 

The evening’s New York Botanical Garden lecture was the third in the series.

One more to go.

And I was meeting my horticulture and garden friends there.  Afterwards we planned on dinner at Daniel Boulud’s sexy new db Bistro Moderne restaurant, located across the street.

But first, there was the city’s sexy new park to learn about!

Jamie Maslyn Larson from West 8, was the featured speaker.  

Billed as (new speaker) there was that “uh, oh – understudy moment.” 

But not to worry.  Larson was a happy and proud guest lecturer, keen to share the work of the Dutch-based firm she represents.

She even told a cute anecdote about interviewing with the firm's principal in 2008 and after she got the job he sent a drawing with the words “Kiss me scale girl!” scribbled on the top.  What does he mean? she shrieked to herself.  After some back and forth, he explained he was trying to say  “mermaid.”

It is a water project, after all….

She declared she is Dutch.  Her cats are named are aptly named.  

I am Dutch too.  My mother’s maiden name is Van Voorhees. 

It was a nice lay up to talk about how the Dutch had originally settled New Amsterdam – now New York.  Not to mention their savvy real estate acumen, scooping up the island for a mere $24 that has got to make Donald Trump scratch his furry do-lap of a hair do!

We just marked the Quadra centennial of the Dutch “discovering” New York and Breukelen, New Jersey and the Hudson River. 

I loved all the “going Dutch synergy!

And then I remembered that the first speaker in the series, Bridget Baines, from GROSS MAX talked about the firm’s Dutch connections, revealing the name of the firm was inspired by the ship containers in Rotterdam seaport, stamped Gross Maximum on the side of the containers, explaining it stood for “maximum content.”

After the lecture I leaned over to ask Susan Cohen, Coordinator of the NYBG Landscape Design Program and organizer of the series, if she had a Dutch theme in mind for this year, as I saw a Netherlands thread running throughout.  I wondered if it was purposeful.  She said that GROSS MAX is based in Edinburgh, but chuckled at the unconscious connection.

The speaker, Jamie Larson is the project manager for West 8 in America’s work on Governors Island.  www.west8.nl/ny/

She dutifully took the audience through a few of the firm’s noteworthy projects – from waterfront landscapes in Holland to Lincoln Park in Miami Beach.

Larson described the parasol-like structures planted with bougainvillea there at the Gehry-designed structure.

I couldn’t help think they look all too much like the parasol-bougainvillea structures at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles designed by landscaper architect Robert Irwin.  The bougainvillea arbors at the Getty hug the plaza in the rear of the Richard Meier-designed museum.  Loved them there (wrote about them too) and guess I’ll love them in Miami. But too close in design style for my aesthetic…

Larson took the audience through the winning landscape design for New York City’s Governors Island landscape design look.

I am able to ferry past Governors Island twice a week on my way to and from Manhattan and the Garden State. And no matter how many countless times I’ve made the trip, it’s a rare one that I don’t gaze with adoring love at the nearby Statue of Liberty and the charming jewel that is Governors Island.  Like the remnants of the military at Sandy Hook near us in the Garden State, Governors Island has a rich and well-known history.

Therefore, I was surprised – but delighted – to learn that much of Governors Island was made from landfill brought in from the construction of the Lexington Avenue subway line!

I read about public events in the Sunday New York Times that appear both aristocratic (polo and croquet) and plebeian (concerts and well – everything else.) 

The city also encourages artists to use the island to create for which I think they deserve a round of applause for. 

Larson merrily demonstrated the research and the designs that garnered West 8 in America the job.

She pointed out the shared history of New York and the Dutch of course. She also showed how the Dutch landscape architects are imbued with the sense of water and light and sustainability, because of the challenges and opportunities of their native landscape.  27% of their land is under sea level; the relationship of the horizon to the land. All those Ruebens and Rembrandts and the poetic lighting filtering the senses is no accident is the take-away.

Larson points out that while she is here managing the collaboration with other firms and city agencies in New York, the global strength of West 8 is always there as they communicate constantly via Skype and other digital devices so in effect, Governors Island has the talent of the entire team on the job.

West 8 not only channeled the Dutch masters but also the exuberance of another American of Dutch heritage, Teddy Roosevelt and his work on majestic National Parks, along with his cousin, FDR and the WPA work on parks and landscapes.  The firm also studied the brilliance of Olmstead and Calvert Vaux who designed Central Park and Prospect Park.  In both these masterful designs, they brought order and designed space to a wilderness. 

I know, I know, most people think the parks are the native areas that have been left alone and everything else has been built.  But no, the parks are built places too.

Larson explained how their designed parks offer a natural character within the structure of the town, and allow for change.

They are changing Governors Island from a military installation set up more or less as a college campus to a multi-level, multi access park filled with native plants, comfort and safety areas, lots of promenades to exercise on and to view the incredible waterfronts of NYC and Hoboken and Jersey City and Bayonne and Staten Island beyond.

Some of the ideas that impressed me as having great merit for the 87 acres whose tips she described as “prows of a ship” are the Free Bikes! Available to explore the island, especially using the to be developed promenades. By the say, she says the bikes float!

I thought there was going to be another Dutch link, by way of the bikes, but I guess she’d connected all those dots by this time in the talk…

She did show a project they did for Toronto’s waterfront.  One of the profound yet whimsical sculptures there is made from the stolen bikes never retrieved.  On a practical note, Toronto’s waterfront is a lesson in citizens and commerce and traffic all coexisting to great success.

On Governors Island the landscape design must embrace not only beautiful spaces for people to enjoy as individuals or families but also to serve as spaces for the hundreds of public programs on both the North and South parts of the island. The South part of the park is comprised of 40 acres of public space and 2.2 miles of what will be a double height promenade to allow for more activity and viewing space of the iconic Lady in the Harbor.

The North side will have historical landscapes and require areas in which to be “concealed” vs. exposed while waiting for the ferry, for example.  And that unmatched view of Manhattan’s glittering, glamorous skyline.

It is hoped the ferry ride itself will allow visitors to literally “leave their cares behind” generating anticipation for the beauty and adventure that lies on the shores of the park.

There is to be enhanced designs for the two areas of arrival and departure: from the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides.

They will provide cafes, amphitheater, play lawns, seated wall areas and a Bryant Park of Governors Island area complete with video features

To prevent skateboarders and homeless from using the benches the firm will recreate a successful design which is to put cast “pebbles” on the seat benches. 

It’s a barrier – and an armrest!

The landscape architects have designed hills in the middle of the island, and altered the topography to allow the two ends of the island to unite also through the planting and topsoil plan. There is the interaction of light and shadow and borrowed landscapes.  Visitors will be able to glimpse the emerging sights from across the river views as they emerge, creating a sense of mystery and excitement.

West 8 is also working on one of my most favorite public gardens: Longwood Gardens.  Larson explained the Garden is working on a Master Plan for the first time.  “We are thrilled to be working with Longwood Gardens on their 40-year Master Plan,” said Larson. “They are a great group of people.”

Indeed they are.    Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Longwood Gardens’ 2011 Rare Plant Auction weekend.  It’s going to be spectacular.  www.longwoodgardens.org

Larson spoke about the genuine love of the Brandywine River Valley where Longwood is located.  She explained the on site research undertaken by the firm (tough assignment but they had to do it!)

The visited the area in order to discover what clues existed about the history and cultural landscape.  They fell in love with the Wyeth’s cultural references—their tone of their art suggested a somber yet striking connection. “There is that power of landscape expression,” emphasized Larson.

Longwood Gardens, former home of the du Pont family, “was cited high on the ridge and positioned strongly there,” Larson explained.  “So we thought, well, if Pierre positioned the estate this way, this is Site DNA!”

The big idea will be to make the Garden more accessible – it needs to be shared with the public but keep it intimate.

After the presentation, my friends and I walked across the street to Daniel Boulud’s db Moderne restaurant. www.danielnyc.com/dbbistro.com

It is a very pretty space with red walls and BIG red flower wall designs. 

The Db bistro offers French American cuisine in a cozy casual setting.  The service was very friendly and attentive too.

Soon, the NYBG team of Susan Cohen, Jeff Downing, VP of Education at NYBG and the speaker, Jamie Larson were seated at a table nearby.

The presentation of the food was very elegant from the entrée to the sculpted dessert.

It was a perfectly delightful, glamorous evening.  We talked about the lecture, gardens and interior decorating -- as Donna just bought a New York City apartment - complete with a garden!  This will be fun.

Next week’s final lecture in the NYBG Landscape Design Portfolio series features Kate Orff, founder of SCAPE studio and she will talk about Living Cities.

Landscape Design Portfolio Lecture featuring Carol Franklin

High Performance Landscapes: The Work of Andropogon

Speaker Carol Franklin is a founding principal of Andropogon Associates landscape architectural services, based in Philadelphia. http://andropogon.com/   High Performance Landscapes is a perfect way to characterize their full-impact, revolutionary, astonishing work.

She and her company have been leaders in greenscaping, ecological historical preservation and sustainable landscape design from the time when she says they were laughed at for their ecological designs.  She remembers being hissed off the stage at an ASLA meeting for suggesting they would take children out to the fields out to the fields and pretend we are gardeners.  To design with nature represented a new generation. 

She finds it refreshing to be considered “fashionable” today.   

Discovering and working from a philosophy of the genius loci – or the spirit of place -- is one of the firm’s signature design platforms.  They also boast a portfolio of complex ecological engineering as well as design, utilizing natural elements of water, plant material and stone.  The result is to interface with the area – even if it’s urban.  Or especially if it’s urban. 

Franklin showed the work they did for Center City’s Rittenhouse Square are for the University of Pennsylvania. This is a wonderful example of utilizing rainwater runoff, incorporating water treatment within the design and producing a green space for the students and citizen to enjoy on this almost 2 acres of city life.   Their design changed the landscape to produce an area that had previously been 93% impervious. Now the high performance water treatment cisterns store 20,000 gallons of runoff and AC runoff – within the parking garage.  The soil also stores water. 

To rediscover places, the firm takes makes a habitat work by using breaking attitudes, working with nature’s concepts: composting, cleaning polluted areas, recirculating water and finding those nooks and crannies – even in buildings – that can tell the story of that landscape’s unique place.

Franklin also demonstrated some comic genius!  Her wickedly witty remarks and behind the scenes commentary made me think she must be a sophisticated, fun pro to work with.

Franklin was also refreshing by not only showing Andropogon completed and proposed projects but competing firms’ too. 

My associates in attendance agreed afterwards this was a welcome approach to presenting case studies.  After all just because politics or budgets precluded design selection or job completion, we still have a lot to learn from the landscape architects’ research and design. 

Andropogon’s work on the Sidwell Friends School courtyard in Washington DC is the scout badge for earned honor in my book. Why?  Because the design is comprised of natural, local materials so much that one would swear the campus building were built around the natural look of the grounds.

The courtyard is a working science project the students used for study, such as water sciences, as well as for socializing.  There’s lots of walking around the garden areas. Today, the rain garden and wetland area is the “heart of the school” according to Franklin.

“Complete Streets” is a design concept Franklin espoused that delighted the audience. Here urbanites can “seize the worst parts of their city and find underused or single-purpose use areas for multiple uses.”  She was quite adamant though about making the areas unique and beautiful and not just copying the highly successful Complete Streets of Portland with their Greek keystone-design shapes

Andropogon collaborated on the dynamic holistic work at the Nikko Kirifuri hotel and spa resort hotel in the forest of Japan is magical.  They worked to restore the surrounding woods, produced a waterfall that serves a water treatment function but you would swear is the handiwork of Mother Nature.  In a way, it is.

The works Franklin presented and their attention to sustainable design must surely be the future of landscape design. We can learn much from the holistic, sustainable work that looks to reuse, repurpose and work with natural, elements.

NYBG Kicks Off 2010 Landscape Design Portfolio Lecture Series

New York Botanical Garden Landscape Design Portfolios 2010

For the first time, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) located its popular Landscape Design lecture series at the “newly renovated space in a historic landmark building” in the Midtown Education Center in New York City.

I like the locale ever so much better.

Previously, they were held in the Urban Center that was a martini away, across the courtyard, from Le Cirque restaurant in the Palace Hotel.
While I adored the swanky location and the twinkling lights in the romantic café/courtyard there, the lecture facility was less than ideal.  Too crowded, too hot …

I attended a talk at the Midtown Education Center in the late spring (see previous blog post about xxx and Lyndon Miller and urban gardens.) Very informative and inspirational talk, by the way.  Xxx has subsequently led the city’s urban garden community to retain its gardens.) That talk took place in a school-like classroom upstairs.  Very nice.  But not nearly as nice as the expansive, library like setting for the Landscape Design Portfolio lectures.

Snuggled between wise and approving bookshelves, below balconies stocked with more books who seemed to be watchful, monitoring this new audience, and under what seemed to be a Beaux Arts skylight (it was dark, as this is October in the Northeast).
It was all so roomy and chairs were beckoned seating – without the airlines’ saddle-style of scrunching in.

To me, the annual autumn lecture series is also the official kick-off for the horticultural world’s "social" calendar.
All growing season, us gardeners and garden designers are scurrying from nursery to gardens in order to design, plant, nurture, and maintain within our all-to-narrow window of opportunity.  We pretty much do that all year round, given seasonal container gardening, but that’s another story.
The Talks and Lectures from NYBG, MetroHort, Wave Hill et al, also provide a sort of mini reunion for those of us in the gardening community who are too busy to see each other during the go-go season.

I signal hello to Susan Cohen as I enter. Susan is the Coordinator of the Landscape Design Program series.  Later, as part of her introduction, Jeff Downing, Vice President for Education, noted Susan had been recently recognized and has been named to the Council of Fellows of the American Landscape Design Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for her work in producing the Design Portfolio Series - now in it's Lucky 13th year.
http://tiny.cc/zm2ps
Applause, Applause.
I first met Susan when I worked at NYBG.  Susan is an amazing, award-winning residential garden designer and the Coordinator for the Garden's Landscape Design certificate program.

I got my seat after registering – thank goodness NYBG sent that day-off reminder email! I was delighted when I looked up to see Lynn Torgerson.  See earlier blog post about her amazing garden design at the Gramercy Hotel  http://tiny.cc/97fvh.  
She is pixie-ish adorable and funky as always.  Intelligent beyond all get out. She is teaching for NYBG too at the Midtown Center. Be sure to check out the catalog for her not to be missed classes.
“Can I sit here?” she asks amusingly, pointing to the chair next to me.  (See how great it is to foster camaraderie just by having ample room?!)
Mais, bien sure. Of course!
We are on our way to catching up since our last sojourn at the Standard Hotel overtop the High Line garden park back in July (I must write about this. Promise.  We drank Lavender martinis!!)

When Phyllis Odessey comes up.

http://blog.phyllisodessey.com

Phyllis is the horticulture manager at Randall’s Island, a 450-acre island park in the East River of New York.  This summer, Phyllis took a sabbatical of sorts to study with two gardening workshop in-garden classes in England. She was able to secure a Royal Oak Foundation Fellowship in Sustainable Gardening.


(That left the horticulture work in the very capable hand of Eun Young Sebaszco, who I’ve had the honor of working with over the years as part of my Duchess Designs’ Fine Gardening and garden design team. www.silverflowerdesign.com)
Eun Young is an amazing talent! (as is her artist husband Tom)

I had so many questions for Phyllis as she started to tell us about her English garden experience this summer.
But too soon the lights were indicating the lecture was to begin.  We all agree to meet soon - at the Standard Hotel!

The featured speaker was Bridget Baines, principle from Gross Max.
www.grossmax.com


Baines’ Scottish accent is both charming and challenging...

Her company’s eclectic and contemporary landscape design portfolio was visually stimulating.  Some of the images prompted me to whisper to Lynn that it reminded me of Avatar:  rich, Caribbean hues and phantasmagorical dioramas or scrims of landscape design.



I liked that Ms. Baines showed not only the contracts or commissions they were awarded but also those they submitted that didn’t get the nod. There is much to learn from the designs despite the political or financial contretemps that seal any deal.
Thank you, Bridget.  (At this point, I’m trying not to think of Renee Zellwinger in the movie “Bridget Jones,” but it’s hard not too with the accent and all…)

NYBG touted Bridget and her firm for their work on two parks at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.  (I worked for Sony and had been to Berlin not long after we opened our facility there).
I love this image of the Sony head in the garden. (was it that I identified it with my time there where too many of the executives had half their head in the ground?! ha)

Bridget’s Gross Max also produced a civic garden in Rottenrow Hospital in Glasgow.



And work with the acclaimed architect Zahid Hadid with her design for the BMW factory in Germany.

Bridget shared a lot of images and design work – pushing the envelope on time.  A few times she noted, “this will be the last one; ok?” only to be answered by an audience who verbally responded for her to continue.
When it was really time to stop, anyone with questions were advised to come up after the talk had concluded. I did, as did a few others.

Next lecture is Monday, October 25.

Speaker is Carol Franklin. She will talk about High Performance Landscapes: The Work of Andropogon (psst: Andropogon is her company I learned. It is noted for its work in sustainable design.)
To register: go to: www.nyby.org/edu

Bees in the Morning and Fine Gardening and Vegetables

I am still waking up bees in the morning.

Here in the metropolitan Northeast, we’re enjoying a return to warmer weather after nearly two weeks of dreary, but much-needed rain.  I don’t think it’s Indian summer yet, but it feels a little bit like it.

The warm mornings find dozens of snoozing carpenter bees that’ve settled on the sedum and even the chaise lounge.  Given their unwieldy flying aerodynamics I hate to rustle them awake, thinking they need more power sleep.  But we all must get on with the day’s work.  I am gentle…

Yesterday we were able to do outdoor fine gardening, after a series of cancelled Monday’s, “called on account of rain.”  

I picked up Hal, the Edward Scissorhands student from the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture who came to the Garden State by ferry.  We met Sarah, professional horticulturist and graduate from Ontario Canada school of horticulture. 

We had lots to do.  Remove “squatter” plants from the pool beds.  I refer to the plants who take up residence in beds and places they don’t belong as squatters. I don’t blame them though.  The designed beds are too seductive.  Whether they arrived on the wind or from what has been called the bird’s “poo factor” it was time to rid the beds of these unwelcome guests.

We also had to weed, trim, and prune.  Especially the espalier.  In addition, two of the lines had come undone a bit and the top line had to be established.  Hal worked all day snipping and cutting and tying.  We still have the last quadrant to get right, but the look is vastly improved and almost back to textbook perfect.

I don’t know why espalier isn’t employed more often, especially in urban and tight sub-suburban gardens.  In the European and Asian tradition, one learned how to grow fruit is small spaces.  Who needed a grove when you could put an apple tree on the side of the building? 

Perhaps few people practice espalier when they saw the elaborate, twisted espalier from the Japanese and French culture where they seemingly love to torture their plants into intense designs -- finding the whole affair too “fancy.” 

And espalier is a lot of work, even if the lines are rather straightforward. 

But it’s worth it.

This espalier I designed is pyracantha or firethorn, so it has four-season interest: spring with the bridal veil of white flowers, late summer and autumn with its pumpkin orange berries, (which contrasts so Mediterranean-like with the purple of the caryopteris and the blue lyme grass in front of that.).  Often later, there are reddish berries. And it’s evergreen.  This provides beauty and the ideal real estate for bird’s nests, it seems!  We love checking out who’s taken up residence every spring.

We also had a very special on-site insect visitor checking out Hal Scissorhands.  It is the curious, prehistoric-looking praying mantis!  Sarah tells me she sees him (or her) with some frequency. 

As he runs for his fancy digital camera, Hall tells me that praying mantis eat themselves!  

Huh?!

Why do they do that?  This provokes some spirited lunchtime conversation.  I’ve heard of the black widow spider that eats her partner after mating.  Hal says praying mantis will do that too.  (Talk about loving and leaving them!)  And he says they will also do that if they are hungry enough.   This seems too sad to me. That seems like powerful hunger that could readily be ameliorated with all the plenty found in a garden…

I tell them I remember my father admonishing us never to harm a praying mantis or a dogwood tree.  They were both protected and it was against the law in the Garden State to kill them.  I honestly don’t know if that was really true, but it worked for me.

I potted up the containers with seasonal mums – here it is orange and yellow, with matching colored pumpkins of contorted shapes, stripes, and bumps.  This color combination set off the orange and yellow lantana that thrive right up till frost in the front western-facing borders on either side of the entrance.

I left the ornamental wine-colored pepper plants and the chartreuse potato vines in the pots. 

We also planted white mums, Shasta daisies and white ornamental pepper plants in another garden.  As the ferns were still luxuriant in the urns, I just removed the limp-looking caladiums and inserted the pepper plants for height and color.  The white mums were dropped into the smallish box garden to the left of the entrance, making for a happy, eye-catching seasonal garden spot to enjoy coming and going.

I was also able to get those elegant looking silvery pumpkins that look for all the world to me like Cinderella’s carriage pumpkin!  I put these at the feet of the urns for a pretty entrance composition.

The whimsical “ghost pumpkins” are huddled at the feet of the cast iron containers, keeping watch for the topiaries there.  Who has the most curious shape I’m guessing they are giggling.

The great white pumpkin sites directly opposite the door in the liriope garden to be seen upon leaving the house or driving in from either side of the circular driveway. 

A few years ago, I did a series of white pumpkins, positioned at various heights in the liriope grass garden.  I punched out the holes a la Martha Stewart design.  They looked like white lace with the twinkling lights from inside peeping out at night.

Very glamorous.

And while it remains warm, and the season extended, we are necessarily looking back…

This year’s gardens in the northeast were marked by extreme, record-breaking heat and lack of rain.  Very stressful for the plants and gardeners.

Great for the vineyards of Long Island though.  When I visited for the photo shoot for my book, Long Island Homegrown, the growers there told me how great this year was.

Thanks to my husband’s diligent research and best-gardening practices, our home garden was a banner year for tomatoes, potatoes, and shisito peppers, and yellow cucumbers in particular.  

We enjoyed a variety of tomatoes; cherry and full size right up to beefsteak. I Love the shishito peppers in place of almonds with a martini at cocktail time.  Munching the peppers grilled or pan roasted with fresh sea salt is a true luxury.

And Hot Peppers!