Landscape Architecture Magazine May 2025

LISA CASEY, ASLA, (“Bringing Bugs Back,” page 34) is a principal at Studio Outside in Dallas. You can follow her on Instagram @lcasey2008. “I learned that fewer than three nurseries were experienced in native plant practices in Chicago in the early 1990s; now it is around 20. I wonder what choices happened in policy and the marketplace to foster that kind of expansion.” LISA OWENS VIANI (“A Floor Fit to Flood,” page 20) is a frequent contributor to LAM who lives in Sonoma County, California, and often writes about water. You can contact her at lowensvi@icloud.com. “I didn’t realize how much redwoods love having their ‘feet’ wet—they’re really a floodplain tree.” GOT A STORY? At LAM, we don’t know what we don’t know. If you have a story, project, obsession, or…

It is fabulous that some firms can provide post-construction maintenance, but that is clearly not an option across the profession. Meadows are promoted as resilient options for large open spaces, but little is mentioned of the costs associated with ongoing maintenance for staff time and numbers. We spend considerable funds each year to have an NGO partner keep the invasives and trees at bay on our warm-season native grass meadow. The most telling aspect of this article (“Future Planning,” LAM, February) to me is that over and over, designers talk to clients about maintenance at the end of construction. This discussion should occur at the start of the process. Who will maintain the design, and what are the capabilities of the staff? Then you can discuss the client’s expectations for…

It’s been hard to know how and where to jump into the current political conversation, which has been at a roar since November. Here in D.C., everyone has friends, family, and colleagues who are trying to absorb the shocking change to our culture and governance. The more local and personal assault on livelihoods—careers decades in the making abruptly wiped out by the new administration, is upending working families across the region. In March, I pulled together a group of landscape architects in leadership roles to talk about how they are steering the ship (see “On Shifting Ground,” page 66). I am grateful to those who joined the conversation, as well as the designers I reached out to who, for professional reasons, could not participate but shared their thoughts off the…

The idea of a city swimming pool evokes concrete and chlorine, but the Emajõe City Swimming Pool is an intentionally wilder experience. Like the Bassin de la Villette in Paris and the Flussbad Oberer Letten in Zurich, the pool is nestled in a river, in this case, the Emajõgi River in Tartu, Estonia. The roughly 130-foot-long enclosed swimming area is part of a complete renovation of a half-wild urban beach by the local landscape architecture firm Kino. “It’s a small area, but it had so much potential,” says principal Mirko Traks of the renovation, which cost just $680,000. “We added 20 times more activities and created a place for everyone.” The pool’s main purpose is to make the river kid-friendly. The 10-foot-wide floating dock slows down the current, and the…

In a healthy redwood grove, fallen trees and beaver dams help spread rainfall out across the forest floor, allowing the ground to slowly absorb it over time. At Roy’s Redwoods, a beloved public forest preserve in Marin County, California, visitors had created so many informal trails across the forest floor that the nearby creek began following the footpaths and incising the ground, creating rapid runoff that couldn’t easily infiltrate the soil and nurture the trees and understory species. “There wasn’t a clear trail system, and the community was just walking wherever,” says Lauren Hammack, a fluvial geomorphologist and principal at Prunuske Chatham, Inc. Hammack and landscape architects at the Restoration Design Group recently worked to redirect both public access and water flow within the preserve. Erik Stromberg, a principal with…

NAOMI DRUCKER, ASLA Partner, RKLA Studio Landscape Architecture New York FRANKISH CASTLE PARIKIA Paros, Greece This wall stopped me in my tracks as I strolled through the quiet streets of Paros. The creative reuse of leftover materials was evident, and I found the bold integration of different shapes intriguing and unexpected—finding perfection in the imperfection. SEBAGO LAKE Cumberland County, Maine During my yearly vacations here as a child, the peaceful forests and the tranquil waters became my personal sanctuary; each year, I noticed slight differences as the landscape evolved with the passage of time. NOGUCHI MUSEUM COURTYARD New York City A place of respite from the hustle and bustle of New York City, the garden’s balance of organic textures and serene space encourages reflection, offering a powerful example of how…