DBIA IQ Summer 2012 - (Page 24)

Look// OLIN + Weiss/Manfredi’s winning design for Sylvan Grove brings a landscaped performance space to the nation’s front yard. // LOOK By Ian p. Murphy “the NAtIoNAL MALL has been loved to death,” the design challenge said. Playing host to more than 25 million visitors and 3,000 events every year, the country’s most-visited national park and civic space has taken a beating. To preserve, optimize and beautify the 700-acre park for future generations, the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall launched a juried competition to redesign three major areas of the nation’s front yard, displaying 12 finalists at the Smithsonian before announcing the winners at its fifth annual luncheon in May. The winning designs address issues of aesthetics, sustainability, maintenance and the visitor experience, incorporating new performance spaces, gardens, terraces, restaurants and recreational facilities. Rogers Marvel Architects and PWP Landscape Architecture created the top entry for Constitution Gardens, rearranging plantings into a sustainable oasis of pastoral recreation with a seasonal ice rink. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and Davis Brody Bond’s winning design for Union Square improves upon its expansive views with added public spaces. And OLIN + Weiss/Manfredi’s winner imagines a starlit performance arena with naturalized plantings on the Washington Monument grounds. “These designs will serve as role models of sustainability and best practices in urban parks,” says Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall. They are what former First Lady Laura Bush, honorary chair of the Campaign for the National Mall and keynote speaker at the luncheon, called “beautiful, thoughtful solutions to improve this iconic space.” Now, the challenge is to raise the money needed to make the winning designs a reality in time for the National Park Service’s 2016 centennial, even as the agency moves ahead with necessary historicpreservation and environmental reviews. Trust luncheons have raised nearly $7 million for mallrestoration efforts to date. 24 summer//2012 the quarterly publication of the design-build institute of america photo courtesy of trust for the national Mall

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DBIA IQ Summer 2012

DBIA IQ Summer 2012