2007 Award of Excellence - Public Landscape Design
Swenson Science Building, University of Minnesota - Duluth, MN
oslund.and.assoc.
The site plan focuses on the idea of “Science on Display.” Clad in steel and taconite, and surrounded by native plantings - resources unique to northern Minnesota - the laboratory science building (LSB) will be the main gateway for access to campus from the south. The LSB features two outdoor courtyards designed as transition and gathering spaces. Three sculptural cubes - made of perforated metal, lit from within, and heated for year round use and study - will accent the upper courtyard. The lower courtyard will feature an experimental wetland garden - emphasizing the cultivation of wild rice - chosen for its symbolism and importance to the Native American population of northern Minnesota. The garden will be used as an outdoor laboratory for students and faculty.
2007 Awards of Honor
Honor Award - Planning and Research
Gitchi Gami Trail
Center for Changing Landscapes, College of Design, University of Minnesota
Recreation, natural and cultural resource protection, tourism, and community livability are promoted for the Gitchi Gami State Trail by designs produced through a community-engaged design process. Working at the regional, district, and site scales, the design team created designs that celebrated and interpreted natural and cultural resources of Lake Superior’s North Shore while accommodating future development by creating environmentally sensitive designs that include town centers, highway and county roads, trail heads, interpretative features, and signature trail elements such as railing details, signs, and kiosks. Community leaders, citizens, government officials, and the trail association were all actively involved.
Honor Award - Public Landscape Design
University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
SRF Consulting Group, Inc.
2008 Awards of Merit
Merit Award - Planning and Research
Bassett Creek Valley Master Plan
Hoisington Koegler Group, Inc.
The Bassett Creek Valley Master Plan advocates redeveloping 230 acres of an outmoded industrial landscape into a new urban village of vibrant mixed-use districts and residential blocks just west of downtown Minneapolis. The plan promotes restoration of long-neglected Bassett Creek as the symbolic thread stitching together the Valley’s urban fabric. New parks and open spaces will provide recreational and social opportunities for all ages and interests and interconnect the Valley with an impressive collection of trails and walkways. At the doorstep of downtown Minneapolis, Bassett Creek Valley will be a national model for urban neighborhood redevelopment that truly defines how a community can shape its future.
Merit Award - Planning and Research
Fort Valley University Master Plan
HGA, Inc.
Merit Award - Private Landscape Design
The Blue Garden, Hamline University
oslund.and.assoc.
The Blue Garden at Hamline University in St. Paul celebrates the life of Tammy Osnes, as a memorial for the losses of students and for parents who have lost children. The garden is centrally located in a quiet area on campus. The materiality and geometry of the design are symbolic representations of loss and memory. Water moving through the bluestone wall illustrates that impositions of loss can be overcome; a pure circle of perennials that bloom annually around graduation represent Tammy’s everlasting memory. The campus community has embraced the garden as a calming place for reflection and contemplation.
Merit Award - Private Landscape Design
Chevalle - A Country Estate: Conservation Subdivision Design
Hoisington Koegler Group, Inc.
Chevalle – A Country Estate has established a new benchmark for residential development within the rural, perimeter area of Chaska known as the “Greenbelt.” The Greenbelt was envisioned by the city 15 years ago to maintain an identifiable edge to their community, and to contrast Chaska from the adjacent sprawl of neighboring cities. The initial Greenbelt zoning allowed for 4 units per 40 acres, resulting in a fragmented arrangement of small hobby farms and underutilized private land. The Chevalle plan successfully preserves the integrity of the greenbelt through natural resource based, conservation subdivision design, the dedication of significant open space and integrates the preservation of major viewsheds as a criteria for determining development patterns on the land.
Merit Award - Private Landscape Design
Gold Medal Park
oslund.and.assoc.
Gold Medal Park is a 7.5-acre green space in the heart of the Minneapolis Mill District, adjacent to the Mississippi River and the new Guthrie Theater. The result of a public/private partnership, the park adds an additional amenity to the ongoing renewal of Washington Avenue. The park features a sculptural observation mound that provides panoramic views of the river and the city, as well as providing storage for contaminated soils found on the site, resulting from its historic industrial land use. Custom design features and lighting design transform this brownfield into a 24-hour public amenity.
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
Minneapolis Central Library Green Roof
The Kestrel Design Group
As green roofs are implemented on an increasing number of urban buildings, a keystone species has become ubiquitous: the sedum. Used on green roofs for its ability to withstand the inherent harsh conditions, sedum does generally perform well. Used alone, however, they provide little in the way of some of the important secondary benefits of a green roof: urban wildlife habitat, native community restoration, or species diversity. The Minneapolis Central Library Green Roof, in contrast, essentially restores a native Minnesota Bedrock Bluff Prairie five stories above downtown Minneapolis. This is no “sedum desert.”
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
Minneapolis Central Library
coen + partners
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
The Ravenous Bird
Martin & Pitz Associates
The Ravenous Bird was built for a summer exhibit at the Minnesota Arboretum that focused on birds. The designer was asked to present “birds and food” in a playful, interactive feature at a site of the designer’s choosing. The answer was to build a giant bird that ate children! To reach the bird, visitors hopped along a stepping stone trail that quizzed them on their bird food knowledge as it led them to the mouth of a 40’ woven willow bird. Children could climb up the beak into the bird’s head, get “swallowed” down a red throat (slide), and end up in the Ravenous Bird’s belly.
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
Scholars Walk
HGA, Inc.
Scholars Walk is a 2,200 foot long commemorative walkway extending east-west through the heart of the Minneapolis campus. The Walk serves as both a connection between the east and west edge of campus, and a destination, i.e., a place of inspiration consisting of a series of gardens. Display of 1,000 names was required with flexibility to accommodate approximately 25 additional names each year for at least 100-years. Innovative Recognition Monuments were designed to allow annual addition of names. The Wall of Discovery is a signature feature along the walkway, which elegantly exhibits actual hand-written notes of distinguished scholars of the University…inspiring students to explore the unsolved mysteries of our universe.
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
Saint Paul Library Courtyard
oslund.and.assoc.
The project is the redesign of an existing green courtyard space formed by the wings of the historic Italianate style St. Paul Central Library building in downtown St. Paul. The redesigned courtyard was designed to invite entry and serve as a semi-public gathering space for a variety of functions from everyday library patrons to organized group events, and to reflect the traditions of the Italian Renaissance gardens and courtyards. This project creates a complimentary aesthetic to that found in the historic architecture that will serve as an iconographic landscape for the next century of the St. Paul Central Library.
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
The Town Green at Excelsior and Grand
Damon Farber Associates
The Town Green at Excelsior & Grand is the result of a unique public-private partnership where the landscape architect led both the community and the developer in the creation of a primary community gathering space for the City of St. Louis Park. The Town Green is the central focus of a new mixed use development -- a series of pedestrian spaces of open lawns, water features, public art and seating nodes all aligned along 2½ acres. The landscape architect detailed all site elements, including signage, paving, furnishings and lighting, all of which complement the new architecture as well as adjacent neighborhoods.
Merit Award - Public Landscape Design
The Village at Mendota Heights
Damon Farber Associates
The Village at Mendota Heights draws on the successful mixed use, pedestrian friendly environment of the classic 1914 “Market Square” plan of Lake Forest, Illinois, designed by Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. Like Lake Forest, this project reflects the desire of civic leaders who wished to creatively integrate lifestyle living, shopping and working into a cohesive village, connecting people with one another again. The landscape architect led the site design through efforts in defining urban design goals, enhancing the community’s vision, developing the village character, and collaborating with the developer, city, and design team to insure consistency in the project’s pedestrian friendly design and aesthetics.
Merit Award - Residential Landscape Design
Private Residence
oslund.and.assoc.
The landscape architect faced a daunting task when brought in to consult on this private residence. The client requested a heavy program of elements on a 7-acre site with a multitude of constraints. The design strategy viewed this as an opportunity to create a more engaging and ceremonial landscape. The resulting design creates a stunning collection of site elements nested within a natural environment, allowing the client to relax in a secluded, private area, surrounded by woods.
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