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Ted Wolff, Principal of Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. will again be teaching as an Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) for the fall 2011 semester. The IIT landscape architecture program is a unique program between the coasts with its combination of an urban setting and its location in the College of Architecture. Mr. Wolff taught the second year design studio during the fall 2008, 2009, and 2010 semesters, leading students through a series of site planning, site design, urban planning and design, and landscape design problems and projects focused on the concept of momentum, understanding a site’s precedents and past direction and where that leads, or could lead, a subsequent site or landscape design or other intervention. Mr. Wolff has been practicing landscape architecture in Chicago since 1979, when he started at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Mr. Wolff was an Associate when he chose to leave in 1990 in order to start and lead his own landscape architecture practice. Whole Foods Market Lincoln Park Receives a Silver Ribbon Award WLA was recently awarded the Silver Ribbon Award for its work on the Whole Foods Market Lincoln Park. In 2010, Friends of the Chicago River launched the Blue Ribbon Awards to honor and acknowledge the work of developers, designers, municipalities, and others for their creative approach to river sensitive design and implementation and whose work exemplifies the river ideal as described by the objectives in People, Water and Wildlife: Blue Principles for River Design. “The Blue Ribbon Awards recognize environmental leaders and the ecological precedents they set,” said Margaret Frisbie, Friends’ executive director. “As part of our new program, Chicago River Blue, we want to educate, encourage, and reward developments and redevelopments that take people, wildlife, and clean water into account, and make sensitive river-edge development accessible to everyone. The awards help us do that.” Chicago River Blue also includes many on-line resources at www.chicagoriver.org that promote and explain sustainable practices, and a Green Directory for the companies that provide them. The award recipients and their projects were honored at Friends’ 2010 Big Fish Ball June 9 by event honorary co-chair Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and 400 guests. The inaugural award winners included:
IIT MLA graduate Paul Blanding joins Wolff Landscape Architecture WLA welcomes new hire, Paul Blanding to the team. In May, Paul earned a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was awarded the first annual Terra Engineering Travel Fellowship. Paul is thrilled to be working full-time with the WLA team, and is eager to focus his diverse background of liberal arts, visual arts and philosophy on the discipline of landscape architecture in this professional setting. Law School Reflecting Pool Renovation Awarded ASLA’s Highest Honor The renovation of the Law School Reflecting Pool at the University of Chicago received the President’s Award at the 2009 awards ceremony of the Illinois Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The President’s Award is the highest honor and recognition a project can receive from Illinois ASLA. The Law School is a landmark of modernism, designed by Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s. Saarinen organized the law school quadrangle around a central reflecting pool, in order to mirror the law school library and surrounding buildings. After forty years, however, the pool was significantly degraded, and in the winter it was nothing more than an empty, unattractive basin. The University recognized the need to upgrade the space to bring the school’s physical environment closer to its academic standing. The restoration goal was twofold: Improve the appearance of the reflecting pool and courtyard, and respect the original, and now-historic, Saarinen design. The exploration of multiple alternatives based upon design, function, cost, and maintenance considerations led to the solution of a “zero depth pool” where, when there is water in the pool, the black granite paving is covered by a one-quarter inch film of water, creating a smooth sheet of water that mirrors the buildings, trees, clouds, and sky. Just as important, however, are the months when there is no water in the pool. During winter the pool appears as a simple black granite plaza, instead of the empty basin that had made the law school’s first, and poor, impression for many decades. While the result appears to be a simple and minimal solution, there were significant technical challenges to achieving the appearance of simplicity. For the design to succeed, it was essential to achieve a constant elevation on the stone pavers over the length and width of a 150’ x 87’ pool, and to have a constant and uniform elevation to the paving at the pool’s edge. The former was accomplished through a pedestal paver system with a continuous screw-type adjustment within the pedestal. The latter was more difficult, as the adjacent paving is poured-in-place concrete with fields of exposed aggregate and stripes of smooth-float concrete, and was a real accomplishment in terms of construction quality control on the part of the concrete contractor. In addition to the level surface required, a smooth surface to the water was also required to achieve the mirror-like surface. This was achieved by supplying water from below through open joints in the granite pavers, distributed over such a large area, and through so many joints, that the flow is invisible and does not ripple the surface, giving the appearance of a still sheet of water. The client was The University of Chicago (www.uchicago.edu). Wolff Landscape Architecture was the lead designer and prime consultant. The landscape architect worked with an outstanding team of consultants including Nagle Hartray Danker Kagan McKay Penney Architects (www.nhdkmp.com) Prism Engineering (www.prism-eng.com), Weber Consultants, MEP engineers (www.weberconsultants.com), and Delta Fountains, water feature consultants (www.deltafountains.com). Renovation of the 13,050 square foot reflecting pool and surrounding quadrangle paving were completed in 2008. Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. is proud to be a firm whose planning and design work and projects are repeatedly honored and recognized with awards.
The Business Instructional Facility at the University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign was recognized with a Merit Award at the 2009 awards ceremony of the Illinois Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The BIF is organized around the three-story “Commons” which is an indoor public space at the center of the facility. The fourth side of the Commons is a glass curtain wall that connects the Commons visually to a large exterior courtyard. The courtyard and all site hardscape and landscape were the design responsibility of Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. from conceptual design through documentation and construction administration. The courtyard is organized and subdivided by paving strips that extend the geometry of the building and reinforce the relationship between architecture and landscape. A linear fountain runs from one end of the courtyard to the other. A closely spaced row of birch trees reinforces the linear quality of the landscape design, and also shades the west façade of the building. A small lawn provides space for informal seating, and the adjacent area planted with native prairie plants provides a link to the pre-settlement landscape of the area, seasonal interest, and a path for surface drainage to an adjacent low area planted as a sedge meadow natural area that provides on-site stormwater retention. A variety of sizes and kinds of seating areas are provided to facilitate discussions amongst the small groups that are a feature of the Business School’s curriculum. The project achieved LEED “Platinum” certification, with the landscape contributing to a number of credits through the use of native plants, on-site stormwater retention, green roofs, and no use of potable water for irrigation. The Platinum certification is a tribute to the University’s and design team’s commitment to sustainable design, and at the time of certification the BIF was the first “Platinum” certified building at any public university business school in the world, and one of only 15 platinum certified buildings in Illinois. The client was The University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign (www.illinois.edu) and the College of Business at Illinois (www.business.illinois.edu). Wolff Landscape Architecture was the landscape architect and lead designer for landscape and hardscape, including the water feature, site fixtures and furnishings, and site coordination. The Design Architect was Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of New York and New Haven, Connecticut (www.pcparch.com). The Architect of Record and civil engineer was Dewberry (www.dewberry.com). Construction of the new Business Instructional Facility was completed in July 2008 with the building occupied for the Fall 2008 semester, as scheduled. Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. is proud to be a firm whose planning and design work and projects are repeatedly honored and recognized with awards.
Craig Soncrant, ASLA, SCUP has joined Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. and will provide another level of senior leadership for the firm. Practicing since 1999, he holds a variety of experience in types and scales of projects with the concentration of his career focused primarily on higher education planning and design. Prior to the Wolff Landscape Architecture team, Craig co-lead the Campus Planning and Design practice line for EDAW | AECOM and served as a designer / project manager in its Chicago office. Previous to Chicago, he was studio leader for the Mountain Resort practice line for both the EDAW | AECOM and SE Group offices in Truckee, California outside of Lake Tahoe. Initially beginning his landscape architecture career in Chicago, Mr. Soncrant has served as a designer / project manager at Douglas Hoerr Landscape Architecture (now Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects), Jacobs/Ryan Associates and the Lakota Group. Mr. Soncrant works on a variety of planning and landscape architectural projects, requiring expertise in planning and master planning; site planning and design; landscape design and detailing, and construction observation. Versed in many areas of landscape architecture, Mr. Soncrant is able to apply his skill set to the design process and offer unique, creative solutions benefitting the project and meeting the client’s goals. Ted Wolff Appointed Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at IIT Ted Wolff, Principal of Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. has been appointed Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). IIT recently inaugurated a master’s degree program in landscape architecture, and the first class of students is currently in its third and final year. Peter Osler, a registered architect and landscape architect, has been appointed Director of the Program of Landscape Architecture. The IIT landscape architecture program is a unique program between the coasts with its combination of an urban setting and its location in the College of Architecture. Mr. Wolff taught the second year design studio during the fall 2008 semester, leading students through a series of site planning, site design, urban planning and design, and landscape design problems and projects focused on the concept of momentum, understanding a site’s precedents and past direction and where that leads, or could lead, a subsequent site or landscape design or other intervention. Regarding Mr. Wolff, Peter L. Osler said:
Mr. Wolff has been practicing landscape architecture in Chicago since 1979, when he started at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Mr. Wolff was an Associate when he chose to leave in 1990 in order to start and lead his own landscape architecture practice. Regarding his appointment at IIT Mr. Wolff said:
Mr. Wolff has been invited to teach the second year design studio again during the fall 2009 semester. The Gold Star Families Memorial and Park was recognized with an Honor Award in Design in the 2008 Awards Program sponsored by the Illinois Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Gold Star Families Memorial and Park, also known as the Chicago Police Memorial, occupies a five-acre site of highly visible, nearly invaluable, lakefront park land in the museum campus in Burnham Park between Soldier Field and Burnham Harbor. The Memorial is a solemn and dignified place of remembrance for the more than 520 Chicago police officers who have died in the line and performance of duty since the department and its predecessors were founded over 150 years ago. The memorial is a place of remembrance for the families, friends, and colleagues of the slain officers, and also attracts and accommodates visitors and park users. The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation was the client for this extraordinary place of remembrance, and their charge to the design team was to make this the best law enforcement memorial in the country. In addition, the Foundation was clear that the memorial and park should not only memorialize the police officers that made the ultimate sacrifice, but also communicates something about their values, and how they lived their lives. As a result of the Foundation’s direction, the Memorial includes not only elements of grief and remembrance, but also elements that convey a sense of life, including water, landscaping, and a “sacrifice space” that is open to the sun and the sky with trees and a panel of grass at the very center. The park is long, and the landscape architect chose to treat it as a series of episodes and events, a string of pearls, along a continuous pedestrian walkway. At both ends are entry spaces, circular outdoor rooms containing a grove of river birch trees, and marked with tall stainless steel pylons that are the first expression of the iconic checkerboard motif so strongly associated with the Chicago Police Department. The checkerboard pattern is repeated throughout the park, sometimes more abstract, as in the water wall behind the central gathering space, sometimes more literal, as in the border of the names of the fallen officers in the “sacrifice space“ at the center of the memorial. There are four “values” nodes along the path representing service, family, courage, and honor, four of the core values of the Chicago Police Department and its officers. The central gathering space, with the backdrop of the large water wall, is a place that is used by the Foundation, for example at the St. Jude’s Day and Father’s Day services, but is also used by other park groups, so that casual park users are exposed to the Memorial, because the memorial is part of the park, not something apart from it. Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc. was selected for this assignment, and began work in late 2004. Gold Star Families Memorial and Park was opened at a public dedication ceremony in August 2007. Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America |
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