Dallas, TX, USA
OJB Landscape Architecture
Client: The Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation

Experience Klyde Warren Park in Virtual Reality

Klyde Warren Park is Dallas’s central urban park that has bridged the eight-lane Woodall Rodgers Freeway, which had been a barrier between Downtown and Uptown. The park reconnects the city’s downtown cultural district with the neighborhoods to the north. The park is designed to reflect the district through its modern design. The park has been warmly embraced by the community and has been a catalyst for economic development. Daily free activities include performances, lectures and fitness classes. A non-profit foundation manages operations and maintenance of the park. Built with public and private funds, the park features a flexible, pedestrian-oriented design, children’s park, great lawn, restaurant, performance pavilion, fountain plaza, games area, dog park and botanical garden. Dramatic environmental improvements include the sequestration of CO2 through native planted trees, temperature reductions from shade producing trees and canopies and water conservation through the subgrade reservoir’s collection of stormwater.

The landscape design for the Birmingham Residence sculpts space into a dynamic context for the client’s home and art collection. Situated in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, the residence embodies the client’s adventurous taste and celebrates the region’s historical ties to the steel industry. From the beginning, the landscape architect drew inspiration from contemporary art, reinterpreting the traditional elements of the private garden and creating spaces that complement and soften the visual language of the architecture.  The shared belief that a unique personal vision can be embodied in the landscape and that residential landscape design need not be bound by conventional materials and practices guided the design team and client, motivating them to stretch the creative and technical design of the project.

Barrier islands are dynamic ecosystems in constant evolution. While wind and tide shape the landscape, tropical storms and sea level rise accelerate inland habitat migration. In 2008, Hurricane Ike completely ravaged Galveston Island State Park. The redevelopment master plan is a new precedent for coastal recreation planning built on a foundation of predictive models. Based on site specific ecologies and elevations, the plan must literally anticipate what of the site will remain in 50 years and what its ecology will be. The plan immerses visitors in the dynamics of this fragile and diverse landscape.

Site strategies reduce impermeable surfaces by 25% and significantly decrease habitat fragmentation. The transect trail engages guests with the full island cross section: bay to beach – the only location on Galveston Island where this is possible. Responding to a robust outreach process that sought out displaced residents, a broad array of overnight and recreation opportunities celebrate island environment. Endangered species and the rare Strand Prairie are protected, and development strategies encourage these delicate yet resilient systems to evolve and flourish.

The climate, environment, demography, settlement patterns, and landscape of the Arctic are changing rapidly.  This transformation has led to intense debates and extensive research regarding the future of the circumpolar north.  The research project “Fluid Territory: A Journey into Svalbard, Norway” uses an iterative logic of giving and receiving to explore the potential future of this hyper-networked space.  This is accomplished by illustrating how external influences, such as chemical pollution, tourism and resource extraction, impact the physical terrain and climate of Svalbard, and thus the migratory and habitation patterns of its marine and terrestrial organisms.  Conversely, the project also illustrates how the territorial agency of Svalbard, as a repository of cultural heritage and through institutions devoted to science and satellite monitoring, extends outward to influence the global community.  This study, conducted by a multi-national team of researchers, is noteworthy for its geographical extent, its innovative combination of cross-disciplinary information, its multi-scalar mapping techniques, and for the way it innovatively expands the future possibilities of the investigative terrain of landscape architecture.

The Digital Library of Landscape Architecture History (DiLiLAH) is a freely available, online public repository of virtual tours of historical landscapes created to encourage education and exploration of historic landscapes.  Using immersive panoramic tours, filled with historic information hotspots, images, sounds, and videos, students are virtually transported to important historical sites across the globe.  There are currently 40 virtual tours on DiLiLAH from Europe, North America, and Oceania, representing 2,000 years of history and 24 historic styles and cultures. Over 175,000 visitors from 102 countries have accessed the website.  The virtual tours are available on multiple platforms, including desktop, mobile, Google Cardboard, and immersive virtual reality headsets such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.  DiLiLAH raises awareness and promotes the history of landscape architecture to the public through an engaging and easy to use medium.  It is a valuable recruiting tool for introducing primary and secondary school students to the field of landscape architecture, and includes free education worksheets for teachers to integrate into their curriculum.

Conceived and constructed over a period of nearly twenty years, the J. Paul Getty Center stands atop the Santa Monica Mountains as a bastion of art, culture, and design for all people. The landscape of the Getty is indelibly connected to the context of Southern California and the iconic architecture of the museum campus, and it springs from many generations of the Mediterranean and Californian garden traditions. Utilizing modern technology and ancient skills, combining utility with pleasure, horticulture and aesthetics, artifice and nature, the landscape elements of the Getty Center combine with the architecture and topography to create an extraordinary and unique addition to the environment of Los Angeles.